Governor Cuomo needs to show his hand

 

The best and brightest leaders of organizations such as small businesses, non-profits and local governments are those who can navigate the complexities of the world by understanding and preparing for unknowns.

 

Despite being classified as unknowns, the nuances of what organizations do and can deal with are almost always known in some way. If you are truly focused on your marketplace, socioeconomic environments, and clientele you’re keenly aware of the how and why of potential change and that all contributing factors to your day-to-day and year-to-year operations are, in their own ways, fickle.

 

Good leaders aren’t caught off guard by gradual or even immediate change. But, they can be when it’s brought on by government.

 

Government intervention is a different breed of animal. While market, social or natural factors can change the face of the game they don’t make a wholesale change to it; it’s still there in an altered form. Government, on the other hand, can dramatically change the rules of the game and that can be done at the whim of an individual or a governing body, often with immediacy and without forethought.

 

When times are normal it happens often and it’s frustrating enough – the government will impose mandates and changes to wages, health care, how services are delivered and how things are produced. But, when times are abnormal, as they have been for over seven months now, that frustration is compounded by severe government reaction -- and overreaction – to the issue at hand, actions which can forever change the world in which we live, work and serve.

 

I’ve told many people this year that COVID is unpredictable, but government is even more so.

 

I can plan for COVID in my workplace -- we instituted protocols in advance of government direction; we have a full-time COVID Administrator; and we are constantly monitoring and refining our processes and people in response to the latest science and ideas.

 

I can’t plan for government or, more specifically, Governor Cuomo’s government in my workplace. What will the rest of this year look like? What will next year look like? What happens if the state’s or region’s COVID numbers increase?

 

I definitely couldn’t properly plan for it this spring -- and I was being proactive about it. People thought I was crazy when I preemptively announced that we’d be closing down the factory as the state battled the worst of the virus, they thought there was no way that Cuomo would shutdown the economy. But he did and he went far beyond what I had expected: I thought we’d be closed for 2 to 4 weeks and would be returning by Easter Monday; instead, most of our operations were shutdown by state edict for almost 10 weeks and we went finally back to being whole at the end of May.

 

While we’re at full strength and then some now, most businesses, social service organizations, and local governments haven’t been so lucky. The Governor has kept their capacities low, harmed their ability to properly sell or serve, and, in some cases, hasn’t even allowed them to re-open. They have no idea when the reins will be loosened.  

 

They need answers. Their personal livelihoods and they very existence of their enterprises depend on it. The first shutdown and ongoing restrictions have crippled them…a second lockdown or longer-lasting rules could signal their death.

 

I need answers, too. I need to know what controls could possibly be implemented against producers in the future – if they are extravagant it may force my hand to have some products made in other states by companies that are normally in some way my competitors. Who in their right mind wants to do that?

 

We’re all guaranteed that the playbook going forward looks nothing like the state’s playbook since March. You know that the rules will be changed – there will be different statistical triggers, capacities, essential designations, regional controls, and other orders.

 

You also know that the Cuomo Administration already knows what it’s going to do, it won’t be off-the-cuff adjustments as it had been during the first 4 months of the crisis. This virus has been here since the first week of March and it’s been a thing globally since last fall. They now know a lot about the virus. They’ve (hopefully) learned from their mistakes and the best practices of others.

 

Cuomo has to show his hand, now. Holding all the cards and showing a poker face does absolutely nothing positive for New Yorkers. It’s bad leadership. Tell us what could happen, how it will happen, and when it would happen. Don’t wait until it happens to let us know. That’s how organizations – and people – suffer.

 

It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about factories like mine, movie theaters, the diner in your neighborhood, the YMCA, the local hardware store, your county government, this very newspaper…we need to be able to understand what the future could look like so we can prepare accordingly, be it with Plans B and C, rain day funds, or, God forbid, an exit strategy.

 

Let us know what are to us the unknowns which aren’t unknowns to those in the know.

 

Lead, so we can lead.

 

 

From the 12 October 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

In defense of the uneducated

 

Over the course of this year, just as with the 2016 election cycle, it seems that the national press, pollsters, and pundits has taken too much delight in classifying certain sectors of our population as “non-college educated” or “uneducated”.

 

Rather than being used, and only sparingly, as a demographic category, it instead has become a common and dismissive qualifier, a way of looking at the 60 percent of all Americans who don’t hold a college degree.

 

You could read between the lines – that is, if you weren’t smacked in the face by the outright accusations – that the uneducated were dupes and rubes and, because they lacked a diploma, were unable to make sound decisions about who should represent them in Washington.

 

Well, I hate to break it to those who think 4 years in a university grants them unprecedented knowledge and understanding, but those who don’t have a degree can be, in many, cases smarter, better off and better people than those who do.

 

I can say this unequivocally because almost all of the people in my life are “uneducated”.

 

I work at a business of 180 people where maybe a half-dozen of us graduated from college. Yet, somehow, despite being an “uneducated” environment, the company and those families are succeeding. That’s because our ranks are filled by men and women who understand the physical and mental work and ingenuity needed to make the things that consumers desire. They do magic, using science, technology, skill, brain and brawns to transform plastic into products. We have general laborers, technical personnel and tradesmen here whose breadth of knowledge, intelligence and critical thinking skills would shame most people with degrees.

 

I am friends with electricians, plumbers, repairmen and first responders who never went to college but still possess incredible amounts of skills  -- whether learned by experience or via certificate programs (which the elite still consider to show a lack of education). They bring much-need and complex services and safety to those who hold doctorates yet can’t repair a faucet, replace an outlet, or change their oil save their lives.   

 

I live in a community the economy of which is driven by agriculture. Most of the farmers don’t have degrees, but like my guys and gals at the plant, they have a Renaissance Man’s understanding – they have incredible depth of knowledge of a variety of topics, from equipment to plant science to animal husbandry to marketing and economics. They know what it takes to transform seeds into a healthy harvest, or how to grow calves into living, breathing milk machines, and, they know how to get them to market and balance their books. They are working 24/7, in the barn, in the tractor, and in the office, lovingly running their farms better than most people run their businesses and lives. 

 

My extended family, for the most part, don’t have or didn’t have college degrees. Somehow, those “uneducated” mothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles raised wonderful high-character families, held excellent jobs, and made an impact in their communities. I am who I am because of who they are and I’m grateful for that and how I’ve turned out.

 

So, remember, dear media folk and political observers, before going off blasting the “uneducated”, throw away your vicious, ugly, stereotyping and consider who they are. They are your families, friends, neighbors and coworkers, people who despite their alleged lack of knowledge have the brains that we as an advanced society need to put food in our markets, produce the goods we want and need, fix and build our homes and cars, save our lives, raise our families and serve our communities.

 

The “educated” sure could learn a lot from them.  

 

 

From the 06 October 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

New York should extend deer season

 

A couple of weeks ago the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) surprised deer hunters with something akin to an early Christmas present: Our game commission is floating the idea of extending the southern zone deer season through the Christmas break.

 

Currently, in that zone (which includes all of the counties covered by this newspaper), the late-season archery and blackpowder offerings immediately follow the regular firearms season and last for 9 days. This year, they run from December 14 to 22.

 

Under the DEC’s proposal, they would like to add 7 days to those special seasons, this year and going forward, from December 26 through January 1.

 

That may not seem like much, but this greatly increases opportunity for hunters to get into field and forest to fill their freezers. That “holiday deer hunt”, as the DEC calls it, would occur during what is for all schools and colleges and many factories and offices the Christmas break. Hunters who may have previously struggled to find the time to fit a Saturday or Sunday of hunting into their busy schedules will have access to numerous days of leisure to get outdoors.

 

I am in full support of the DEC’s plan. It’s a winner. I look at the impact that it has on what we could call the Four Fs: family, funding, feeding and flowers.

 

The shared breaks will allow shared hunts, getting the whole family outdoors. That bond is how a lifetime of sustainable harvest, conservation-mindedness and respect for nature are created in a youngster. The holiday hunt also brings back to the fold older family members who have moved away. The holidays are when many come back to New York State and spend a few days, if not the whole week, at their loved ones’ homesteads. Now, they can rekindle the love affair they had for their old stomping grounds.

 

Bringing back the snowbirds and chasers of greener pastures will also help bring much-needed funding to the DEC, advancing the good work they do in managing wildlife, stocking fish, protecting the environment and hosting campgrounds and trails. A non-resident license that covers hunting, archery or muzzleloading, and two doe tags comes in at $150. If the State picks up four thousand hunters for the holidays, that’s $600,000 being directly invested in the DEC. There’s a lot the DEC can do with that, especially in the COVID era when state budgets are strained and people are flocking to the outdoors.

 

The outcome of all of these efforts should be a harvest of nature’s bounty. A couple of deer can keep a family well-fed for a year, providing them a very healthy protein. This is much needed in today’s world: In 2019, more than 10% of US homes had some level of food insecurity. That number has been driven up dramatically by the socioeconomic impact of COVID and its lockdowns of the economy. In late-March, when COVID was at its most frightening, a quarter of US households claimed they didn’t have enough to eat. The State could help fight hunger by extending the season and allowing hunters to fill their freezers and their bellies as well as those of others who may be in need: The Venison Donation Coalition in New York provides a whopping 38 tons of venison each year to food banks…a holiday hunt could substantially increase that.

 

Lastly, there is the considerable environmental impact of an extended deer season. Further winnowing down the herd saves local forests and wildflowers. Many naturalists, yours truly included, know that the overabundance of deer in Western New York has destroyed our forests’ understories, wiping out vast stands of rare orchids and other wildflowers. What I always use the example in this plight: Our family farm for all my childhood had a vast population of trilliums; in one spot, a sea of white covered over an ace of the forest floor every spring. Those trilliums have been wiped out for almost 20 years now, as the deer browsed on the plants’ tender leaves, some of the first greens of the spring. Rightsizing the deer population could bring back these and other plants we’ve lost.

 

If you would like to make your voice heard as the state ponders this initiative, know that through November 8 the DEC is accepting public comment on the proposal. You can voice your opinion in two ways, email (WildlifeRegs@dec.ny.gov with Holiday Deer Hunt Proposal as the subject) or postal mail (Jeremy Hurst, NYSDEC Bureau of Wildlife, 625 Broadway, 5th Floor, Albany, NY 12233). Before doing so, it’s suggested you read all the details on page 7 of the September 9^th New York State Register at tinyurl.com/HolidayDeer.

 

From the 28 September 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News