You don’t need me to tell you what the Slaughter and Brooks campaigns are saying about each other: It’s all so predictable. But what’s even worse is a small fight they’ve been having for half a decade, which Slaughter has recently started winning.
Back in 2006, when Maggie Brooks first announced the proposal for Renaissance Square, the immediate reaction was support and praise from nearly every corner of Monroe County. But Louise Slaughter’s office was a notable exception.
Why, Slaughter wanted to know, was the county creating a transit center that didn’t link up with the city’s rail system? If we were going to build a brand new transit center, didn’t it make more sense to put somewhere that would enable bus and rail lines to connect directly, which most transportation experts say will be necessary in the future?
So, Slaughter asked, why not move the project a few blocks down and create the Renaissance Square project at a place that could expand the capacities of the transit system on top of everything else?
It was a good question, and one that Brooks never answered. (I know — I asked her). As far as Brooks was concerned, it was the Main and Clinton corridor or nothing: The creation of an intermodal transit system was not a priority worth funding, let alone changing her legacy project for.
In response Slaughter announced that while she wasn’t going to oppose the Renaissance Square project, she wouldn’t support it either: She simply couldn’t see the point of spending that much money on a transit center that wasn’t going to meet the county’s future needs.
Slaughter raised valid questions, and it was the first crack in what turned out to be the emperor’s new armor. Without a unified political front, state and federal dollars hinged on the facility being overwhelmingly popular — and the county’s unwillingness to make design adjustments to fit what the community saw as its actual needs gradually killed that good will.
There were so many good questions from the community: Why did we need another large theater space that no local theater companies could use? Why not a few medium and small theater spaces that local arts organizations say are desperately needed? Why weren’t apartments planned on site to generate income? Who exactly was going to own Renaissance Square? Why wouldn’t we want an intermodal system, anyway?
You don’t need me to tell you what the Slaughter and Brooks campaigns are saying about each other: It’s all so predictable. But what’s even worse is a small fight they’ve been having for half a decade, which Slaughter has recently started winning.
Back in 2006, when Maggie Brooks first announced the proposal for Renaissance Square, the immediate reaction was support and praise from nearly every corner of Monroe County. But Louise Slaughter’s office was a notable exception.
Why, Slaughter wanted to know, was the county creating a transit center that didn’t link up with the city’s rail system? If we were going to build a brand new transit center, didn’t it make more sense to put somewhere that would enable bus and rail lines to connect directly, which most transportation experts say will be necessary in the future?
So, Slaughter asked, why not move the project a few blocks down and create the Renaissance Square project at a place that could expand the capacities of the transit system on top of everything else?
It was a good question, and one that Brooks never answered. (I know — I asked her). As far as Brooks was concerned, it was the Main and Clinton corridor or nothing: The creation of an intermodal transit system was not a priority worth funding, let alone changing her legacy project for.
In response Slaughter announced that while she wasn’t going to oppose the Renaissance Square project, she wouldn’t support it either: She simply couldn’t see the point of spending that much money on a transit center that wasn’t going to meet the county’s future needs.
Slaughter raised valid questions, and it was the first crack in what turned out to be the emperor’s new armor. Without a unified political front, state and federal dollars hinged on the facility being overwhelmingly popular — and the county’s unwillingness to make design adjustments to fit what the community saw as its actual needs gradually killed that good will.
There were so many good questions from the community: Why did we need another large theater space that no local theater companies could use? Why not a few medium and small theater spaces that local arts organizations say are desperately needed? Why weren’t apartments planned on site to generate income? Who exactly was going to own Renaissance Square? Why wouldn’t we want an intermodal system, anyway?
The questions were left hanging in the air, never answered, until they drained excitement out of Renaissance Square. Without excitement there wasn’t public support, and without public support there were no dollars. Ren Square was never built.
Now, about eight years later, Slaughter has announced $15 million in federal funds to help develop an intermodal transit center at the Amtrak station on Central Avenue — and Brooks has told the Democrat and Chronicle that she doesn’t think it’s a good idea.
We’re right back where we started, on a much smaller scale — only this time it’s Slaughter’s money on the line.
The pity, of course, is that we once could have had it all: If we could have compromised to put the Ren Square site on the rail system and made the project more responsive to the community’s needs we’d be far, far, ahead of where we are now on many fronts. But we couldn’t do it. Every party involved in Ren Square said it had to be their way or nothing.
This speaks to the very serious need to have a comprehensive vision of how we want Rochester and Monroe County to develop in the future — with a clear sense of what projects we want money for and how they advance our joint agenda.
Make no mistake: Without such a plan it is much more likely that nothing useful gets built, and nothing that’s built gets used to its capacity.
That’ll be as true after election day — whoever wins — as it is now.
Benjamin Wachs writes for Messenger Post Media, and is the editor of Fiction365.com. Email him at Benjamin@Fiction365.com.
