Mayor Ryan Delivers 2010 State of the City Address

From the Office of Mayor Matt Ryan:

Mayor Matt Ryan tonight delivered his fifth annual State of the City Address in City Council Chambers, where he cited his administration’s bold reforms as a successful catalyst for progressive change across Binghamton.

“We’ve moved Binghamton forward by implementing bold reforms over the last four years, and we’re only just getting started,” said Mayor Ryan. “In our second term, we’ll continue taking an innovative approach to increasing efficiency, reducing costs, improving neighborhood safety, building a sustainable economy and promoting equity and justice for all our citizens. This effort will require working together to make difficult decisions based on a clear vision of the future, and I thank the many partners who have joined us already.”

In his Address, Mayor Ryan touted his administration’s scorecard over the last four years, announced new initiatives for the upcoming year, outlined how the City will tackle its financial challenges, shared his long-term strategy for Binghamton’s growth and explained his vision for the City in 2014.

FIRST-TERM SCORECARD: POSTING GAINS ACROSS THE BOARD
Mayor Ryan opened his speech by reviewing his administration’s first-term achievements, including those in the areas of operational reform, housing, smart growth, economic development, infrastructure, citizen engagement, neighborhood safety and equity and justice. Among the many accomplishments the Mayor mentioned was the following:

• REFORM: The City has implemented a host of cost-saving IT upgrades, including M.U.N.I.S. financial software.

• HOUSING: The City is redeveloping more than 130 blighted properties by leveraging over $8 million in state and federal grants.

• SMART GROWTH: The City has taken a leadership role in sustainable development by reinstating the Shade Tree Commission, supporting the Smart Growth Commission and launching the Binghamton Energy Efficiency (Be2) Program, a residential revolving loan program that will begin accepting applications this summer.

• ECONOMIC DEVLEOPMENT: The Binghamton Local Development Corporation (BLDC) has spurred business development and job growth, including at VMR Electronics, which the BLDC helped move to Binghamton, where the company is on track to double its workforce from 150 to 300 employees.

• INFRASTRUCTURE: By developing a capital improvement strategy, the City is upgrading its critical infrastructure as never before. This effort included the 2009 Street Rehabilitation Program, which boasted more than $27 million in improvement projects.

• CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT: The City opened the door for citizens to participate in city government in unprecedented ways, including the Neighborhood Assemblies and the Commissions on Fiscal Management.

• NEIGHBORHOOD SAFETY: The City took a comprehensive approach to neighborhood safety that included blight removal and prevention, data driven and community-based policing and investments in youth opportunities, such as the Summer Youth Employment Program.

• EQUITY & JUSTICE: Mayor Ryan took the initiative to promote equity and justice through an array of measures, including by launching the Diversity Task Force to strengthen affirmative action and equal opportunity in the City’s hiring practices, raising the LGBTQ Pride Flag, issuing an executive order that the City would recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and joining the Council in urging the NYS Legislature to support Governor David Paterson’s marriage equality bill.

INITIATIVES FOR 2010
Among the City’s many efforts in the upcoming year, Mayor Ryan discussed the following:

• SMART GROWTH, GREEN AFFORDABLE HOMES AND JOB TRAINING: The City will advance many of the recommendations of the final report by the Commission on Smart Growth. This includes the City’s Climate Action Plan, which will be complete by September, as well as a package of zoning changes that will maintain the integrity of the City’s Gateway districts, expand the City’s urban forests, prevent green spaces from being paving paved over and discourage construction on the City’s steepest slopes to protect neighborhoods from flash flooding. The City also will roll-out an Affordable Green Homes Program, and introduce Binghamton’s first Summer Green Jobs Youth Corp.

• HOUSING & HOMEOWNERSHIP: The City will move to implement many of the recommendations of the Commission on Housing and Homeownership. That effort will include introducing a new grant program to encourage police officers and firefighters to move back into the City, refocusing code enforcement, developing a citywide rental registration program and working with students, landlords and homeowners to settle once and for all how many unrelated people can live together in R-1 neighborhoods.

• INFRASTRUCTURE: In addition to its 2010 Street Rehabilitation Program, the City this year will break ground on the long awaited Court Street Gateway Project and South Side Commons Project.

• EQUITY AND JUSTICE: In order to better prepare police officers for work in a community that is growing more diverse, the City is adding race-sensitivity training to an already rigorous and professional training curriculum. Also in the spirit of equity and justice, the City is re-dedicating the entire Chenango River Trail, from the Court Street Bridge to Otsiningo Park, as the Peacemakers Trail. From this year forward, the City will require that every trail enhancement on this route, from the new statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the end, connect to this central theme.

• FINANCE: The City will look for savings everywhere possible. This effort will include striving to reduce the City's debt service substantially. The City also will ask its labor unions to participate in achieving savings, whether it is moving to our more affordable health benefits plan, contributing more towards health insurance, mirroring management’s wage freezes, accepting furloughs, taking early retirement or ensuring that new hires to all unions live in the City during the entire course of their employment.

Mayor Ryan emphasized that management has led by example in saving costs, with the Mayor’s Office cutting 14% of its budget for 2010, nearly half of management moving to the more affordable health insurance plan and all new management required to be on that plan, which is known as the PPO. He also thanked the City’s Civil Servants Employees Association (CSEA) for showing a strong example by earlier today signing a memorandum of understanding to require all new CSEA hires to be on the PPO.

LONG-TERM STRATEGY FOR SUCCESS
In outlining his long-term strategy for the City to grow, Mayor Ryan stated that the following would be essential:

• SHARED SERVICES: The City will be looking to share services with its neighboring municipalities, including Johnson City, with which the City already has begun talks on the topic.

• TAKING A REGIONAL APPROACH TO SUBURBAN SPRAWL: The City will partner with neighboring communities to reverse the sprawl beyond the urban core of Binghamton, Johnson City and Endicott, as it is costly for the County, diminishes the core’s tax base considerably and is detrimental to the natural environment.

VISION: BINGHAMTON IN 2014
Finally, Mayor Ryan shared his vision for Binghamton in 2014. Among the upcoming changes the Mayor discussed was the following
• The development of downtown student housing and a BU Law School tied to the City’s justice hub
• A thriving arts scene and a growing clean, green local economy based on the research at Binghamton University
• Healthy, vibrant neighborhoods that offer affordable homeownership opportunities.

Such success, the Mayor reminded, would require a sustained commitment to bold reform.

“Let us tonight resolve, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once did, that there are times when we must substitute courage for caution,” Mayor Ryan concluded this evening. “We live in such times, and our fervent prayer must be that we are all infused with the courage to do what is right and to do what is necessary.”