Meet Patrick Christopher - Candidate for Monroe County Exec
Yesterday Rochesterturning spoke with Patrick Christopher, who is the Working Families Party candidate for Monroe County Executive. Itchy, Exile, and I packed ourselves into a car and headed downtown late in the afternoon to speak with the sole alternative to incumbent Maggie Brooks.
Mr. Christopher was kind enough to take time out of his afternoon after a day long training session for work. We appreciate him taking the time to chat for a few minutes.
One of the reasons we went was to ask Patrick directly if he was going to actively campaign for the position (we had heard unconfirmed reports that he was not actively campaigning.) The answer? A resounding YES. He mentioned his signs (which seem to be sprouting up across town,) his billboard at Frontier field, and his specially painted van which was recently in the Labor day parade.
There is a candidate running on the ballot against Maggie Brooks.
Patrick Christopher, Working Families Party Candidate for Monroe County Executive
How does a married guy with three daughters come to run for County Exec? His answer was that he wants to make a difference. He is tired of the closed-government policies of the Brooks administration - for example, the shroud of secrecy surrounding Renaissance Square.
He wants put to pride back into Rochester by rebuilding our infrastructure, and our city, with local workers.
Quality jobs and living wages are themes that resonate strongly with his core beliefs. He has been a worker all his life and wants to represent workers. Who can argue with that?
Finally, he said that he recognizes that some of the best ideas come from other people. He would work to both create an open forum and to foster accessibility from elected officials. He’s impressed that in some towns you can just walk in and speak to the Supervisor - he would instill that same sense of accessibility in our County government.
Readers, there there is a candidate other than Maggie Brooks on the ballot.
We’ll have more later.
It would be nice to have a Union built hotel, so we could host Union Conferences here in Rochester. It’s unbelieveable that in this city/county, we don’t have even one. That’s alot of revenue lost, not to mention the fact that it’s a shameful statement.
Nice to meet you Patrick! Hope to hear more soon!
That’s a very good point.
I had the chance to hear Patrick Christopher address a group…sorry, no cigar. This man is not ready to challenge Maggie Brooks or lead Monroe County. Not even close.
He had very few ideas to mention, few solutions. He did mention giving casino gambling a try. Sorry, but you don’t just give casino gambling a try. It has to be a well thought out plan.
As far as I’m concerned there no good choices for county executive.
I’m not fan of gambling either and I would STRONGLY OPPOSE any gambling initiative in Rochester.
But speaking of giving things a try - why is that comment any
different than giving Ren Square a try? Maybe we can give a ferry going
back and forth to Canada a try. How about we give all those COMIDA
projects a try so they create jobs.
Yeah, how is that working out for us. Members of both major political
parties seem to be giving a lot of things “a try”.
We did actually discuss gambling, he casually mentioned it and I discussed at length the downside of gambling - the subject of another post - he listened intently to the arguments and tempered his views. At least he listened and isn’t say trying to cram Ren square down our throats.
Is he perfect? Nope. But show me someone on the ballot, any ballot, who
is. You go into the election with the candidate you have, not the one you
want or wish to have.
I want gambling in the city of Rochester.
I want all the proceeds to go to the city of Rochester.
I want the citizens of NYS to change the constitution to allow this to happen.
Cheers,
Bigboy
Um - can’t happen.
Gambling means turning a portion of the city of Rochester into Indian territory so you are now out of bounds of the state constitutional bounds. All the proceeds by definition will not go to Rochester because they don’t own it.
There are other things in the NY constitution that need to change gambling isn’t one of them.
Anyway when was the last time you were in a casino and parted with your hard earned money? In the mean while - buy a lottery ticket.
Speaking of which - there is a government sponsored thing and does all the money go to education?
New York’s next Constitutional Convention is in 2017, unless the legislature calls one before then…
You can also hope for a legislative amendment, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.