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#Post#: 1171--------------------------------------------------
Fairport Deputy Mayor posts on Facebook re BLM
DIR By: Michael Caswell
Date: June 22, 2020, 12:05 pm
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Here is Matt Brown's article.
Matthew Brown, Fairport Deputy Mayor
June 8 at 10:00 AM ·
Deputy Mayor Brown here. Fair warning: since being elected, I've
tried to keep this page apolitical, with the exception of very
specific endorsements around election time. I thought I could
keep my personal and my elected personas separate, the way I
keep my personal and physician ones separate. I don't know if
that is possible any longer.
The first draft of this post was a rehash/explainer of
Fairport's sign code, about why the signs supporting Black Lives
Matter were taken down. It was dry, but accurate, and it left me
feeling like I was missing the forest for the trees. The
question should not be "Was it right for the signs to be taken
down?" The question should be "Why did two private citizens feel
they had the right to take down the signs?"
I am going to try to answer that question. And I will do so as a
white, straight, cis-gendered male who is comfortable
financially. Everything that I say should be taken with a
handful of salt, because I freely admit I am the last person
whose voice should be heard.
By my casual estimation, Fairport is 99% white. You can go a day
or longer in this village without seeing or interacting with a
person of color. There are whole streets, whole neighborhoods
where all of the faces share the same hues. And if you're
reading this and thinking about the *one* house in your
neighborhood in which a black family lives, then you're kind of
making my point for me.
This segregation is not accidental.
Rochester has a long and shameful history of redlining, of
enshrining--first in law and then by unspoken custom--the making
of our suburbs into places welcome only to certain types of
people. The racial divide in our city and our suburbs is
thickly-inked line of geography, of economics, and of health
outcomes that places white people on one side and people of
color on the other.
This divide is not accidental.
This weekend, the two white men who removed the BLM signs did so
in broad daylight because they thought there would be no
consequences. They did so knowing that there was a pretty good
chance that anyone who saw them doing it would think it would be
okay. They did it thinking, maybe rightly, that Black Lives
Matter is something that no one in the suburbs cares about. If
this is what they thought, then I have to ask: How and why are
we allowing people to believe these things?
This belief is not accidental.
My wife and I moved to Fairport fifteen years ago. We came to
the area after I graduated residency and took a job at St.
Mary's, where I have practiced ever since. We had no family in
the area, no friends, no specific ties to any one part of
Rochester or Monroe County. We could have settled in the city,
closer to where I was working; we could have moved to Greece, or
Henrietta, or Irondequoit, or anywhere that was more racially
diverse. We settled in Fairport because it was beautiful, it was
walkable, and it had great schools.
As I now, fifteen years removed from that decision, think back
on those three reasons, I am ashamed to say that, to my
unconscious mind, the subtext was clearly: this is a rich, white
village. This is where I will be comfortable and not have to
worry about what it means to live next to people who do not look
like me, or people who have less than me.
I firmly believe that Fairport and Rochester will never have
racial equality until we have economic equality. And we will
never have economic equality until we have geographic and
educational equality. We need to make our village and our town
not just welcoming but encouraging of a variety of people being
able to live here.
In Monroe County, the majority of people of color have less
economic means than those of white people. This is fact.
In order to become more racially diverse, Fairport will have to
become more economically diverse. This means that we have to
take a hard look at our housing and what we are allowing and
encouraging to be built in our village and in our town. If we
are erecting $400K townhouses and condos and not also building
apartment buildings, we are encouraging white people and not
people of color to move here. If we are complaining that too
many of the houses in the village are turning into rentals, then
we are only encouraging white people and not people of color to
move here. If we are prioritizing "quaintness" and, I hate to
say it, the historical nature of our town over housing
availability, then we are very purposely making choices that
will keep Fairport white, and keep it as a safe haven for those
who would feel it is their right to tear down Black Lives Matter
signs.
This year, Fairport is starting to re-vamp its Comprehensive
Plan. This is the blueprint for what we want our village to look
like over the next 5-10 years, and largely deals with zoning.
This sounds boring, until you realize that this is how we
determine what gets placed where, and what doesn't get placed at
all. A a part of rewriting the Comp Plan, we will be reaching
out to citizens of the village to get their input. If you think
Fairport needs to change, then we need to hear that. We need to
hear from you, and we need to you be talking to and convincing
your neighbors, because I can't do it by myself.
These years are our best chance to make some lasting impactful
change. To put it in baldly partisan terms: we have an
all-Democrat Village Board for the first time ever. If I didn't
think the Dems were the ones who would do their best to get this
done, then I sure as hell wouldn't be one. And if any
Republicans reading this think the GOP has a better plan, then
freakin' prove it: you have the white house, the county
legislature, the town board and the village of Fairport's county
leg seat. If you think you can do better, I would love nothing
better than for you to prove me wrong.
Fairport will change, but only if we change it. We got here by
intention, and we cannot passively wish our way out of it. It
will take work. It will take so much more work than anyone
realizes. But I promise you, it will make us so much richer as a
community. Trust me when I say: this is a hill that I am willing
to die on. I'm not giving up, and neither should you.
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Here is my response
The actual figures for the population of the village of Fairport
are as follows -
White
Asian
Two or more races
American Indian
& Alaskan
Black African American
So it should be no surprise that one would not see a black
person in Fairport for days.
A large contributor to the disparities here in Monroe can easily
be seen when looking at the school systems between the City Of
Rochester and Fairport.
Rochester City Schools (mostly black) are firing teachers and
staff, to make up a $65 million deficit in funds. Fairport
school district (mostly white) is spending $65 million on new
school boilers, and trivia like plastic grass on playing fields.
It would appear that the residents of Fairport are a bottomless
pit when it comes to extracting taxes from them. You hear a few
grunts and grizzles, but they put up with the never ending tax
hikes.
Some of the problems are also caused by Village Trustees. They
seem to think it's OK to raise taxes by a few points each year,
creating a seemingly never ending increase in our costs.
Even during this pandemic, our trustees raised our taxes, with
no input from residents. They are not accountable in any way
once elected.
The Town of Perinton also elected to raise our taxes in a HUGE
hike, until the pandemic hit, then they put it 'on hold'. But,
rest assured, they'll be raising them again as soon as this
COVID nightmare is over.
In the eleven years or so, I have lived here, my property taxes
have gone from $3000 to $13,000 and that is without taking into
account these new taxes.
When you look at a comparison of taxes for other 'historic'
villages along the canal, you'll see that Perinton is spending
5-6 times more money than most towns, and the village is
spending 5 times more than even Pittsford.
[attachimg=1]
The taxes are totally out of control. We have so many
overlapping services that we already pay the Town of Perinton
for.
It's time to dissolve this 'village' antiquity; Fairport is no
more 'special' than any other village, and it could reduce costs
by eliminating village taxes, saving the average homeowner
$1500- 3500 each year.
Lowering the assessed value of Perinton property values will
further help. There is plenty of room in this fat budget to make
cuts. School taxes are far too high.
Cutting these costs will allow more diversity in the people who
can live here.
Ensuring an administration can reign in the outrageous spending
spree of recent years, and bring our property taxes in line with
the other neighbor towns will make Fairport more affordable,
because right now, people on lower or fixed incomes, retired
etc. are realising that there is nothing fair about this
village.
They spent years making a home here, only to be driven out
because of crippling taxation. Many people have sold up and
left, unable to cope with the costs.
So where does that leave many black people with historically
lower incomes currently? Many were intentionally shut out, by
realtors and lenders.
HTML https://www.democratandchronicle.com/in-depth/news/2020/02/05/rochester-ny-kept-black-residents-out-suburbs-decades/2750049001/
Sad!
You can read more about this here
HTML https://ecna.createaforum.com/village-and-town-taxes/
And here you can learn about government reorganisation.
HTML https://ecna.us/nys-govt-reduction-act-village-dissolution/
#Post#: 1172--------------------------------------------------
Re: Fairport Deputy Mayor posts on Facebook re BLM
DIR By: Doug K
Date: June 22, 2020, 3:36 pm
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Mike,
I would welcome the chance to show Mr. Brown the numbers, and
how it's in the best interest of ALL taxpayers in Perinton &
Fairport to consolidate all local government in your town to a
single, well functioning money making machine.
It's starts by getting everyone on board with a goal of UNITE
instead of FIGHT.
Because of the GRACE changes to how citizens can affect change
on local government it's better to work to build something now,
than to wait until taxpayers FIRE their village government just
to put groceries on the table.
Work together to build a united plan, under a single government
to work for all of the Townspeople.
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