By MATT CHANDLER
Buffalo Law Journal

Love him or loathe him, Kevin Gaughan, attorney and leader of the downsize-government movement locally, is undeniably passionate about his cause.

The solo practitioner and onetime political candidate - who waged an unsuccessful 2005 campaign to become mayor of Buffalo - spent the last three years studying the scope and cost of government in Erie County and embarking on a barnstorming campaign, visiting all 25 towns and 16 villages in Erie County in an effort to convince citizens to downsize their boards or consolidate their governments.

Those efforts were rewarded in recent weeks as residents in the towns of West Seneca and Evans voted to downsize their governments from five elected officials to three.

The votes were major victories for Gaughan's movement, and developments he hopes will lead other towns and villages to follow suit.

Gaughan sat down with the Buffalo Law Journal last week to share his thoughts on downsizing and the future of his grassroots effort in Western New York. What follows here is a condensed version of that conversation.

 

BLJ: Take us back to how this reform effort of yours began.

KG: I realized about three years ago that the local government-reform movement was dead. So I asked myself, why did it die, and what could I do to breathe new life into it?

It died, it seemed to me, for the same reason that all great ideas in our community die, which is because we have so many bosses, so many politicians, whose consent and assent we have to obtain in order to create change. That's why nothing changes here. I believe that we have the greatest human capital and the greatest intellectual capital in the world here in Western New York, but nothing happens.

BLJ: Is the issue of political excess really that bad here?

KG: With 439 politicians, Erie County has more than 10 times the number of elected officials of any like-sized community in America. I matched this up against Indianapolis, Mecklenberg County (N.C.), Baltimore, and I put New York City in there for dramatic effect.

If you think about that, what it means is, Erie County has more politicians here representing ourselves to ourselves than (the 435-member body that) represents the entire country in the U.S. Congress.

BLJ: Critics of your proposals would argue that these town- and village-council members serve a critical role in their local government, and the taxpayers will suffer if they are eliminated.

KG: During the course of conducting the study, I interviewed 64 or 65 different town-council members and village trustees to find out what they did. Essentially, what they would talk about is the fact that they spend a lot of time on the telephone - and, by the way, they do that from home. I never once found a council member in the course of the year-and-a-half study at the town hall - except for a meeting - because they just don't go there.

I would ask them what they did, and a council member would say, "If a swing in the park is broken, I get a phone call."

That's when I realized, the hallmark of urban governance in America in the 20th century - and it's pretty much over now except in places like Buffalo, because it destroyed American cities - was a practice that destroyed the former Soviet Union, that they called the apparatchik, which is, you didn't get any services unless you knew someone. That's how that politician can call that person back and say, "I want a contribution" and the like.

What my study found is that this large number of politicians needed to justify and rationalize themselves, so what has happened in every suburb in Western New York is, the town-council members have inserted themselves into all kinds of services for which they have no business and they are not needed.

I would say to them, "Did it ever occur to you that when that swing is broken in the park, (you) could call the parks department or call the youth department?" and they would say to me, "Oh, no, no, no, I have to be there." That's why, in good faith, and quite aggressively, they opposed downsizing - because they truly believe that the system will fall apart without them.

It took me a long time to understand that, but they are wrong - dead wrong.

BLJ: So there is no merit in the argument that a reduction to three board members will lessen the representation for the people?

KG: In the West Seneca and Evans debates, one of the arguments against downsizing was just that: What about representation?

This system in every town and village in Erie County today offers citizens representation in a system that is driving people away in droves. I think it would be inconceivable to (Thomas) Jefferson and (James) Madison that there would be such a high tax rate that people would get up and leave. I swear to God, I think they would jump off of a building.

There are 3,086 counties in America, and Erie County has the fifth-highest property tax, in the third-most-impoverished city.

BLJ: There are a lot of critics of what you do who have been vocal in their opposition to your efforts. In light of those sometimes-personal attacks, what drives you to do what you do?

KG: I'm not very good at self-analysis, and I'm not a real big reader of the Internet, but I have read it (criticism posted online) and it did compel me to think about why I do this. I never would have thought about it before that, but I've given it some thought, and there are a couple of answers.

One is, we all sort of come of age at a certain time where you realize there is a world other than the little world you live in, and I happened to come of age at a really remarkable period in American life. I saw the real end of segregation and the beginning of the civil-rights movement, and it had a profound effect on me. What I saw in the civil-rights movement was not leading business men and certainly not politicians, but what I saw was just average people changing a problem. The same was true for the Vietnam War: It was average citizens who ended that war.

So the first thing I saw in real life was average people changing problems, and the second reason that I do it is because I had a wonderful father who had an enormous influence on me. He never allowed us to be bored, and if you looked bored he would say, "Look, if you're bored, what you should do is look around and find out what's the greatest challenge going on, and then ask yourself the question, what can I do about it?"

BLJ: Is there a connection between the work you're currently doing and a plan to seek political office again?

KG: Do I see myself now (running for office)? No. Do I think about it now? No. I don't have the time to think about it.

But I'd say I do this because I believe in government. I have immense respect for the profession of government and those who practice it.

But I deeply regret the manner with which it's practiced here. It is an old and tired and discredited approach, and I have been trying now for over a decade to bring this new, modern, more forward-looking approach here. I don't want to sound like a politician, so, do I think about it? No. But I do think that if I did run for office on the basis of having made local government smaller, more effective and less costly, I think that's a pretty good platform on which to do it.

I take a measure of pride in spending time doing that as opposed to the guys who do run for office and do it on the basis of cozying up to party bosses and shaking down people for money. When I read the folks who say, "Gee, I wonder if Gaughan is doing this to run for office," my first thought is, "I hope that maybe someone else does this type of work and runs for office."

BLJ: Is what you propose with downsizing and consolidation too idealistic? Are you ultimately asking elected officials and people who work in these towns and villages to eliminate their own jobs, their livelihood, what they are connected to by saying, "We can get rid of two of you or we can eliminate this or that"?

KG: First of all, I don't like the language you used; I think it is inappropriate and it doesn't reflect my work. This work is not about getting rid of any individuals, its purpose is to reduce the number of seats.

You have to remember something. Holding public office in America isn't a right, it's a privilege. The folks about whom we are speaking all have full-time positions, full-time pensions, access to health care elsewhere, and I thought that it was a measured and appropriate response to the problem to reduce those numbers of seats.

Anyone who is affected still has the right in the future to run for the lesser number of seats, and if they are a great politician, they will certainly be elected. It's the politicians who want to describe this work in those personal terms, and it is wrong.

BLJ: You talk a lot about numbers, specifically the amount politicians are paid and the cost over the last decade to the taxpayers, but if you take the amount a town or village saves by eliminating two positions on the board, won't that money just get eaten up somewhere else and ultimately not save the taxpayers anything?

KG: Of all the lame arguments offered in opposition to changing something that is obviously not only broken, but obsolete, I'm always astonished at that one. As with many of the arguments, I think that one began with the politicians.

The argument of "Oh my gosh, why change something, because we'll find a way to thwart you; we will take that money and figure out a way (to spend it elsewhere)" -whether this idea of mine saves a hundred dollars or a hundred million dollars, they (the taxpayers) are going to vote for it, and the reason is, there is not a Western New Yorker tonight who is not worried about their job, their mortgage, their pension, and against that backdrop, they are more determined than ever to change.

BLJ: With the victories in West Seneca and Evans, do you feel like the ice has been broken and more towns and villages will follow?

KG: I do. Two weeks ago was the first time in the history of New York state that there were citizen-forced referenda on changing local government. It had never happened before.

When I did the smaller-government tour, two governments said they would do it voluntarily (place a referendum before the voters): the Village of Lancaster and the Village of Depew. Depew passed by 89 percent, and Lancaster passed by 95 percent. But this was the first time we used the petition.

Sadly enough, I think I am the first guy who has ever united, in Western New York, the political bosses of every party, of every ideology - the Democratic party, the Republican party, the Conservative party, the Independence party all aligned against (the downsizing movement). They did everything to stop it, and still, in margins of more than two to one, these two referenda passed.

Another thing that I haven't talked about that much, but we are going to be talking about this autumn, is this: I went around the country and found out that predominantly, outside of New York state, towns and villages are governed by boards of three members, a supervisor and two council members, or a mayor and two trustees. It's very difficult to find boards with more than three members.

My intention is to take this petition power to every one of the 25 towns and 16 villages and give every Western New York resident an opportunity to go into a voting booth and have people, not politicians, decide the size and cost of local government.