Rochester Mayor Quits Using City Car
by Matt at Aug 2nd, 2008
Apparently some leaders are more serious about cutting costs and saving taxpayer dollars…
Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy plans to slash the city’s take-home car fleet, and he believes the best place to start is at the top.
“He decided to lead by example and give up his city car,” said Communications Director Gary Walker. “He’s leasing one on his own dime.”
Duffy isn’t using campaign funds, either. “It’s coming out of his pocket,” Walker said.
Duffy turned in his Chevrolet Trailblazer last week. In Buffalo — a city not much larger than Rochester — Mayor Byron W. Brown also has taken steps to slash the number of take-home cars. Unless unions win arbitration fights, 35 city employees who have enjoyed take-home cars at taxpayers’ expense would lose one of City Hall’s more coveted fringe benefits.
But not Brown.
Of course not. Brown is so important he needs to be on call 24/7. Imagine how disadvantaged Buffalo would be if Brown had to pay for his own car.
[Brown]’s keeping his city-owned 2006 Ford Crown Victoria. He does give up the vehicle when the snow starts to fly — but only so he can use a city-owned 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe.
Brown makes no apologies, insisting his mayoral duties keep him on call 24/7. There’s never a day when he isn’t performing city business after hours, he has repeatedly asserted.
But Rochester’s Duffy is anything but a 9-to-5 mayor, according to his aides. While Duffy will receive reimbursement for mileage he racks up performing business with his personal car, city taxpayers will no longer be footing the tab for his rides back and forth to work.
