>> Coming up on "Need to Know" one month to election give or
take a day or two, we will elect a new Monroe county
executive.-
Today we speak with one of the two candidates, Democrat bill
Johnson.-
It is a one-on-one conversation with mayor Johnson next on
"Need to Know."-
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>> What they have done is literally bankrupt this county.-
They have gotten mortgage being our future.-
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[Captioning Made Possible by the U.S. Department of Education]-
(For "Need to Know")-
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>> I'm Michael Caputo.-
Just how pivotal is this election year?-
We elect not only a new head of county government Baugh new
leader for the county prosecutor's office.-
It comes at a time when every level of local government faces
financial strain, when the Rochester economy is soft, when the
venerable top employer in town Eastman Kodak says it is going
to begin a transformation that could impact the local economy.-
We want to welcome you to this unofficial start of election
2003 and our coverage for the next month when we will bring you
discussions with the candidates, candidate debates and we will
ask for your comments, from you, the voter.-
A rundown of our coverage goes like this.-
A week from today on "Need to Know" we will have a one-on-one
with Republican county executive candidate Maggie brooks.-
On October 16 the voice of the voter collaboration including
WXXI, W.O. can.-
R. and Democrat and chronicle will feature a televised debate
between Johnson and brooks.-
On October 23 the collaboration will host the debate between
the two district attorney candidates, Republican Ann Marie
Taddeo and Democrat mike green.-
On election night W.XX.I. will provide pro results an analysis
after the polls close at 9:00 p.m..-
Now we will clear the detection.-
For the next two weeks we will devote the entire program to a
single conversation.-
The business section of the Democrat and chronicle will return
on October 17.-
Today we invite to the studio yo bill Johnson.-
For more than 20 years he led the you are pan league of Roff.-
Since 1994 he has been the mayor.-
He is running for county executive.-
We thank you for being here with us to talk.-
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>> Thank you, mike.-
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>> Let's start this way.-
I just said you led the urban league for a number of years, you
have been the mayor for nine or 10 years now.-
On a personal level, why would you want this job?-
Why do you want to do this -
>> Well, I think for a very simple reason.-
Things in this county are not going as they should.-
We have had a single minded approach from the combining king
and Doyle administrations for the the last 12 years and I
believe there are a significant number of voters in this county
who want a different kind of leadership, who want experienced
leadership and want a demonstrated leadership that has been
inclusive, collaborative and not divisive.-
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>> There are Democrats that could have carried that ball.-
What put the fire in the belly and got you to say I'm doing
it?-
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>> We had a number of conversations internally leading up to my
announcement in March.-
To really put those questions on the table, which one of us
among a very outstanding list of democratic elected officials
would be the strongest one in the race.-
And that decision was coalesced around me even in recognition
that I had taken some pretty hard stands on pretty tough
issues, the view was that the voter would, would respond
favorably to that record and my stand.-
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>> There has to be a point where you said I'm going to to it,
all right.-
When did that moment come for you and what was it like for
you?-
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>> Well, there are several people whose judgment I rely on, I
talk to on a regular basis.-
I went through a series of discussions with those people.-
I talked to my wife, who as you know has her own career and
would prefer Fay doctor prefer that I kind of slow down.-
She finally acknowledged that this was something that not only
I needed to do but was necessary to be done for this
community.-
And I think after going through that process, reflecting on ,
it understanding all of the challenges -- I know who I'm
running against, I know their reputation.-
I know what kind of campaign this was likely to be and up to
this point they have not disappointed me at all.-
That I was up to that challenge and was ready to run one more
campaign for the community.-
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>> Let me ask this as if you were a candidate for the voters
are the ones who make the decision.-
This sounds like you are sitting for job application.-
But tell me one time where you did not succeed at something you
wanted to do and you learned from that moment in your life?-
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>> Well, perhaps when I came to Rochester in 1973 I viewed it
as an interim stop.-
I wanted to get back to the Washington, D.C. area where I had
moved from to flint, Michigan.-
I got my job here but I was always mindful of any opportunity
that would open there.-
And after I had been here Probably 10 or 12 years, the
opportunity became available for me to apply for an opening at
the Washington urban league.-
I was a candidate there.-
I didn't get the job.-
It was extraordinarily, extraordinarily upsetting to me.-
I was one of the few times in life I could say I was truly
depressed.-
I spent some time sorting through what I had done, what I
hadn't done, whether I had taken this process for granted,
whether I was presumed to be the front runner and I was just
going to sort of slide into the job.-
I went through all of that.-
And finally I came to the conclusion that it didn't matter, it
was over and done with.-
For me to dwell on it wasn't going to change anything.-
And that maybe there was something else that was intended for
me.-
And I finally, after a week or so, got over the depression, got
out of that state of mind and went back to doing my job.-
That has been for me probably a moment of awareness, because
you have to finally recognize that there are things and
sometimes you give it your best shot and it may not turn out
the way that you want it to turn out.-
That doesn't mean that life is over, the end of the world has
come.-
You focus on the things that you can do.-
And I bring that approach even to this campaign.-
I'm running this campaign to win.-
I am spending 18 and 19-hour days, almost seven days a week I'm
out, going, dealing with a lot of people who never had to think
about voting for me before.-
When this is over and done with and at 8:59 on November 4, I
will be convinced that I gave my best shot and I will wait for
the outcome but life won't be over if I don't win.-
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>> There are critics that say bill Johnson does a lot of
traveling, he goes to seminars outside of Rochester.-
I think the implication is that you are not committed to
Rochester.-
What would you say to them in light of what you just said?-
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>> Well, I think it is absolutely a bonus for this community
that my expertise in certain fields are recognized to the
extent that I can get invited to lecture to universities, speak
to professional societies, to go into other communities that
are grappling with the same issues and they ask the question,
how did you do it in Rochester, what lessons are there for us
here?-
The reason I take some pride in that is because when I took
this job I had a vast learning curve.-
I needed to not spend a lot of time experimenting, spend a lot
of money on consultants.-
I went directly to the source, the communities that were
dealing with the very same issues that we dealt with, learned
how they did it, determined whether any of that could be
applied to Rochester and brought it back and worked it through
the process so we could adopt it.-
The fact that we are now viewed in many places as a community
that has had a positive experience and they want to invite the
chief elected official of that community to consult with them,
I think, is a star in the cap of this community.-
What people don't recognize, you know, I talked to a reporter
that is looking at this story, they came in and looked at my
calendar -- -
>> The traveling.-
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>> Yes.-
And what they found and what they will see and anybody can come
in and inspect it, I may take a Wednesday night and speak to
somebody and come back on Thursday.-
But I work more weekend days and a longer schedule and I work
longer hours.-
My day generally starts overry day at 6:00.-
I'm out of my door most days at 7:30 going to a meeting.-
I'm not finished until 9:30, 10:00 at night.-
I'm back home and in bed 12 or 1:00.-
I'm giving 14 and 15-hour days to the system and sometimes six
or seven days a week.-
So I don't think anybody bee grudges the facts that they get
their money out of bill Johnson and if I have to spend a day
out of town representing the community I think that an
additional bonus.-
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>> You have said that jack Doyle's policy, his property tax
policy has backfired.-
In a region however that sees, high taxes from the State of New
York, high fees, a higher cost to do business in the state.-
Can you discount the fact that there was somebody out there who
said I'm not going to raise taxes?-
In other words, isn't standing firm on this policy something
you can't discount?-
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>> Well -- -
>> In a high tax policy?-
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>> Only until it doesn't work.-
Look at the Baghdad underlying premise.-
High taxes discourage investment and kill jobs.-
Well, they have lowered the tax rate.-
They lowered it.-
They never said that is what they were doing.-
They lowered the tax rate.-
They have less money now in 2003 in taxes than they had in
1995, jack Doyle's first year in office.-
And they have spent, during that period, the Doyle years, over
$230 years to entice businesses to stay in the community or
attract them.-
The net number of jobs has gone down.-
So, if you are going to really stake your reputation on the
premise that low taxes entices investment, this administration
hasn't been able to deliver on their promise.-
If you say that low taxes -- that high taxes actually kill
jobs, then that low taxes have brought fewer jobs.-
Mainly, to be fair, and this is what I do as a nonpolitician
when I say these things, I can no more claim credit for the
bull in this economy -- that economic boom that we saw in the
1990 were driven by forces way beyond the control of
government.-
But if you want to claim that credit, as most politicians want
to, you have to be prepared for the downside, when things go
bad you have to accept responsibility.-
You can't have it both ways.-
So that is that.-
Now, the other quick thing is that they said that they were
doing tax stablization.-
And the average citizen doesn't know the difference between a
tax rate and a tax levy.-
They held the levy flat which means it was the total amount of
dollars and the way they did that was cut the tax rate.-
If they had left the tax rate steady, not changed it one penny,
they could have gone out and campaigned on stabilizing taxes an
would have had a lot more money.-
By the estimate of my advisors they would have had over $90
million more because of the natural growth that was occurring
in the economy.-
They never, ever took advantage of it.-
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>> Isn't it a great selling point to go to some businesses here
in Monroe county we have cut taxes.-
We are the only community in this state and we are struggling
with it, but we are the only community that has brought taxes
down.-
You ought to consider us.-
Isn't that a great selling point?-
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>> Yes.-
But what they cannot say because none of us can is by the way
we have also kept our costs down so we have been able to
balance our budget.-
When your costs are rising and every year our labor costs go
up, cost of employees, benefits, the cost of energy the cost of
raw materials, we are buying salt we are paying more for it,
when your costs are going up and you are are cutting your
revenue, you are headed to disaster.-
And after a while, when they exhausted all of the reserves they
had -- they started depleting the reserves around 1998 and
exhausted them around 2002, now they don't have the ability to
provide the basic services that those very same people that we
want to come to this town want.-
Libraries that operate fully, parks that operate fully.-
Treats that can be maintained.-
All of these kinds of services are suffering because of a
deadly determination to stick to a political ideology.-
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>> We have some citizen questions but before that I think the
co-contact -- I think the Kodak announcement was I don't know
if a wakeup call but a signal to Rochester.-
They said we are going going to transform quickly.-
It is not a given that whatever we do will be here in
Rochester.-
I will have to compete for us to stay.-
As county executive, how much emphasis in terms of economic
development will you put on keeping Kodak here, on bringing
whatever they turn into, bringing it here?-
How much will you expend in terms of tax breaks?-
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>> Well, let me say to you island throw my body at the front
door to prevent them from leaving town.-
But it takes a lot more than that.-
We have already gotten the city, county, towns, town of Greece,
you look at all of the concessions that we made to Kodak over
the years, huge concessions.-
And it still hasn't opinion able to stem this tide.-
The announcement that was made the other day was only about the
10th time that it has been made.-
They have been steadily reducing their employment.-
They have been steadily reducing their charitable contributions
to the community and even in doing that, I say that not so much
disrespectly, but even though they remain the biggest show in
town.-
I think it is incumbent on us to come together, bring all of
the resources together and do two things.-
First accept the reality that we can't just rely on Kodak, the
big sources to be our main sources of economic activity.-
We have gone a good job of diversifying our employment base and
we have to find a way to grow a lot of those.-
There are new areas of opportunity that we have to grow.-
And I think that as a region we are in better shape to say our
neighbors, either the west or east, Buffalo, Erie county, have
as many tools for turnaround as we have.-
So we have that.-
Second we have to reduce the cost of government.-
And people get all emotional about this, but you cannot
separate the fact that you have high taxes and you have got a
high does of government.-
You have to be able to change that.-
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>> I want to get to a question about the economy.-
Have a listen to this question.-
This weekend I was reading the paper and I read on the front
page a story referencing Rochester was very quickly becoming
similar to Buffalo.-
My thoughts are I'm horribly concerned with this.-
I go to Buffalo at least once a month and every time I come
back I say thank God I don't live in Buffalo.-
And this disturbs me. I'm wondering that it an open ended
question but what will be done to keep that from happening?-
I understand Kodak plays a part but what about the other
businesses that are instrumental to the downtown.-
Thompson west, or Xerox.-
What is being done to bowls tier the economy and keep --
bolster the economy?-
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>> Let's face it, jack Doyle basically said Kodak, we have
given them the breaks, we will have to look hard at breaks in
the future.-
He is asking what is the future plan of action, I think, in
terms of keeping us strong.-
Where do you put all of your eggs?-
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>> You don't put them all in one basket for sure.-
The other thing is while I understand the underlying propel of
that story, the fact of the matter we are nowhere close being
like busm.-
The industrial base is different.-
The commercial base is different.-
The skill set of our population is different.-
The level of cooperation that exists between government is
different.-
I'm saying all of these are better.-
And the first time that we could come close to being like
Buffalo is the deteriorating shape of Monroe county's finance.-
The city of Rochester, I'm not saying this in bragging, I'm
just saying because it has been an operational standard for the
last three decades, operates very conservatively and very
practicing matically.-
We don't run deficits.-
You go back at our audit reports -- -
>> But they will criticize you for raising taxes.-
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>> Yes, but that is very modest.-
The average rate of increase over 10 years is .7 of 1%.-
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>> And they will claim you were bailed out.-
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>> They cannot go out and constantly brag as Maggie brooks is
doing, that we have the largest amount of sharing, the largest
amount of cooperation of any county.-
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>> But the county does.-
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>> I don't deny that.-
But the fact is we manage the money we get.-
This is by form Louisiana we didn't take a gun and put it to
anybody's head and take the money.-
This is by a legislative formula and we take the money we get
and we manage it appropriately.-
We don't waste it.-
We don't overspend.-
For example, for the last two years, when we were faced -- we
looked at every quarter, we get quarterly reports and when we
saw some warning signs in the first quarter of our fiscal year,
I imposed a hiring freeze.-
I imposed a spending freeze.-
And we managed for the rest of that year.-
We would not let anybody hire until they had to go through a
very elaborate process in order to justify filling a vacant
position.-
We ended up both years with small surpluses.-
And that was a much better position on June 30 to find out you
didn't spend all your money or be like the Rochester school
district at the end of the year you find you have overspent
pause it is very difficult to recover from that.-
So what I'm trying to get across here is that there is a
different approach.-
We are -- we should not worry yet about looking like Buffalo
because we've got too many tools at our disposal.-
Buffalo has all industry, steel, the automotive industry is
taking beating from the foreign treat.-
Our industry is optics, we have biotechnology.-
We have a different base that is the basis for growth.-
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>> I want to get to the next question.-
It has more to do with tourism so take a look.-
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>> What is the plan for the county going forward?-
How are we going to attract Toronto visitors here in
Rochester?-
I just don't see a comparable offering here in Rochester that
Toronto has.-
I would like to know that your plans are for making us a more
attractive place to visit.-
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>> We believe the fast ferry is going to be an excellent tool
to develop around.-
Within a short time I'm going to be announcing the first phase
of land based development that is going to dramatically change
the face and this is in cooperation with the residents there.-
It will be more marinas, restaurants, hotels, condominiums and
the like.-
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>> Commercial and residential?-
Commercial and residential.-
The other thing that we do is we just absolutely discount our
own importance.-
There are Canadians coming into America every day, coming into
upstate New York, either coming here for particular services or
passing through.-
Now they have no reason to come through Rochester.-
Rochester is off the beaten path.-
You have to get off the throughway to come into Rochester.-
And by bringing them directly out of downtown Toronto to the
city of Rochester they have to first pass through romp and
Monroe county.-
We have all kinds of strategies that will be developed to keep
our fair share of them here.-
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>> Don't you still have to convince people that the fast ferry
is not a stative venture?-
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>> It is not.-
Let me say this.-
In a few more days there will be a major announcement.-
We will be able to show roughly the fast ferry boat completely
built and it will be sailing out of Australia to America, to
these shores.-
In a couple of weeks we hope there will be an announcement in
Toronto that they have retained their contract to build the
ferry terminal in downtown Toronto.-
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>> This is all good but passengers have to be on the boat.-
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>> There are tourists -- this gentleman's question is, there
are millions of travelers to come into Toronto every year, from
Asia, Europe and the destination is places like New York City
and Philadelphia.-
And these people are accustomed to using ferries.-
It is something new and different.-
And the price will be in a place where people will use it.-
And so I think our job is to make sure that it doesn't cease
being a novelity or is not just a curiosity that people ride
one time.-
They don't have golf courses to a great degree and ski resorts
that we have in this region.-
And people have to wait for months for just normal kinds of
medical procedures that they can get on that ferry and come to
Rochester, go to strong hospital, Rochester general, park
ridge, get back on the ferry and go home.-
We need to expand our vision here about what is possible.-
We are our own worst enemy.-
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>> I want to take the last couple of minutes.-
We have been talking in the media a lot about the comments by
lonferry directed about your illusions I guess.-
But one thing I want to comment race is always underneath you
made the comment.-
What do you mean?-
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>> Race is a very powerful emotion in this country.-
And -- -
>> Is it in this race?-
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>> We are part of this country.-
And the fact of the matter is, yes, I can't hide the fact that
I'm an African-American.-
And Maggie brooks can't hide the fact that she is a female.-
There are people who are sexist, who can never vote for a woman
and there are people who will never consider putting things in
the hand of a black person.-
But we both hope that those people are in the minority and that
for the rest of us we appeal based on reason, based on our
position.-
And I think that Bob lonsberry was trying to change the dynamic
of the race.-
He by his own admission was on the air campaigning against me.-
He didn't like consolidation.-
He was distorting my record on consolidation.-
He had three hours of up get terrored air time that he could d
unfettered air time that he can use to campaign against me and
Maggie brooks was the beneficiary.-
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>> Do you think that -- and I have about two second.-
I don't mean to cut you off but the Republicans will say we
didn't benefit from this.-
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>> Well, they advertise on the station, they sponsored him.-
They have been -- -
>> They have had nothing do with it.-
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>> They hosted his show in his absence.-
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>> That doesn't mean they agree with him.-
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>> I'll tell you what.-
I wouldn't -- if I got invited to go to a Ku Klux Klan rally I
wouldn't go.-
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>> But surely you are not saying that they agree with his -- -
>> Whether they agree or not, they stand to benefit from the
emotional backlash that was coming and consolidation in this
race has become a code word for a lot of racial issues.-
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>> But Steve manirk stayed fire him Maggie brooks stayed fire
him.-
What could they say -
>> It took her several days.-
Heed to take several days to see if it was appropriate and
Stephen, well there are all kinds of analogies I could cite.-
I'm just saying minarik and the Republicans are close for the
programming on that show and they have been on his show.-
Who went on Bob lonsberry's show to replace him?-
The chief fund-raiser of the Republican party, that is too
close for them to all of a sudden to say this guy is not part
of us.-

>> I have to end it.-
Thank you very much for being with us.-
Next week we will have a conversation with Maggie brooks right
here on "Need to Know".-
We hope you join us then.-