Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Richards dumped as chairman of the school modernization board. Clifford has a hissy fit at City Council.

Politics in Rochester has been rather boring during our long, hot summer.
Most energy has been wasted upon the presidential election, debating the relative merits of electing one or the other of the most evil people the two major political parties have ever puked up for the delectation of American voters: Clinton's Bitch or The Donald.
Concern about local crime, murders and police arrests of disobedient protesters pass into collective oblivion almost as soon as they make the front page of the local newsrag, the D&C.
Last night, local politics heated up again. Ex mayor Tom Richards was ousted as chairman of the school modernization board. The majority of that board didn't trust his leadership to supervise a $1.3 billion modernization plan for the Rochester City School District.
Replacing Richards is Allen Williams, Mayor Warren's director of special projects. Nobody knows exactly what Williams' job is in the Warren administration, not even most people at City Hall.
The reason for Richards' ouster is the union contracts involved in the modernization plan.
The D&C stated "At issue in the vote was whether a similar agreement for the project’s Phase I was successful. Only five women or minority apprentices ended up working on Phase I as a result of that agreement, although larger goals for minority hiring were met. More than 20 percent of all workers in Phase I were minorities."
Richards wanted to keep the union agreements intact. The unions backed both him and the notorious Molly Clifford, after all. He and she owe them. Big time.
Williams did not, and so he replaced Richards as chairman.
Richards might take this as a sign that it is time for him to retire. He only took the appointment to the board to stick it to the mayor, to get back at her for beating him in the 2013 election.
But there is more to this story.
At last night's monthly city council meeting, Clifford needed to vent publicly about those union contracts.
She was put promptly into her place by Adam McFadden, who equally publicly stated how those union contracts had failed.
Carolee Conklin eventually jumped in to break up the fight and referee, while Mayor Warren put an end to Clifford's hissy fit by tartly stating that her concerns had been noted.
It was odd that the D&C never bothered to make any mention of that in their newsrag.

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