In Mayor's Race, An RIT Professor

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:26:00 -0500

Professor Bill Johnson enters the election.

by Chris Zubak-Skees


Katie Thomson

In a packed conference room in the downtown Rochester Radisson, a former three-term mayor, Bill Johnson, addressed the party faithful. “Fellow Democrats, today I ask you to support my candidacy for mayor,” his amplified voice told the room. But in the caucus vote that followed, they didn’t. The Democrats assembled on Saturday, Jan. 5, instead nominated former deputy mayor Tom Richards to bear their party’s standard.

RIT moved a scant eight miles away from downtown when the current campus was built in the 1960’s, but, to students struggling through winter quarter, Flower City politics can seem a million miles away. Still, however much RIT students like to forget it exists, Rochester politics doesn’t forget RIT.

In a poignant reminder to this fact, a special election on March 29 will pick a successor to Mayor Bob Duffy, an RIT alum who left the mayor’s office to serve as lieutenant governor. The most viable candidates are Richards, an RIT trustee and Duffy’s handpicked successor, and Johnson, currently an RIT professor of Public Policy.

Though acknowledging he faces “daunting odds” running as a third party candidate in a city used to punching the Democratic ticket, Johnson offers the most serious challenge to Richards’ inevitability. His biggest asset is name recognition, gained from serving three terms as mayor from 1994-2006. “I’m a Democrat; most people know I’m a Democrat,” he says. The main challenge, he hopes, will be educating voters to look farther down the ballot.

In 2006, when Johnson chose not to seek re-election for a fourth term amid a controversy surrounding the failed Fast Ferry project, he started teaching in RIT’s Public Policy department, which was happy to have him. That cleared the way for Duffy, the city’s chief of police, who served from 2006-2010.

In November 2010, New York voters elected Duffy to lieutenant governor. City Council had a choice: it could hold a special election in March, or appoint an interim mayor and then hold a September primary and a November general election. The special election’s shortened campaign period, critics said, would essentially hand the job to Richards. In a decision that sparked controversy, the council chose to hold the special election.

“We started out protesting the decision of City Council to forego the general election in the fall and to create this disadvantageous situation by having a winter election,” Johnson said in a recent interview. “And when those protests fell on deaf ears, and when I couldn’t persuade other people to run, I was almost put in a position by a group of supporters, that said, ‘Well, we’ve gone this far, somebody’s got to step forward.’”

And so, reluctantly, the mayor-turned-professor sought to turn mayor again. “I’ve been teaching this stuff on a theoretical basis, so it was time to really get out there, get back into the saddle, and see if we could make something happen,” he said.

But, in theory or reality, this city is no picnic. Johnson teaches a community economic development course focused on Rochester, where students try to tackle the challenges of declining cities. Since the 1950’s, residents have streamed to the suburbs and businesses have gone with them, leaving vacant housing, abandoned stores and less tax money to deal with those problems. “We’re looking at cities that have matured, that are essentially beyond their prime, but have the built environment already there, and they’ve got to contend with it,” Johnson said.

It sounds intractable: a downward spiral that has inspired a movement to shrink or downsize cities. In an interview, Johnson laid out a familiar battle plan: sprinkle business incentives here, revitalize nightlife there, and try to retain what’s left. These are tactics he tried during his 12 years as mayor. But in his speech at the Democratic convention, four days earlier, he endorsed something grander: a partnership between area colleges and citizens. RIT, he said, could now help transform the city.

Destler Endorses Mayoral Control Of Rochester City Schools

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Mayor Robert Duffy proposes controversial takeover.

by Michael Conti


RIT Alumnus Bob Duffy ‘93 (Multidisciplinary Studies) enters a crowded city council chamber on January 19, following his announcement of his intent to take control of Rochester City Schools.
Michael Conti

President William Destler drafted a letter, which was signed by 18 other Rochester area college presidents, endorsing Mayor Robert Duffy’s proposal to become chief executive of the Rochester City School District (RCSD). This step would eliminate the elected school board already in place. The letter, sent to Ali Zoibi, president and publisher of the Democrat and Chronicle, was in clear support of a political move that has been openly criticized and protested by concerned parents, educators and union officials.

Fixing A Failing System

“Someone has to be willing to say, for the sake of the kids, the current system is not working,” said Destler. “They the school board haven’t been particularly accountable for change ... it’s too diffused right now.” The 2009 Rochester City School District’s high school graduation rate was a meager 46 percent, which Destler cites as contributing to the violence and crime that has grown in Rochester’s urban center.

Destler and the other college presidents have called for “a major shake-up,” to reverse the downward trend of graduation rates and literacy levels in the RCSD. The specifics of this reorganization in Mayor Duffy’s bill are pending the approval of the state assembly. New York Governor David Patterson, mired in controversy of his own, has expressed his support for Mayor Duffy.

Duffy’s plan for the school district is summarized in the document, “Serving Children and Parents First - Implementing Mayoral Accountability.” Inside, he outlines his intentions to drastically improve graduation rates, create more community centers, and improve vocational training, among other measures. The document closely resembles other plans produced by Superintendent of Schools Jean-Claude Brizard and the School Board, but emphasizes notions of “Change” and “Accountability.”


Eduardo Merida of Andrew J. Townson Elementary, School 39, comforts a despondent student during a period between classes. To Merida, teaching is a partnership with parents, no matter who is in charge of the governance system.
Michael Conti

A Lack of Trust

“The mayor’s plan truly was a skeleton with no meat,” said Howard Eagle, a RCSD history teacher of 23 years who has retired and become a political activist. Eagle and others opposed to mayoral control see the “first draft of several formal reports” as only a vague idea of what needs to happen. “It’s madness... the man is saying ‘just trust me,’ and as a parent, an educator and an activist, I don’t trust him,” said Eagle.

Eagle’s booming voice is well known at meetings and rallies. These events have become more frequent and more attended in the downtown area since the proposal was handed down early this January. The protests consist of concerned parents, union members of many trades, and outspoken high school students. Dominating the rhetoric at these rallies are accusations that the mayor is infringing upon the voting rights of Rochester’s urban population by eliminating a democratically elected school board.

“I’m not saying we have a school board that’s functioning, but you don’t get rid of the process ... You don’t take it out of the hands of the people,” said Michelle Calogero, a teacher at School 52 and member of the Rochester Teacher’s Association (RTA). Calogero was among hundreds of other RTA members who protested outside the 2010 Mayor’s Ball on March 20.

The school board has been under criticism for failing to cut down on administrative costs, and members of the RTA, BENTE (Board of Education Non-Teaching Employees), and the police and firefighters unions have come out in force. Because Duffy’s plans have not been communicated in their entirety, some employees fear that their roles may be minimized - or that their jobs will be eliminated entirely - when Duffy takes the reins.

The concept of mayoral control in itself has also received harsh criticism. Despite Mayor Duffy and Dr. Destler hailing the switch “successful” in places like as New York City, the opponents of mayoral control are not convinced. Long time Fairport school superintendent and former Rochester interim superintendent William Cala, Ed.D. wrote a blistering editorial in City Newspaper, condemning the mayor’s attempt to control the schools. Cala claims that the apparent success of the New York City Education Department is more related to the mayor’s manipulation of what statistically counts as a “dropout.” Former Rochester mayor and current RIT distinguished professor of public policy, William Johnson, is also openly critical of the current mayor, describing Duffy’s move as “biting off a lot more than he can chew.”

Can’t Get Any Worse


President William Destler calls the decision to endorse Duffy as "a coalescing of a lot of pent up feelings, that we needed to do something."
Michael Conti

“There’s no downside risk,” said Destler. “Because the situation is so bad, it certainly couldn’t get any worse.” The only thing that both sides seem to agree on is that there is a need for drastic change in the way education is delivered to students. Now, debate concerning what and how children are being educated is starting to return to the conversation.

“My students have many challenges,” says Eduardo Merida, a sixth grade teacher at School 39. “Poverty is one of them.” Merida’s strategy is to respond to the behavioral problems and learning disabilities that are indirectly caused by poverty by trying to get to know the child’s family as best he can. “It becomes a partnership between myself and the parents,” says Merida.

“If the mayor takes over, so be it,” said Tamara Sprague, single mother and community organizer. After being invited to participate in the activities of the school board, Sprague sees an opportunity for parents to take a more active role in their child’s education. “You’ve got to get involved. You can’t point the finger at everyone else... We have to form our own community in Rochester and light a fire in our children to make them do better.”

To download the mayor’s framework, see http://cityofrochester.gov/schoolgovernance.