What's Ours is Ours. What's Yours is Up for Grabs.

We've written before about this operating mantra of our Rochester chapter of the Democratic-Media Complex.

When local institutions controlled by Democrats have the authority and right to make a decision, that right is never questioned.   For example, members of the all-Democratic Brighton Town Board fill a vacancy on the Board, or for a Town Justice, with a Democrat (and why would they do otherwise, or should they?)   Pure "dog bites man" stuff.   No story there.

Let a Republican-controlled institution act within its rights, however, and suddenly, watch out -- the sky is falling.   Just let the County Legislature try to appoint a Public Defender, as it is authorized and obligated to do.   Heaven forbid that Republican-appointed trustees of the local community college be allowed to exercise their authority to pick the college's president.   And when members of an all-Republican Town Board fill a vacancy with a member of their party -- well, that's shutting out the public and closing the process.

Opinion pieces in Sunday's Democrat and Chronicle reminded us of this phenomenon.   One by the County Executive, explaining her decision against renewing a contract with the Center for Disability Rights.   The other by the CDR's $250,000-a-year Executive Director, challenging that decision.

We wondered:   why publish these essays at all?   The decision's been made.   It's over.   A done deal.   Yet when the Dem-Media Complex doesn't get its way, things are never over.   This was the newspaper's way of treating the matter as open, until it gets the outcome it wants.

The CDR is well tied in to the local Democratic establishment in government and media, with reportedly close ties to the Professor Moriarty of Rochester politics, Louise Slaughter.   No surprise, then, this morning's D&C editorial calling for state intervention in the matter.   This from an editorial crew that affects to be "fed up with Albany."

A court decision extended the contract termination deadline, an extension the County had already granted, but didn't stop the County from ending its contract with CDR.

Since when has the County government lost its right to contract with whom it chooses, subject to public contract laws?

It hasn't.

But that won't stop the usual suspects from their usual routine.