Who's running Binghamton?
Mayor's alliance with Citizen Action raises questions
By BRIAN LIBERATORE

Article appeared Aug. 26, 2007, on page 1A

My editors gave me 50 column inches to explore and explain the complex relationship between the city’s mayor and the nonprofit/political action committee that helped put him in office.

This article represents the culmination of dozens of interviews, reams of documents and two week’s worth of spare hours. I think the end result was a balanced account of the issue.

BINGHAMTON -- After operating for years as a self-described David against the Goliath of traditional government power, Citizen Action of New York in 2006 gained a foothold in Binghamton with the election of Mayor Matthew T. Ryan, a former Citizen Action board member.

The group now finds itself in the midst of a political maelstrom, not as an underdog, but in a newfound role as an influential voice in the mayor's inner circle.

Ryan is a vocal supporter of the group's progressive ideals aimed at improving life for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. He chose Citizen Action to lead a civic engagement project, allowed the organization's leadership access and an ear at city hall, and has offered open support to the group's projects.

The increased publicity, however, has meant increased criticism from politicians, city officials and some residents, who accuse the group of meddling with city government, undercutting the city council, and forcing its progressive agenda -- and the costs -- on the citizenry.

Despite political friction from fellow Democrats, Ryan has refused to distance himself from Citizen Action. Instead, he defends the group as a powerful and useful advocate for working-class families in the city.

"They do more for the community than all us politicians put together in a lot of ways," Ryan said. "They're organized. They're good at what they do. They help elderly people, working-class folks and people who aren't as fortunate as others. Quite frankly, I'm sick of them being demonized."

One office, two roles

Citizen Action's Southern Tier office, sandwiched between an auto body parts store and a Big Lots in an aging strip mall on State Street on the city's North Side, gives credence to Regional Director Mary Clark's assertion that, "No one's getting rich here."

Using donated materials, volunteers built the office suite earlier this year. The offices house two paid staff members, Clark and Lea Webb, two federally funded VISTA volunteers, and a steady stream of volunteers.

"We need doors," Clark said, pointing to rough openings to the office rooms. "We're trying to get someone to donate them."

The office is one of six across the state and part of a national umbrella organization, USAction.

According to the state Citizen Action Web site, "We fight every day for ... health care for all; full public funding of campaigns; a fair federal budget."

Clark explained how the organization operates.

"Citizen Action is made up of three components," she said. "We're a 501(c)3, which is our nonprofit arm. That's where we do most of our direct work with education and advocacy. We're a 501(c)4, which is a nonprofit, but donations are not tax deductible. That allows us to do more lobbying on specific issues. We're also a political action committee (PAC) much like the Sierra Club, the NRA or unions. That allows us to directly contribute to political campaigns."

While she sees clear divisions, many outsiders see a hybrid political machine -- one that plays hardball politics behind a non-profit curtain.

"How do you differentiate it?" council member John Cordisco, D-9th District, said. "Technically on paper, that (the divisions) is accurate. I'm sure if they got audited, they'd meet the requirements. But it's not what they say, it's what they do politically. It's all intertwined."

A kitchen serves as the sole physical divider between the apolitical public education arm, housed in the office suite, and the political arm of the organization in a larger boardroom lined with computers and telephones.

On the apolitical side, Citizen Action operates its Public Policy and Education Fund, conducting research, gathering signatures and holding meetings on social issues.

Clark, who has a master's degree in social work with a concentration in public organizing, is not shy about her group's ability to organize behind a cause. "That's our game," she said. "That's what we do."

This month, Citizen Action is working on its campaign for affordable health care, collecting accounts from hundreds of residents the organization says have been burned by insurance companies, denied medical attention or buried in debt from medical care. The effort is a continuation of a campaign that helped create Family Health Plus, a public health insurance program in the state.

On the political side of the divide, Citizen Action has leveraged its organizing ability by endorsing candidates, polling voters and distributing campaign material.

In 1998, Citizen Action, with a host of other nonprofits and unions, helped form the Working Families Party as a response to inaction in Albany.

The Working Families Party, which also operates out of the Citizen Action offices, endorsed Ryan during his 2005 mayoral bid, helping him win the Democratic primary and the three-way general election.

Eileen Hamlin, of Kirkwood, heads the Working Families Party in the Southern Tier. Citizen Action, she said, plays a prominent role in WFP locally. Elsewhere in the state, she said, the unions are the main organizing force for the party.

"The unions are very conservative here (in the Southern Tier)," Hamlin said. "And intimidated by the party bosses."

A lot of the Citizen Action members cross over and work with Working Families. Clark, however, does not serve on the party's endorsement committee, Hamlin said.

BNAP in peril

Among the most persistent voices opposing Citizen Action's political behavior is an unlikely one. Binghamton attorney Ed Crumb describes himself as a supporter of Ryan.

Crumb has emerged as a leader in the flagship civic engagement program of Ryan's administration, the Binghamton Neighborhood Assembly Program (BNAP), and is a frequent attendee at city council meetings.

"The politics that Citizen Action injects into this (BNAP) turns people off," Crumb said. "It damages the credibility of all the citizens that are giving time to this."

BNAP is based on a similar program in Burlington, Vt., that aims to involve residents in their government's decision-making through grassroots neighborhood meetings. Vermont's program started in 1982 under then-mayor Bernie Sanders, now a U.S. senator and a self-described democratic socialist.

In setting up BNAP, Ryan took a different path than the Vermont organizers. Ryan chose Citizen Action to organize, advertise and help run the assemblies. In Vermont, the assembly program began as a city ordinance and is run through the city's planning department.

Ryan said he chose Citizen Action based on what he calls the group's unparalleled organizing ability.

"I think it's been very successful," Ryan said of BNAP.

It's also resulted in people who signed up for the neighborhood assemblies receiving invitations to Working Families Party events. That political mailing was part of a larger pattern of Citizen Action deception, Crumb said.

Clark said the mailing was a clerical mistake, and pointed out that what Crumb deemed a political mailing was an invitation to a chicken barbecue -- a thank-you for Citizen Action volunteers.

Now add VISTA

The city applied for a grant from the AmeriCorps program to provide eight VISTA volunteers to help organize the assemblies. The VISTAs work for poverty-level wages and are placed under the direction of city hall, Citizen Action and the Women's Studies Program at Binghamton University, a department headed by Ryan supporter Dara Silberstein.

The city won the grant and the VISTAs took over BNAP in 2006.

In a long letter to the city council that read like a legal brief, Crumb earlier this month said housing the volunteers at Citizen Action, and allowing Citizen Action to play a role in the assemblies, cast a political shadow over the BNAP program and threatened to undermine it.

Echoing Crumb's concerns, the city council told Ryan to take the VISTA volunteers out of the Citizen Action offices or it would cut the VISTA grant.

Faced with the ultimatum, Ryan rebuked the council, keeping the VISTAs in Citizen Action and giving the entire project to the Women's Studies Department at BU, thereby cutting out the council's ability to eliminate the grant.

"The project itself should not be held hostage to political animosities," Silberstein said. She plans to teach a course this fall on feminism in civic engagement using the BNAP program as the example.

"Women's Studies has a commitment to projects of social justice," Silberstein said. "And this affords us an opportunity to build on that type of commitment."

Concerns from Crumb and several city council members prompted a site visit from several state-level AmeriCorps officials, who indicated the project could go forward with BU as the sponsor, according to Tarik Abdelazim, executive assistant to Ryan.

The go-ahead is good news for Patrick Meehan, 24, a VISTA volunteer who left a teaching job in Oregon to join the VISTA program in Binghamton.

Meehan said he didn't see the conflict that Crumb and others complained of. Clark has helped teach him how to organize and advertise for neighborhood meetings, he said. But the agendas, he said, come exclusively from the residents.

At least two BNAP organizers, Marylou Rutkowski in the First Ward and Karen MacIntyre from the southeast side of the city, agree with Meehan.

"We have never had anything happen that seems out of line," Rutkowski said. "I haven't felt that there were any politics involved at all."

Taking aim at Ryan's critics

Council President Pat Russo, a Democrat and occasional critic of Ryan's policies, earned the designation of "obstructionist" from Clark this past year.

During the 2007 budget proposal hearings, Russo helped lead a charge to restore one position in the police bureau -- a move Ryan vetoed. Russo also fought against the addition of several new positions in the mayor's office and more recently Ryan's spending plan for federal block grant money.

"I have voted with him (Ryan) as much as I've voted against him," Russo said. "I have to vote what's right for the people. I'm going to do what I think is right for the people in my district."

Clark, who is not a city resident, also condemned Russo's vote this summer to pull funding from a Catholic Charities program as a punitive measure after the organization refused to honor a subpoena from fellow council member Tony Massar, D-1st Ward.

"We need responsible leadership," Clark said, "Not leadership that is obstructive."

So Citizen Action employee Webb, a 24-year-old Binghamton native, is planning to run against Russo.

"The city council is dysfunctional, everybody knows the city council is dysfunctional," Hamlin said. "And that's what's driving us into the city council race."

Preceding Webb's run, Citizen Action volunteers conducted a telephone poll asking voters whether they would prefer an older white man (Russo) or a young black woman (Webb).

Clark said the poll was merely meant to gauge Webb's potential for success in running, but the question elicited a sour response from several of the poll's respondents and Russo.

"If I had said, 'Would you vote for a man or a woman,' they would have nailed me to the nearest tree," Russo said.

Webb's candidacy sent a ripple through the city council, and prompted two members to sever ties with the Working Families Party. Bob Weslar, D-3rd, and Marty Gerchman, D-4th, both declined the party's endorsement as a show of solidarity with Russo.

Both said maintaining a good working relationship with Russo was more important than votes that could come from a Working Families endorsement.

Both candidates are running unopposed in their bids for city council.

A house divided

"They've hijacked the Democratic Party," said Kim Ondrusek, a 30-year employee of the city's public works department, and a longtime Democrat.

Citizen Action and the Working Families Party, Ondrusek said, began as strong allies of the Democratic Party, but have drifted further way from longtime Democrats and now threaten to split the party.

Quoting former Broome County Democratic chairman Mike Najarian, Ondrusek said "uniting Democrats was a lot like herding cats," even before the WFP started making it harder.

"Their (Citizen Action's) goal is to take over the Democratic Party," Cordisco said. "And get their people elected and push their agenda. That's not an opinion. That's the truth. They make no bones about it."

Setting up a primary against Russo paves the way for similar primaries in next year's legislature races, Cordisco said.

The election this November could determine whether Ryan and Citizen Action find more allies on the city council, allowing Ryan a more conducive environment for his policies. Chris Papastrat, the council's sole Republican, faces a challenge from Democrat Sean Massay, who is endorsed by the Working Families Party. And two of Ryan's most vocal critics, Tony Massar, D-1st District, and Cordisco, D-9th District, will leave office because of term limits.

One thing is certain: Ryan said he will continue to view Citizen Action as an ally and a partner in planning the city's future, even if the group represents only a fraction of his constituency and even if its directors do not live in the city or pay property taxes there.

"I have given them more access," Ryan said. "A lot of what they are fighting for, I'm fighting for. I'm going to work with them to try to achieve some of these goals."