Brian Liberatore’s front-page article in Tuesday’s paper examined both sides of an important issue soon to face the City of Binghamton: a one-party council.
The elections of Lea Webb and Sean Massey, a pair of Democrats endorsed by Citizen Action and the Working Families Party, were not overwhelming individual victories; Webb won the 4th District with about 56 percent of the vote, while Massey needed the proverbial “overtime” — a handful of absentee ballots — to pull out a slim victory over incumbent Chris Papastrat in District 5.
Some voters are worried now that the seven-Democrat council will become a “rubber stamp” for Democratic Mayor Matt Ryan, considering his deep, well-documented ties to the Citizen Action group.
Certainly one goal of a city’s council should be to keep an eye on the mayor — a microcosmic system of checks and balances, if you will. But when residents voted to install Webb and Massey last November, their message came across loud and clear: they want action. And with an all-Democrat panel in place, that’s likely what they’ll get.
Of course, neither the council nor the mayor will ‘fess up regarding the overwhelming edict that they’ve been handed:
“We share some ideas and values, but just because we are Democrats doesn’t mean we agree on everything,” Massey said in Tuesday’s article.
And to a certain extent, Massey’s right; even with an overwhelming 8-1 majority on the previous council (two seats were consolidated during this election cycle), the city’s democrats were never notorious for rubber-stamping the mayor’s ideas.
The lack of Republican representation on the council is, of course, worrying to Republicans — but it’s more a sign of the motivation that groups like Citizen Action have in restoring life and energy to the city’s streets. The election results should only be surprising to those who didn’t care enough to actively participate in the long-winded campaign.
The council’s unanimous majority, then, is no mistake. It’s the result of a lot of hard work by citizens who cared enough to get involved in the democratic process, and who clearly approved of the work, to this point, of the Democratic council and Mayor Ryan.
But the election of Massey and Webb, paired with the re-election of Democratic incumbents Ed Collins (7th District) and Bob Weslar (1st District), represents an even stronger demand for action by that council. Now more than ever, the citizens of Binghamton are seeking change through the city’s elected officials — and have handed the Democratic Party a sweeping mandate to do so.
Strub is a copy editor at the Press & Sun-Bulletin. His column appears Thursdays.
cstrub@pressconnects.com
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