From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in 2022, when Monroe County Executive Adam Bellow announced a major expansion at the Seneca Park Zoo.

As my colleague Brian Sharp reported, the county executive talked about a list of possible new zoo features a cafe, a conference center, an aquarium with multiple types of sharks.

And the county legislature voted to approve $102 million in bonds for the project.

But following inflation, perhaps the construction bids came back around 173 million.

And what happened next was a kind of inside baseball, a bit of government wanker that might be tempting to ignore.

But some legislators contend that they were kept in the dark until the new plan for the zoo was mostly done.

And they argue that the county leadership has to better inform the public and lawmakers.

Writing on her Substack, Democrat Rachel Barnhart said, quote, ultimately, we owe it to taxpayers to conduct the public's work in public.

If we allow closed door briefings to become the norm, official meetings will be nothing more than a rubber stamp, and the public will remain in the dark about how decisions that affect their lives are really being made.

We can't let transparency become an endangered species at the Seneca Park Zoo or anywhere else in Monroe County.

End quote.

Now, the administration argues that ultimately the zoo project was popular and the legislature voted once again to move things forward.

But that didn't happen without an amendment that seeks to force more transparency.

We'll talk about that coming up.

We invited the county executive join us, but he was unavailable today.

We invited several Republicans who were also unable to be here.

We keep an open door on connections.

We encourage elected leaders to come on the show to take our questions and questions from the public.

That's why we routinely have school board members, city council, county legislators, mayors, supervisors.

The door is open here and encouraged.

And my guest this hour is the Monroe County legislator from district number 17, Rachel Barnhart.

Welcome back to the program.

Thanks for doing this, Ivan.

Thank you.

So let's just start with a little bit of background on the zoo project.

Everybody hears multiple types of sharks and you get excited.

But before you ever got down the road there, which, by the way, aquarium.

No.

Aquarium.

What's going on?

There will be an aquarium will just be a little smaller than originally announced.

Okay, but take us back to the beginning here and then we're going to get into where you see issues of transition.

Sure.

So I've always been supportive of the zoo project.

I voted to approve the $102 million of bonding back in 2022.

That was the year that the county executive announced sort of an enhanced tropics complex and main entry way project that had been in the works for quite some time.

And I think it's a great project at the time.

In 2022, this was announced, there were some renderings, and then a year and a half goes by and we learned that the design couldn't be built because it was going to be way too expensive, way more than we bonded for.

And the county executive wasn't willing to ask us for more money.

So fast forward now, another year and a half and county legislators were given a heads up.

Hey, there's going to be an, legislation on a new design firm for the zoo.

Shortly after that, there was a press conference announcing the new design firm and some new design renderings, and we were invited to these private closed-door briefings with each caucus, the Democratic caucus and the Republican caucus to ask our questions about this new design firm.

So it was really presented to us as a fait accompli that this, you know, that it had the votes to pass, that this this was going forward.

And look how wonderful it is.

My question was, well, wait a minute.

When I saw the news reports, I said, wait a minute.

What happened to the designs that I saw in 2022?

We need a new design firm now.

What did I miss here?

And we have this closed door briefing, which I'm completely opposed to.

We should ask these questions in public.

Your listeners should know there is a loophole in open meetings law in New York State that allows a quorum of legislators to meet behind closed doors as a caucus.

And I actually think that's okay.

We should be able to discuss as a caucus what we think of legislation.

But where I think it goes off the rails is if you're having members of the administration come into these meetings and essentially vet legislation, that's what we have committee meetings for.

That's what we have full legislature meetings for.

There are some municipalities in New York State.

When this loophole was created in the mid 80s that actually passed laws saying, no, you can't do that to really restrict what you talk about in these caucus meetings, what would be the incentive for the administration to do it this way?

Well, for example, the first question that I asked in this closed door briefing on the zoo new design firm was, hey, how much are we spent on that original design?

You know what their answer was?

$6 million is what we lost on that original design that couldn't be built.

I think the public deserve to hear that answer.

And those are incentives for why they don't want to have those discussions in public.

Now, I do have colleagues who say, look, I'm more comfortable asking some of these questions behind closed doors.

Well, okay, that but public business shouldn't be done that way.

But if you really have a question that you don't want to embarrass somebody by asking, well, that's what email's for.

Go pick up the phone.

Go grab somebody in the hallway.

You know, you do you do you, but the public does.

The public business should be done in public and I so I asked a number of questions at that meeting to really grasp where we were on this project.

And then after that meeting I said, okay, well, now I'm really confused because we lost the $6 million, which definitely did shrink the project a little bit.

But where did that $6 million come from?

And then I just wanted to know, okay, I want to know everything about what we've done here on this project.

I want to know where all the money was, what we spent, and what I found out.

Evan was wild and it was insane, which led to this amendment.

Insane.

Yes.

Okay, so here's what happened.

I wanted to know about all the money we spent on this tropics Complex project that was announced in 2022.

Well, really, it was announced before then, but Adam Bellow, wanted to expand it and make it fancier and better.

What I discovered we have a contract portal that is public, so you can look up all Monroe County contracts in this portal.

A lot of information is redacted, but you're going to get the meat of it.

You're going to know who will be paying and how much are we paying them, and what is the length of this contract.

And often the contracts will reference resolutions that county legislature approved.

And if it doesn't reference a resolution, then I know we didn't vote on it.

So I type in zoom to search the portal and I come up with a number of construction contracts.

Well, I found this Clark Patterson Lee contract, which is what I was told in this briefing.

They were the original design firm.

It turns out back in 2015, the Monroe County Legislature.

And this is all in the contract that I saw.

The Monroe County Legislature approved a contract with Clark, Clark Patterson Lee for $267,000 to design this main entryway complex.

Tropics complex, over the next ten years, and not a single current county legislature legislator was on the body then, because we have term limits.

So not one legislator voted, current legislator voted for that over the next ten years or eight years.

Really?

Sherald.

And also and Adam Bellow added 12 amendments worth something like $8 million to this Clark Patterson Lee contract without telling anyone, without going to the legislature, they just added amendment after amendment.

I'm thinking, what?

How could they do this?

I didn't I you know, I've been on the legislature for five years and I'm thinking, I don't remember voting on any amendment for Clark Patterson Lee for millions of dollars.

So I went to the original resolution back in 2015, and it had a clause in there saying and legislators approved that, saying the administration could add any amendments that they want to to get the project done.

And again, that happened well before Adam Bellow was the contract.

So it was two subsequent administrations.

The bulk of the money was under Adam Bellows administration.

But it was yeah, this was under a Republican administration, Republican led legislature that passed this original resolution.

So this is how if you want to know, like, how did this happen without the legislature knowing this happened because of that clause saying, you Ned whatever you want to without going to the legislature.

Meanwhile, $6 million was spent that we can't get back.

Now.

I don't know if the legislature had voted on these amendments, if the money still would have been spent, if things would have been different, but maybe they would have been if there had been more scrutiny on this project.

Cheryl Danoff was the county executive at the time that, no, actually, 2015 I think was Maggie Brooks last year.

Is that right?

Yes.

I think, because Sheridan also served 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.

Yep.

Okay.

So why then why are the Republican administrations putting in this, this rider that basically says, by the way, we can tweak this however we want and no one can stop us.

Why is that even legal?

I don't think it should be, but it's in there.

I think it's been in other things that I've probably voted on.

And I'm telling you right now, I don't know how many more of those I'm ever going to vote on after this.

But Adam Bell put it in this, this other design, this new design contract, put it in or you didn't savings.

You didn't remove it.

No.

The Cambridge seven thing that we voted on, that we just voted on two weeks ago, had that same clause that the administration could add whatever they want.

So I told my colleagues what I told my colleagues after this briefing, and I started going through all these records.

I told them, I said, listen, if this has that, if this new design firm cut resolution that we're going to vote on has that clause, I'm doing an amendment.

We can't have this happen again.

We cannot have millions of dollars of spending without us knowing we're going to do an amendment.

Now, here's where it gets weird in.

Your listeners might not believe this happens, but this happens when we get legislation.

We get a we get a new packet.

So every full legislature meeting we get a packet for the next month.

Here's all the things we're going to vote on for the next month.

It's a series of letters from the county executive saying or legislators who introducing saying, a summary.

Here's what I'd like you to vote on.

Sincerely, Adam Barlow.

But we don't have the text of the law itself until the day of the meeting and or sometimes the day before the meeting.

So I kept asking over the last few weeks, like I was asking in, in between the time we got the packet in the first committee meeting, I kept asking for, and the full legislature.

Me, I kept asking the administration, the administration.

I need the text of the law.

I need to know if this clause is in there.

I need the text of the law.

They refused to give it to to me, to the staff.

It wasn't until the day before, late in the day, like later afternoon, that I got the text of this Cambridge seven news, who design firm that we had the press conference on that I got the actual law and it had that clause.

Any amendments or until we got it passed.

So in your mind it was a poison pill and you want to know if it was there and it was there, it was there.

So then I had to scram with my colleagues.

And I told the Republicans, because I don't know how many votes I'm gonna get in my caucus.

So I had to tell the Republicans, listen, you know, we got to do something.

And the Republicans told me, yeah, we actually support this in concept, but we're probably going to do our own amendment.

I'm like, okay, so my amendment, the one that I circulated and we didn't have any time or really like less than 24 hours to put pull together an amendment under the system that we have, which is terrible.

So my amendment would have capped the spending at 10% above the Cambridge seven contract, which was a $6.7 million.

That's what my amendment would have done.

The Republican amendment that they ultimately introduced was 15% above.

But the Republicans did something that was good.

They they added a provision saying, we want quarterly reports filed with the clerk on the status of this project, which I thought was fantastic.

So they kind of stole my idea, made it better.

So credit to them for taking an idea and improving it.

And you, it's just unfortunate that we don't have any time.

We have to work this way together to get something done.

Because of this process.

But that amendment passed.

The amendment passed.

I think there's only 1 or 2 people who voted against it.

So the legislature and the legislatures understood.

Right.

I made the case.

I it took it took three weeks of really kind of beating the drum saying, look what I found, you know, all these amendments over the overtime, adding up to millions of dollars that we didn't have a say on.

And I'm really excited that the amendment passed and that my colleagues understood the importance of having this guardrail there.

Okay.

So I want to address this in a couple of ways.

And again, I know it's a little wonky, but this I want to talk about why I think this really matters.

Yes.

So first of all, when you go back to 2015, ten years ago, it's the end of one Republic administration.

It's the soon to be the start of the next.

They want to expand the zoo.

It's a long kind of held goal here.

And they insert this language that gives them a tremendous amount of power.

That's right.

To tweak and expand and to spend money without oversight from the ledger.

That's right.

And our capital budget does provide money and we vote on that budget.

I'm on the planning board.

I have a lot to do with the capital budget.

So that's how they were able to get the funding.

We do provide money in our capital budget for this project.

I think almost every year we did.

So that's how they had the money to do it.

Okay.

They use this language.

And let me just for a moment, let's just pretend that I have never run the planning and the spending for a major project like this.

And let's pretend that because it's true.

So, I mean, I don't have the experience to say I know what cost overruns are typical.

I know how inflation could affect this.

I know what happens when we need a new design firm.

Is it is it reasonable to say, well, yeah, but it's been ten years, and of course there's going to be cost overruns.

Of course inflation affects it.

And yes, they spent $6 million on a different firm.

But that happens that sometimes you got to change horses midstream and overreacting to it risks convincing the public that the entire project is not worth it when the legislature wants the project.

Yeah, and I completely get that.

And I think that, we need to be really clear.

Most of us do support the zoo project, but the legislature that voted on this 2015 resolution, they were voting on a different scope of a project, just for one thing and for another thing.

Yes, things happen on construction projects.

$6 million on a $121 million project.

Some people might say that's not a big deal, but if it's not a big deal, just come to us.

We're not.

We're not trying to micromanage and vote on every change order.

Maybe they think you are.

Oh, I know they do.

But okay, that is not what's happening here.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say if you want to, if you want.

So the amendment that passed was 15% over, which I think is about a million bucks of this $6.7 million, I don't think it's unreasonable if you need to pay Cambridge seven an extra million bucks, come back to the legislature, tell us what's going on.

You know, because it turns out that there were missteps here.

There were missteps.

This original firm designs, something that could not be built for the money that we had on hand.

They were not zoo specialists.

Steps have been taken to right the ship, which is why I voted for this.

I'm confident that we what we are back on the right track, but we can't like, deny the fact that there were some missteps here.

Okay.

And I can't speak for the county executive who was not available today, but maybe he would say, you're right.

There were missteps.

Maybe that firm shouldn't have been there.

It wasn't put in place when I, you know, it was put in place before me.

We're trying to fix that problem and we're all we all want this project.

So let's move forward.

Absolutely.

I agree that changing course was the right thing to do, which is why I voted for this design firm.

But that doesn't mean that the legislature and the public shouldn't be informed of what's going on in between.

Trust us is not what I'm here for.

That is not my job to hard to get information.

Look, I think I think the I'm going to share this this with you.

The administration had released something to the media saying, you know, Legislator Barnard is being a little disingenuous in saying that we weren't being transparent here.

Of course we were being transparent.

Well, I'm going to give you an example of why I think they were not transparent in choosing Cambridge seven as the new design firm.

They actually had a design contest essentially, and toll and basically put out a request for qualifications.

I think saying, give us your ideas for this project.

Here's the budget.

What what can you do to to to design us a zoo for this?

What's your vision?

And we'll pick the the proposal that we like the best Monroe County.

So remember I typed in zoo and the contract portal.

Well, what I discovered is that they even had a design contest, which we didn't know about.

You know why?

We didn't know about the design contest?

We didn't know because they paid the three applicants $20,000 each for their time in their work.

Now that's fine, but what's significant about the number?

$20,000?

It's $1 less than the legislature votes on.

We would have known that there was a design contest and there was a problem.

If they spent one more dollar, they spent one more dollar.

And I asked why did they choose that number?

I asked, and and in a public forum, they didn't have an answer.

They just said, well, they have to be paid.

I'm yes, I'm fine with paying them a stipend for this massive work.

You didn't think it was a coincidence?

Of course not.

That the number was exactly the number -$1.

Any time you see something for $20,000, there's a reason it's.

They don't want to come to us.

Okay, so last point on this.

Isn't it possible that they would say you are making a mountain out of a molehill?

This is not a case of an administration trying to commandeer all this power and avoid oversight.

This is an administration that says multiple legislatures have voted to support the zoo project going forward.

The legislature wants it, the public wants it.

All we're trying to do is shepherd it, steer it.

They're trying to do the job of the executive, which is to administer, and it might make it might require some changes, it might require some decisions to be made.

But they're not trying to circumvent the legislature because you voted for this.

Ultimately, do you want this project?

I vote every year to support the Monroe County budget.

I vote every year on a lot of things that I support that does not give up my right as a legislator, which is in our charter to exercise oversight over how these things are being administered.

I don't see tension or conflict between the concept of supporting a project and wanting transparency about how it proceeds.

And clearly my colleagues agreed with me because that amendment overwhelmingly passed.

Okay.

can you also and this is not an isolated incident.

I mean, that's the other thing.

I mean, I I've really now I've now become obsessed with contracts and what we vote on and what we don't vote on.

There's a lot going on here in terms of what has gone on over the last 30 or 40 years, and some practices that I think need to need to change a little bit.

Oh, well know we can get into that elaborate a little bit.

Yeah.

look, our charter does give the legislature a lot of power and oversight.

We just don't use it always.

And those the fact that those clauses that nobody thinks anything of putting them in contracts and they've been in contracts for some time and it took this issue for us to be to to say, oh, my gosh, you know, maybe, maybe we shouldn't do that anymore.

I think is one thing, but you have in the 1980s, let's go way back in the 1980s, city council and the county, legislature, they changed from the county manager and city manager to a strong mayor and a strong county executive.

It was huge back then.

It was a huge change, which means you directly vote for those leaders and the charters that were created for the city.

And the county gave these executives a lot of power, and they haven't really changed much since then.

And in fact, in some ways, power has been eroded a little bit.

So for in the executive know and in the legislature.

So, for example, our legislators served ten year term limits.

The county executive can serve longer than a part time county legislature and the result of that is that you I mean, I've been on the legislature for five years, and I'm just now figuring out this contract thing.

I'm just now figuring out that we spend millions and millions of dollars in one shot without legislative oversight.

this is the this is the effect of making sure of creating a legislative body that functions more like a philanthropic or corporate board than a government body.

Now, our charter gives us the power to take all that back.

But when you have turnover like this, it gets really, really difficult.

for another example that I would give is we I learned in the newspaper last year that we spent a lot of money on the surveillance technology.

Kayla can or Kane at the DNC has done a very good job on this issue.

So I learned that we bought this fuzes software, which is an which allows for extensive camera moderate monitoring.

And in the article, the sheriff's office was quoted as saying, we didn't have to vote on this.

The legislature didn't have to vote.

Well, of course I'm thinking, why didn't we have to vote?

It's over $20,000.

Like, why didn't we have to vote?

So I wrote a letter to the county attorney saying, I don't.

I want to know why I would have to vote on this, and I want to know why I would have to vote on these other things that I found.

And on the fuzes contract, he cited our purchasing policy, which essentially treats this as a commodity, like a software commodity, a professional service we would have to vote on.

Fast forward recently, Kayla did another story about a $15 million purchase from Exxon for surveillance tech and software that would allow officers to write police reports using AI technology.

Now, the fuzes was part of that.

So Kayla clearly had done open records request.

She clearly spent a lot of time trying to figure out what did Monroe County, by.

So I'm seeing this number like, are you kidding me?

Like, that's a lot of money.

How much money?

Like $50 million.

Like, that's over ten years.

Like, that's a lot of money.

And we didn't have to vote on that.

Are you kidding?

So I wrote another $15 million for surveillance.

So?

So for technology, including software that use extensive.

It's a yes.

It's to write police reports.

Yeah.

It's extensive surveillance software.

I mean, the big nut of it is like, cloud storage camera abilities, like, it's just a big network of, cameras.

Okay.

And, you know, this has major public policy implications, but the county, I'm assuming I did write a letter wanting an extensive, detailing from the administration about.

I want a legal explanation here.

Now, the county attorney is the legislature's attorney, too.

And so I wrote saying, listen, I, I need to understand this.

Like, this has public policy implications.

it gave me the contract.

So I was able, there are templates for these contracts around the country.

And indeed, Monroe County is using the same template.

They it is it does have a professional services component in this contract.

So I'm thinking, okay, it's a commodity and a professional service.

We should have voted on this.

in my opinion, I'm sure the county attorney will disagree with me, but that is an example of something where I think the legislature really needs to assert itself.

And I probably will be doing legislation saying at least requiring reports on surveillance technology and perhaps something like, listen, if you're going to buy $500,000 worth of stuff, you need to come to us on this.

I don't believe that this kind of thing should be treated, you know, like purchasing rock salt, for example.

I don't think it should be.

But this is just another example of things that, we should have voted on, like the zoo amendments.

I think that, you know, really, technically, maybe it's all legal, right?

It's all legal, all aboveboard, technically, but that doesn't mean it's good government.

And I think it should come to us.

I'll get to your phone call in a second, Joel, and I'll get some feedback from listeners coming up here with County county Legislator Rachel Barnhart.

But let me just follow one other point there.

You brought up, an occasion in which we saw, more power concentrated in the executive.

A strong executive is a term you used, and I want to ask you to describe what you think the role in the function of the county legislature is.

How do you describe it?

Sure.

You know, legislative bodies, I think we learn, you know, in third grade.

And by the way, I mean, aren't we having this discussion on a national basis right now?

We really are.

Here's why I'm asking.

I'm asking because for the first time in a long time, I'm in this category, partially because I've got a 12 year old who's writing a paper on the concentration of presidential power.

But, you know, we're going back and we're rereading things like the Constitution and our why was article one Congress?

It was there for a reason.

First among equals, for a reason.

How do we feel about national elected leaders?

Sure.

Gleefully ceding their authority to an executive that is not supposed to have all.

Now, that is not what I'm saying is happening at the county level.

I'm asking this question because, you know, it's not exactly apples to apples.

And I want to understand how you view the role of the legislature at the county level, because a lot of people are thinking about what's the separation of powers and what what is our function supposed to be?

The check and balance of the legislature on the executive branch is, is is vital, I believe oversight is a really, really big deal.

And it is, the key role of a legislative body.

We pass a budget.

Our biggest job is to pass that budget every year and to go through that budget, I believe, but we also have so much, Monroe County has so much power over people's lives.

The biggest thing that we do, and I always remind people of this, the biggest thing that we do is administer human services.

I just saw an article yesterday, one third of Rochester residents receive food stamp benefits, Snap benefits.

Monroe County administers those benefits.

And so we need to make sure that it's not just spending, right.

It's not just like spending stuff.

It's also making sure that the policies are good, making sure that people are being served and really being advocates for our constituents.

I also believe that it's not just the oversight IT legislators are advocates as well.

Elected officials are advocates, and that sometimes does extend beyond county business, because we care about what's going on in people's lives and we can use our positions to agitate for making things better for them, whether it's on the city level, county level, state or national level, which is why we do memorializing resolutions every month, where we implore elected officials and other, and other jurisdictions, can you please pass this?

Because we think it's going to be good for Monroe County and good for our district.

So we have a, each legislator may have a different, definition for you, because that's the beauty of, of our democracy is that when someone's elected, they can kind of decide how they want to approach their job, and voters can decide if they like that or not when they're up for reelection.

but I think the Monroe County legislature, really needs to do a better job.

For example, I think the last time I was on your show, I talked about the need for a charter commission.

One of the things in our charter, I think your listeners are going to be surprised to hear this, but we actually have a thing in our charter like this noninterference clause where we're not allowed to tell, county workers what to do.

Now, that's that's okay.

Right?

I shouldn't be able to call some the guy in the parks department saying, hey, this like path that I like to walk on, you need to mow it today.

Like, that's not appropriate in any way, shape or form for legislators to be involved in government in that way.

But county attorneys and bellows attorney does the same thing.

Counties at successive county attorneys going back to, very long time have interpreted this noninterference clause that I think just means I'm not allowed to pick up the phone and tell county department heads to do menial, ridiculous things.

They interpreted to mean that the legislature literally cannot tell the executive what to do.

So, if I were to introduce a a local law, or a resolution to spend money on something and 29 legislators approved it, it can't say the county executive shall implement blah, blah, blah.

It has to say the county executive is authorized to implement blah blah blah, and he can choose not to if he, you know, he can choose not to do that.

that's I don't think that's right.

Our county legislators does not have the ability to create a program to do any kind of, policy to direct the administration, to implement a policy.

We don't have the authority to do that.

And I find that strange.

I don't think there are a lot of other legislative bodies that have this kind of constriction on them, which again, I believe is based upon a faulty interpretation that serves the executive, of our charter.

Okay.

And again, I think your critics and I can't speak for anybody in the administration who are not here.

I think their argument would sound something like this.

We don't have an imbalance in power.

We don't have things out of whack.

The executive administers the legislature, does a lot of the work of legislating and creation.

And, of course, the modern tradition in American politics at all levels of government is an executive is also involved in shaping and crafting or maybe shepherding legislation.

But ultimately they're not trying to go outside their lane.

The legislature has a role, and what you're talking about is less good government and more micromanagement that inhibits the administration from getting work done.

You know, I don't I don't think it's micromanaging to say, can we please vote on surveillance technology that is many millions of dollars over ten years?

I think they will say again, I think they might say you authorized X amount of money for the purpose of surveillance.

They get to use the technology.

But we didn't.

I mean, the purpose of public safety for the purpose of public safety.

We just you're saying that's too broad?

I, I think that we authorize a budget and the budget has certain categories, but our budget in no way is a line item for every single thing money is spent on.

And I think for things that have public policy implications like that, we should be voting, look, the Democrat and Chronicle thought it was a news story, and I, they did because it definitely had implications for not only spending but for public.

You know, how we how we conduct surveillance in this community, how law enforcement operates and the public has a right to know that.

And this isn't about, you know, I think that if you this isn't about like, whether you support Adam Bellows administration or whether you support certain policies or the zoo or surveillance technology, because I actually do support the zoo.

I'm a little iffy on the surveillance technology because I don't know anything about this.

Like I was never we never got to ask questions about this before.

This purchase was made.

this is about what did what does the it's not just what the legislature has the right to control and authorize.

It's also what the public gets to know.

Because when things come before the legislature, remember, the public gets to see how government works.

The public gets to see what happens.

They get to come and speak to us.

But if we don't know that things are going on, we can't do that.

It's a whole separate show we should talk about.

I want to talk to the sheriff's department about, technology that allows AI to write police reports.

I mean, it's really fascinating.

I don't necessarily have I don't know anything about it.

I understand I understand both sides of it.

I think AI is really.

But you've done so many shows, and I think AI is incredibly powerful and has a lot of potential uses.

But we need to talk about what are the implications of this, and could there be mistakes made that actually hurt people?

Those are the kinds of conversations that we should be having in the legislature.

Do you think I could get something wrong?

Come on.

Joel, I'm going to take your phone call after we take this only break.

We're late for the break.

We'll take Joel's call.

I've got some feedback as well.

For county Legislator Rachel Barnhart, and we're going to talk before the hour's up about some other issues that are on her radar as well.

That's coming up on connections.

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This is connections.

I'm Evan dawson.

Hey, Joel on the phone in Rochester.

Go ahead.

Hey, I got a question.

Is the Board of Supervisors concerned the county legislature?

No, that changed quite a while ago to 29 districts instead of the Board of Supervisors.

Yeah.

I mean, other counties, for example, had boards of supervisors.

That's not our system, but that's not Monroe County.

But that's how it's written in New York state law.

So for example, near, the county is just recently merged the county and the city historian's office into one thing.

But under New York State law, the county Board of supervisors, in this case, the legislature is required to appoint that county historian.

and when I looked into this, the, all the documents were signed by Adam Bellow and there was no real input from professors.

I could tell in in conversations with a few of the legislators legislators, there are no conversations about the fact that it's on the Board of Supervisors, in this case, the legislature, to select the and appoints the person who is to be the county historians case.

So there are these moments where, you know, Rachel is exactly right, where we're basically giving a lot of power to Adam Bellow, in this case, the executive, of the county.

and when so legislators actually are required to do certain things, and, and there's no transparency over this.

You know, it took a lot of digging to even figure out what had been done to, in that instance.

And I'll.

Fine.

I'll give you another example.

last year or so, all the sudden there was all this construction and how it parks.

And what it turned out was that there were all these, you know, electrical, stations that were put into the park, something like 12 of them right in the middle of the park lately.

Changing the character of the park.

and who's it's for?

It's just for the love of Christoval.

So for the ten, you know, days out of the year or whatever it is, we've erected all these permanent structures, that are hideous in a park.

That was, I think, beautiful.

And now it's been, you know, kind of marred by these unsightly, you know, green and wooden towers.

and so, and when you read the newspaper articles about that and it only talks about how basically Adam made that happen, had made that happen, and there seemed to be a little input from the people who were actually in the park every, you know, all the time, or let alone the legislature, that you think would have played a role in the multi.

I think it was $1 million, electrical operation.

Well, so go ahead, Joe.

You know, as somebody who's on the outside looking in a lot of moments that would support exactly what Rachel saying that, you know, if you've got a $15 million contract over a ten year period, you can look at that is, you know, we should be talking about that, even if it's beyond the policy implications of the fact that it's taxpayer money that, you know, we have to be responsible for.

And who knows, maybe, maybe there's a better use of that $15 million than, you know, hey, technology, I don't know.

But in any case, thanks for thanks for taking my call.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

What do you think, legislator?

I really appreciate that feedback.

And I also wasn't aware of these generators.

And, you know, people I love that when people pay attention to county government let us know what's going on.

I wish there were more eyes on us and what we do, because it really does inform our work.

Joel.

Thank you.

Michael writes to say when it comes to public safety, I'd rather have the executive decide as opposed to the legislators, because I can vote for or against the executive.

But I only get to to vote for one member of the legislature.

Well, that's just not the system that we have.

I mean, we we vote on a tremendous amount of money for public safety.

And I think that's that that is appropriate.

And you actually do vote for the sheriff as well.

who is the person in question who wanted this, this axon contract?

So I think I think checks and balances are good.

Our legislature has consistently voted to support the sheriff and his budget.

I am one of those people who have consistently voted to do that.

but it it's that's why it's so troubling to me to find out some of these details.

I just think, and maybe I would have voted for this contract.

I simply don't I can't answer that because I don't have any details because I wasn't able to vet this.

Michael, send me a follow up email.

I mean, like, I, I think I understand your point, but when you think further about this, your position seems to invalidate the idea of any sort of legislative body.

Congress or county legislature, state legislature.

If you can't vote for one person who has full authority, you don't want to be voting at all in them.

And I think that that flies very much in the face with the system that we have in this country.

But maybe I'm missing something.

So send me a follow up there.

David in Vancouver says, I'm really impressed with Miss Barnard.

I sure wish we had more politicians like her everywhere.

He is writing from Canada.

Dallas says, I wonder if the convalescing of the Trump administration looking at corruption and now Democrats locally looking at.

Is that part of a trend?

People overwhelmingly support?

Let me tell you, I'm so were I this Doge thing or is it my saying it right is is really disturbing to me because as someone who has literally spent my career not caring so much about transparency, accountability, waste, fraud, abuse, I can't stand what DOJ's doing.

They're taking a wrecking ball.

That is not what I support.

That is not the type of work that I think is necessary, the type of good, thoughtful, good government to really look at.

What if what you're doing is working to make sure that we're putting resources where they're needed and helping people who need help.

That is not what's going on with Doge.

And I'm so worried that for people like me and other and and particularly good government groups, that Doge could do damage to that these kinds of, of very sincere efforts.

So I appreciate that comment.

And I see the phone ring and we'll get back to your phone calls in just a second.

Let me just follow that point there.

There's been a lot of discussion, particularly among Democrats, but even people like Adam Kinzinger, longtime Republicans, who are very dismayed by what they're seeing, they share the sentiments that you just expressed.

But there's a debate about what should be done about this.

I mean, this is an administration that, you know, Donald Trump won a very, very narrow popular vote, but he swept the swing states.

He won a very comfortable electoral vote victory because of it.

And he views it as a mandate to go in there and do what he said, do what he said he would do in the campaign.

I think a lot of what he's doing, he campaigned on.

and so, you know, I wonder what you think is an appropriate response to some of that?

Well, I can't tell you how many people I've heard from from constituents, from people all over Monroe County saying, Rachel, what can I do?

What can I do to help?

to to fight what we're seeing right now from the Trump administration.

And my answer is always, we have to use our voices.

We have to take a stand.

That means calling your representatives, maybe attending events, sending letters, doing what feels right to you to speak out and say that this is not okay.

If that's something that you feel compelled to do.

Right now, people are looking for their leaders to take a stand there.

There won't be a single elected official in America who will be able to get away with not taking a stand on where you are right now, on what this administration is doing.

And right now, we are seeing a lot of elected officials around the country, and even some here locally who really aren't saying a whole lot about what we are witnessing.

I think this is a very scary, terrifying time, and I think we need to believe what our eyes are telling us and what our ears are hearing about these intentions.

Long live the King.

I'm not going to be.

I'm not going to accept that someone is trolling.

I think that's what the white House would say, that they didn't say it, that they're winking, that they didn't say it.

They don't mean that they didn't mean it.

If they didn't mean it and they're joking, they can tell me that.

That is, they didn't say a word.

And I think, you know, I the fact that the white House tweets a photo or posts a photo, an image of the president with a crown on calling him a king.

What where are we right now?

I choose to believe that.

I choose to believe it's real.

And I choose to believe that we need to be prepared for a lot of different scenarios ahead.

And I don't see a plan.

I will say, even if it was trolling, it's not funny.

This country doesn't have a very, popular history with with kings and monarchies.

It's not funny.

I don't think it's something.

I mean, it's not funny to me at all.

And I, you know, I had posted on my Facebook page the image saying, this is a scary time like this isn't acceptable.

And I refuse to, be told that I'm not seeing what I'm seeing.

I had people who didn't believe me that it was real demanding news articles.

I mean, they were so shocked by it.

They didn't think it was actually true.

now we've seen some members of Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders is on a national tour to different districts, talking to people at town halls.

We're seeing more town halls with members of Congress, Congressman Joe Morelli doing a virtual town hall.

What do you make of that?

There are definitely some politicians right now who are breaking through.

Senator Chris Murphy in Connecticut, Bernie Sanders, AOC, there are some, real leaders.

Jasmine Crockett, who's, you know, always on the cable news circuit.

There are some politicians right now who are doing an excellent job communicating what the problem is here.

And really validating what their constituents are feeling and connecting with their constituents in a way that I think is really, really important.

And I think it won't be long before pretty much every, every Democratic politician and even some Republicans are going to have to stand up and say that some of this is just it's just not okay.

And really explain to people and meet them where they are.

I think a lot of people simply aren't meeting the moment right now.

They're not connecting with where people are.

People are scared, they're disgusted, and they want reassurances that someone has their back.

you didn't include Congressman Morelli on the list of people mean.

You know, I, I don't know that he's really met the moment on, on this so far.

I mean, certainly he's saying all the right things, right?

I mean, he's saying all the right things on his social media posts.

So he's.

But the question is, is he really connecting with people and and connecting with them on that level?

I think it's good that he's doing this town hall.

I think it's it's it's it's really, really important to connect with people and understand where they are and understand that fear and let them know, you know, what are you doing?

All right.

Back to your phone calls.

hey, Mark, John's on the phone.

Oh, Mark.

a Republican legislature.

Hi, Mark.

okay.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Look at, you know, Rachel is a smart young lady, and she does her research and I really have a lot of respect for.

But I've talked to Rachel before, and, you know, she does a lot of a lot of insight into how things are done.

But I got to tell you, that's exactly the way the state legislature works, and it's the way it works down in Washington.

This is a small little microcosm of everything being worked out in the dark and, no open meetings, laws and closed doors.

And we'll decide what we're going to do.

And then we'll trotted out, you're talking about the New York State Assembly, where every bill that comes up passes and the deals are done in a back room, and they're done just like the budget.

Three people in a room, they decide what's going to be done.

They bring it out.

And if you're in the majority, which is Democrats in New York State, you're going to do what you're told or they're going to have a half $1 million in a primary challenge to run it against you.

And, you know, that system, it's legal, but I think it's corrupting.

And, you know, this is a small thing.

I, I, I try and refrain from, you know, badmouthing my colleagues.

For the record, I like everybody on both sides of the aisle, but nobody likes everybody, Mark.

But go ahead, do what I do.

In a nutshell, I like you and Rachel.

You know, I always say that, you know, nothing could be more, more awesome than being on having dots and, you know, but, the fact is that we need to know what's wrong, why it's wrong, and how to fix it, and picking on individual people.

You're allowed to get away with this stuff because that's the way the system works.

Things are done in the dark.

They're trotted out.

If you're in the majority, you're told what to do.

And if you want to.

And remember, they're all against term limits.

The only thing they want to do is raise big money, and the big money is deciding what legislation is going to come up.

Look, in Congress, I mean, the one thing you may not be a Kennedy fan, but I saw the highlights of his grilling by the Senate subcommittee.

And I thought the most insightful thing that he said is when he told those Democrats and Republicans, the number one campaign contributors are the drug and pharmaceutical companies and the food and, you know, the biotech companies.

And let me just jump in, Mark, because we're getting a little far afield, and I'm going to lose the hour here.

But, Mark, you're invited to come on a we always want people in the legislature on the program.

It's always nice to hear from you, Mark.

Thank you very much.

Anything you want to add there to your colleague?

No, I, Mark is great.

I thought he was going to definitely call in and and say that I'm wrong about the the term limits.

That's being, the ten year term limit being not appropriate, but because that's his big thing, you know, he believes very much in term limits, and he believes that, minority parties in legislature should get more power to legislate.

Believes very much in.

Oh, yeah.

Listen, I think there's quite a bit that a lot of legislators would agree on.

The question is, how do you.

That's why I think we need a charter commission.

I think we need a charter commission of a bunch of experts to really go over our, our, our, our document to get feedback and really see how we can improve these processes.

Oh yeah.

About 90s, I know you want to mentioned operation Stone garden.

Do you want people thinking about here?

Yeah, sure.

So, operation Stone garden is a federal program run through FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security.

We get grants.

the state gets grants, and it is for border security, and Monroe County gets, applies for a slice.

It's like low six figures, I think, every year.

And we are voting on that grant tonight.

And Ways and Means it is the only sheriff's funding I've ever voted against.

I've never supported operation Stone garden.

It is very controversial nationally because of the way that it's run.

because of the danger of sweeping, of harassing, immigrants and profiling and, I plan to ask some questions about Stone garden, to ask questions to the sheriff's department during Ways and Means tonight.

I'm sure I won't be alone.

but I had written a letter to the sheriff's department wanting some clarity on what their relationship is with Ice and immigration enforcement, and had some very specific questions.

In response, the sheriff's department said, yes, we are following the state attorney general's guidance on following the laws in terms of, you know, detaining people without a warrant, etc., etc.

that was good too.

I'm glad glad that that was said.

But then the sheriff's farm says we cooperate and collaborate with Ice.

Okay.

If we think that safety, the public safety is at risk.

I mean, it sounds reasonable, but what exactly does that mean?

I have no idea.

So I think we need to get some more clarity from the sheriff.

I'm hoping this is an opportunity to do so.

Possibly tonight.

That possibly.

Okay.

Rachel Barnhart is a Monroe County legislator from district number 17.

And first of all, I want to thank you for coming up.

No thank you.

Honestly, if it wasn't for news coverage of the zoo issue, I don't think that amendment would have passed.

So thank you to the media.

Thank you to you and I want to make it clear that all elected leaders are welcome on this program, encouraged on this program to talk about specific issues they're working on, to respond to questions from us and listeners.

that I think is what makes for good, healthy discourse.

So the more the better.

And we're going to keep doing that.

We've got more connections coming up in just a moment.

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