Posturing for Personal Gain through Political Means

I listened with dismay last Wednesday to John Parrinello talk about former Mayor Bill
Johnson’s “Golden Parachute” faculty appointment at RIT. I figured that as a lawyer,
he would have thought twice about using this example in his argument for MCC’s
Board of Trustees putting forth the names of two unqualified local candidates. His
argument can be deduced to the statement, “That’s just the way things work”.
Then he went on to berate individuals in the public who vocally mistrust politicians,
saying that he finds it disturbing that elected officials are criticized for policy
decisions. Well, I have always understood that public servants were to act according
to their constituencies and have their best interests at heart regardless if that public
servant was an elected official or an appointed trustee. Clearly, my liberal arts
training in critical thinking has been wrong these many years.

Let’s examine who gains in the current negotiations:

Bill Smith - Lawyer for Harris Beach & former Majority Leader of the Monroe County
Legislature1

Harris Beach owns four floors of the Granite Building which must be purchased for
the construction of Renaissance Square2, which will house the new MCC City Center.
The financial, operational, and political dealings between the MCC, the Republican
led County Government, and the Firm of Harris Beach would all conveniently be tied
to one man, Bill Smith. This conflict of interests should immediately disqualify Bill
Smith as a candidate. Many of the funds that Harris Beach will obtain through this
illegal government dealing will most likely end up in the pocket of Mr. Smith and be
returned to the Republican Party as a campaign contributions. That is your tax
dollars going to a single party.

John Parrinello - Chairman of the Board of Trustees MCC,3 former Candidate for
Mayor of Rochester

If John is successful in getting Bill Smith in as president, he will have a major

contributor for his next campaign for Mayor, along with a track record of “Getting
things done” he will, in effect, have the entire Republican Machine behind him (even
though he sports an Obama bumper sticker on his car, probably one of his kids put
it there)

Maggie Brooks – Monroe County Executive

See benefits for John Parrinello and substitute County Executive for Mayor.

1
MCC Presidential Search Website: http://www.monroecc.edu/presidentsearch/bios/Smith.pdf
2
Democrat and Chronicle Online:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080328/NEWS01/80328
0377/1002/NEWS
3
JohnParrinello.com: http://www.johnparrinello.com/Resume_JP.html
Dennis Kessler – Owner Kessler Group Inc.4 Owner and operator of 21 Burger King
and 46 Friendly’s restaurants5

Mr. Kessler does have academic experience on his resume, including teaching at
MCC. If by the unlikely event that Mr. Kessler is selected as the president he and his
corporate friends benefit in a form of corporate welfare. A large part of MCC’s
Mission is workforce development.6 It is not the only part of MCC’s mission. Mr.
Kessler and corporations stand to gain a trained workforce at tax payer expense,
without having to put up corporate money for training and development and taking
in those profits for himself. I would ask, do we really want MCC’s next President to
be someone who makes money off of exploiting low paid workers while serving a
product that is unhealthy to the community. It would seem that workforce
development and the bottom line to business owners would be the only benefits to
this arrangement. But we won’t have to worry about this scenario as Mr. Kessler’s
name was most likely submitted to make Mr. Smith’s name more palatable.

I, as an honor student at MCC, and a tax paying member of the community of

Monroe County for over 21 years who has been in the Rochester workforce for all of
those years, have a stake in this matter. It is not just a stake as a member of the
MCC community, but of the community at large. I witness people who have given up
on government, given up on dreams, given up on learning because they have been
forced to believe sound-bytes from politicians and company owners that seemingly
only care about one thing, and those people no longer believe they can change
things for themselves. MCC has to move the public away from accepting the status
quo; it must continue to follow its complete mission:

The mission of Monroe Community College is to provide access to high quality education
and training programs to a diverse community. Student success is the College’s highest
priority.

In fulfilling its mission, the College is committed to excellence in teaching,

comprehensiveness, lifelong learning and citizenship. The College embraces its role as a
stimulus for economic development and values partnerships, innovation and educational
leadership.7

By instructing its students in the ways of critical thinking MCC fulfills this mission.
It’s the students that matter, they will be the leaders in industry and the leaders in
the community, and they should not just be automatons. A President with academic

4
MCC Presidential Search Website:
http://www.monroecc.edu/presidentsearch/bios/Kessler.pdf
5
Simon School Website:
http://www.simon.rochester.edu/faculty/faculty_directory.aspx?ID_Num=323
6
MCC Website:
http://www.monroecc.edu/etsdbs/pubaff.nsf/MCCFacts/Mission?OpenDocument
7
MCC Website:
http://www.monroecc.edu/etsdbs/pubaff.nsf/MCCFacts/Mission?OpenDocument
experience will recognize this as equal or greater importance to the workforce
development piece of the puzzle.

I urge the faculty to take a break from the syllabus of their courses and to assign a
critical thinking project for their students using the MCC Presidential Search as your
subject matter. Once students have been taught how to think instead of just blindly
accepting ideas, they will then be prepared to be the future community of Monroe
County.

Daniel C. Lopata

Student, Monroe Community College

Class of 2008