Tag: Department of Motor Vehicles

By Betty Jean Grant As an informed citizen, one has an obligation and a duty to protect the public’s trust in its government, all public agencies and to abide by the rules and regulations put in place to make sure these policies are adhered to. There have been at least five articles and two editorials published in The News over the past month detailing the irregularities and possible unapproved activities of the Western New York Community Action Organization’s board of directors and its lawyer and legal adviser. All of these published reports and not one peep out of Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown or even our U.S. senators, Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. Not one word of concern from Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes or State Sen. Timothy Kennedy, who in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee was instrumental in recommending former comptroller Mark Schroeder to the long-vacant position of state commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles. It is also troubling that the person who was endorsed by the Democratic Party to be the next city comptroller, and who will be responsible for oversight and for conducting audits of the CAO, is a personal friend and political ally of Mayor Brown, Sen. Kennedy and the CEO of the Community Action Organization. What is mind-boggling is that this individual was just appointed to this CAO board to replace the improperly fired board members who called for the audit in the first place. At a time when precious dollars to fight Buffalo’s poverty rate are decreasing or are being eliminated, we cannot have a situation where politically connected agencies and their managers are held to a different standard than the rest of us. The four longtime board members who were removed and the several honest and brave former CAO employees who were fired should be commended for coming forward in their effort to be the stewards of resources that are desperately needed. This region cannot afford to disregard or to make light of what these courageous women have brought forth and determined to be improprieties in the management of an agency that is in charge on tens of millions of dollars allocated to Western New York to increase the living standards of the poorest among us. Betty Jean Grant is a former member of the Erie County Legislature, from which she retired in 2017.

Four decades ago, during the early years of his first governorship, Jerry Brown described his “canoe theory” of politics. Mostly, Brown has paddled his canoe on the left side of the political stream, albeit not so far left that he runs into the bank and capsizes. However, when the politics of the moment or his own sensibilities dictate, he can quickly turn to the right, famously by fiercely opposing Proposition 13, the iconic 1978 property tax limit, and then, after it had passed, declaring himself a “born-again tax cutter” while seeking re-election. During his last year as governor, Brown signed 1,016 bills and vetoed 201 before Sunday’s deadline. The Legislature is very liberal, so most of those he signed are new expressions of that philosophy. But Brown often found fault with the liberal inclination to micro-manage human behavior, reminding legislators – as he had in the past – that not every problem requires a legislative solution. He was leery of off-budget spending and adding new responsibilities to state agencies – very specifically the already troubled Department of Motor Vehicles. Brown vetoed bills that he saw as encouraging drug use, such as one (Assembly Bill 186) that would have allowed San Francisco to establish places of “supervised consumption” for addicts. He said “enabling illegal and destructive drug use will never work.” Brown also rejected one of the year’s highest profile measures, which would have prohibited employers from requiring arbitration agreements and thus made it easier for workers to sue their bosses. He told lawmakers that “since this bill plainly violates federal law (authorizing arbitration agreements), I cannot sign this measure.” Conversely, however, he signed another high-profile measure, Senate Bill 822, that would make “net neutrality” the law for California internet service providers, defying a Federal Communications Commission decision.

While it’s never been a joy to deal with this particular bureaucracy, things have gone from consistently unpleasant to hellish in the last few months. People are forced to wait several hours for service at some offices — even those who were able to obtain appointments. DMV officials blame the problem on the crush of people seeking licenses that are compliant with the federal “Real ID” law. As a result of the new law, there are now more people seeking licenses — and the processing time for each applicant is longer as well. But the DMV has known this was coming for 13 years — and was allocated $70 million extra last year to get ready. There are others as well: Why, for instance, did she wait until she was called on the carpet by the Legislature to go into crisis mode? You’d also think there would be a unified call by Republicans and Democrats for a top-to-bottom examination of DMV practices. Instead, there’s a political spat over whether it makes sense to ask the state auditor to examine wait times at the DMV. Any audit other than those required by state law must be approved by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. What’s not reasonable is to refuse to examine the foundational issues that led to this problem.