Will They Respect Us in the Morning?

We’ve lost our virginity on Mustard Street.   We attended a meeting of the Monroe County Legislature.

In separate postings we’ll be looking, first, at the political background to Maggie Brooks’s “FAIR” Budget Plan. Then into the Brooks Plan itself, political ramifications of it and reactions to it.

First, though, a few random comments on Wednesday's meeting and some of the players.

Some Democratic legislators seemed on the verge of hysteria or panic or both. Notable exception:   Legislator Ted O’Brien, who was calm, professional and focused in his comments and throughout the meeting. Why isn’t this guy the Democratic leader?

Republicans should view the impending retirement of term-limited Majority Leader Bill Smith as coming none to soon. Making a “point of order,” or point of something else that sounded irrelevant, Smith stepped on an answer coming from a Brooks Administration spokesman about the effect of the plan on some tax credits. An answer that, it turns out, would have been favorable to Brooks and her plan. With friends like this . . .

Democratic legislators made a stupefying blunder in voting against funding the City and Towns to compensate for effects of Brooks's Medicaid payment plan. Even O’Brien, who otherwise seemed to have it together in this meeting, voted against restoring funding to Irondequoit, the town he represents. There was no “poison pill” in the resolution, just a straight-out refunding of monies lost due to the Medicaid plan. Yet every Democratic legislator voted against restoring funding. Note to Democrats: Republicans will be writing their own campaign mailings against you.   You don’t have to do it for them.