- the native canadian

Joseph Spector
Staff writer

(January 14, 2006) � Mayor Robert Duffy could have easily gone a different route.

In December, City Council approved borrowing $11.5 million to keep the high-speed ferry solvent for one more year. Duffy could have taken office Jan. 1, had money to run the ferry for a full season and then waited to see whether it would become financially viable.

But Duffy, in his 10th day in office Tuesday, made the first decisive action of his administration: He pulled the plug and plans to sell the ship to limit losses to taxpayers.

The decision has been big news not only for what it means to the city's economy, but also for what it says about Duffy's leadership.

Criticized by some during the mayoral campaign for lacking the skills to run a government, the retired police chief has already proven to many leaders that he can make prompt decisions and have a clear vision for Rochester.

Yet skeptics question whether the Democratic mayor sought only to make the best political move, spun it to suggest the project had run amok and relinquished a last opportunity to make the ship a success.

Either way, most leaders agree on one thing: Duffy has shown, at least so far, that he's not afraid to make hard choices.

"It clearly shows that he's a strong leader and willing to make tough decisions once he has all the facts," said Bill Nojay, a Republican critic of the ferry. "What has always been disturbing about the ferry project is how many people supported it without really understanding it."

Duffy's decision also raises other questions: If he was able to cut ties with one of the city's flagship projects, what else may be on his chopping block? How much of predecessor Mayor William A Johnson Jr.'s initiatives will remain intact?

Already, there are indications he will revamp the Neighborhood Empowerment Team program, which Johnson established and which a report this week found has not met its mission of improving city streets.

While he won't let on what other changes he will make, Duffy said that city services will be closely examined during his first 100 days in office. He denounced critics who, he said, had suggested, "I was going to be someone's puppet and not make my own decisions."

"If something does not work well, we are going to work very hard to improve it," he said. But if it can't be fixed, "I'm not afraid to say that we are going to stop doing something."

Making the choice

Duffy and his staff are quick to point out that the decision to end ferry service to Toronto wasn't a snap judgment. As he built his transition team and interviewed candidates for his administration, Duffy and his advisers also spent much of December reviewing ferry documents provided by the outgoing Johnson administration.

Duffy is known as someone who likes to "review the data," as he often says, before making a decision.

The ferry issue was no different. Aides said he was often seen carrying home stacks of information to read at night and attended every meeting of his staff when the ferry was discussed.

Deputy Mayor Patricia Malgieri said Duffy kept pushing advisers to seek out all information about the ferry and do so without bias. She and Duffy said that it became clear to them only close to his inauguration that the ferry faced too many financial hurdles to continue.

Still, staff met up until late Sunday at City Hall to debate whether there were other options. "Until the end, he would say 'Is there anything that we didn't talk about in favor of the ferry?'" Malgieri said.

Then they had to convince the public. As police chief for seven years, Duffy developed an ability to defuse controversy and build community confidence in his decisions, local leaders have said. He was rewarded by winning more than 70 percent of the vote on Election Day.

The ferry presented a similar challenge. He and his staff recognized that they had to make a strong case to sell the ship � a case, Duffy said, that had to be based on facts.

During his 12-minute televised speech at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Duffy gave examples of why the service should end:

One, it would keep losing millions even under the rosiest picture; and, two, tax dollars should be used for other purposes � such as hiring more police.

"It was brilliant," said Timothy Kneeland, a Nazareth College political science professor. "Ten days into his administration he makes a decision that was rhetorically nicely justified."

Kneeland said Duffy was also able to brush back questions about his ability to lead: Would he be an empty suit, overhandled by advisers and beholden to the legacy of Johnson, who backed his candidacy?

"We don't make decisions because they're popular or because they're easy or because they're cheap. We make them because they're right, and I think that's what he did," said Dennis Mullen, president and chief executive of the Greater Rochester Enterprise.

Moving forward

But not everyone is cheering what Duffy did. Some city officials, including Johnson, spent long hours trying to salvage the ferry after the ship's original owner ended service in 2004.

They were hoping for a full year of operation to give it a chance to work. Johnson, the project's main backer, has refused to discuss Duffy's decision. Others, including Council President Lois Giess, say they commend Johnson's efforts.

Some officials have taken issue with how Duffy noted that some ferry contracts, in particular a $250,000-a-year contract to dock the ship in Toronto, had been "discovered" by his staff, suggesting that it had not been known to the public.

City Councilman Benjamin Douglas, who heads the city-run Rochester Ferry Co., said the contracts were public for months. He said he respects Duffy's decision, but charged that facts are being twisted.

"You step off the path when, postmortem, you try to blame people and blame them unfairly," he said.

Fellow Councilman Adam McFadden contends that Duffy is seeking to borrow $9.5 million to sell the ferry, so why not borrow the $11.5 million and see whether the ship can sustain itself. (Truly clueless. Like a chronic gambler who refuses to back away from the table, McFadden keeps wanting to roll the dice even though he's done nothing but lose since he sat down. Adam? That's enough.)

"It was a political decision," he said. "Killing it now makes it Bill Johnson's mess. Killing it in a year from now makes it his mess."

Duffy said it was clear that another year of operation would have just put the ferry deeper in debt. He added that the decision was not about politics or trying to criticize the Johnson administration.

"We were able to come to the table without being emotionally attached to the project from the start and look pragmatically at it," he said.

Duffy's decision has also raised new questions about whether Johnson's administration had let the project spiral out of control. Duffy said it appeared that City Hall staff spent so much time on the ferry that government resources were strained.

Brian Curran, who recently retired from City Council and had long been a ferry critic, said the analysis by Duffy and his staff indicates how the project lacked clear oversight.

"We were in a situation where people were operating on the basis of hope and imagination instead of dealing in fact and practical objectives," he said.

"And when you do that, you almost always end up with serious problems."

JSPECTOR@DemocratandChronicle.com

Bay Ferries Vice President reacts to ferry shut down

1/12/06

Rochester is out of the ferry business and that means some 100 Bay Ferries employees are out of jobs. On Thursday, Bay Ferries Vice President, Don Cormier, arrived in Rochester to begin the transition process. Since Mayor Bob Duffy announced the end of the ferry service Tuesday, Cormier has been putting in long hours to help transition the service out of city hands. He says his top priority now is the Rochester ferry employees.

In his first interview since the service was cancelled, Don Cormier tells NEWS 10NBC employees are his focus now. �We wanted to be here in person to express our gratitude to our employees,� Cormier said.

Nearly 100 employees expected to return to work in March for the restart of service. Now the


		Do you think the City of Rochester is making the right decision to get out of the ferry business? Yes: 88% No: 11%

company is working on severance packages for them. �What we'll be focused on is for employees to be treated, for the Rochester Ferry Company employees, to be treated fairly,� Cormier said. We asked Cormier if employees in Rochester could find other jobs within Bay Ferries. "There's a possibility that some individuals could be placed in other locations if they so desire,� Cormier said.

Bay Ferries will now keep a skeleton crew of about one dozen to maintain the ship and terminal operations until The Cat is sold or until March when the seaway re-opens.

NEWS 10NBC asked if Bay Ferries is considering buying the ship. Cormier told us the Rochester to Toronto route is definitely not an option. When asked about the potential of moving the boat to warm waters, Cormier said, �there's no immediate opportunities for anything.�

In the meantime, Mayor Bob Duffy plans to pay back the $2.5 million owed to Bay Ferries by dipping into the city's reserve fund. Cormier says he's not surprised by Duffy's decision to end service, but says it's no reflection on the customer service of ferry employees. �We certainly have had wonderful staff here that we care about a lot,� Cormier said. Cormier also said that he's planning to speak with employees on the Canadian side. He says so far, no meeting has been scheduled with Rochester city officials, including Mayor Duffy, to work out the details of the city's contract with Bay Ferries.