Workshops
Shadow Governments: The Undemocratic World of Authorities and Development Corporations
In localities around the country, major decisions about development, subsidies, transportation, infrastructure, and other public goods are made by non-elected agencies, boards, and other bodies. In New York state, the Comptroller has counted over 640 state and local authorities and called them "unaccountable to the government or the people."
Buffalo may represent ground zero for the "authority" trend, with both city and county government overseen by unelected control boards, and with vital waterfront land controlled for years by the transportation authority. Is unelected, unaccountable, "secret" government on the rise across the country? Does it represent a response to the fact that electoral politics in cities are increasingly dominated by more progressive interests? What can be done to reverse the trend? What strategies, both state and local, will succeed in shrinking the role of authorities and in making them more accountable?
What is the role of business interests in "shadow government," and what real changes in governing are reflected in the increased use of business as a model for how government should operate? What does it really mean to run government like a business, and what happens to notions of the public good when the business model predominates?
Moderator: Lou Jean Fleron, Cornell University ILR School
Gail Radford, University at Buffalo
Aaron Bartley, PUSH
Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First
James Magavern, Magavern, Magavern & Grimm
Sam Hoyt, New York State Assembly
