Monroe County Council of Governments

Published: 10/4/2000

In April of this year, our County Executive, Jack Doyle, recognized the need to improve collaborative efforts and called for the formation of a Council of Governments (COG) to initiate and facilitate greater communication and cooperation among Monroe County's town, village, city and county governments. Jack Doyle said, " The Council of Governments will offer Monroe County's municipalities a working forum to discuss ways we can all work together more closely, with greater efficiency and more cooperation. Monroe County is already a model in this state when it comes to inter-municipal cooperation and this council will create a formal body where ideas can be shared and actions can be taken - all for the benefit of our residents and taxpayers."

The Council of Governments is made up of the chief elected officials of the 19 towns, 10 villages, the City of Rochester and Monroe County patterned after models used in various parts of the United States, particularly in the States of California and Florida and some areas of New England. Successful councils are voluntary organizations that operate at the level of collaboration and facilitate traditional local autonomy versus a new mandated layer of regional government.

In a very short period of time, a considerable effort has been put into organizing and formalizing the Council of Governments. In May of this year, the first meeting of the full Council of Governments was held at which time several important actions were taken. The body adopted a set of by-laws to guide how this body will operate. An election of officers was held which I am very proud and honored to say that my peers elected me as the first Chairman. Additionally, Supervisor Ralph Esposito of the Town of Gates was elected Vice Chair and Mayor Clark King of the Village of Fairport was elected Secretary.

Additionally, a Steering Committee was formed for the purpose of planning agendas for the full membership meetings; establishing sub-committees as necessary to achieve the goals of the association; and conducting business as required in the interim between meetings of the full membership. In addition to the elected officers of the Council of Governments, the Steering Committee is made up of, County Executive Jack Doyle, Mayor Bill Johnson, City of Rochester, Supervisor Jim Smith, Town of Perinton and Supervisor Gay Lenhard, Town of Ogden.
Since the initial meeting, focus has been placed on establishing a consensus among council members as to the agenda for the organization. This was accomplished by first asking each member to submit issues that they felt were important for consideration by the Council of Governments. Once that information was compiled and consolidated, members were then asked to prioritize which issues were of highest importance for the Council of Governments.

At its September meeting, the Council of Governments voted to begin working on three specific issues that are as follows:

1) Economic development is the issue that most of the council members identified in terms of importance. This is a topic that is of great interest and concern within the public and private sector and provides the Council of Governments with a real opportunity to help provide a leadership role on this topic. Supervisor Ralph Esposito, Town of Gates will chair this committee.

2) A second topic that was agreed to be of importance to the Council of Governments is that of identifying existing intermunicpal cooperative efforts and identifying opportunities for further cooperation between all levels of public sector bodies. Supervisor Gay Lenhard, Town of Ogden will chair the committee on this issue.

3) The Council agreed to begin looking at developing a countywide vision for the community, driven by municipal planning and development objectives. To this end, the Monroe County Planning staff was asked to prepare an inventory of municipal master plans and development regulations for review by the COG. It was also agreed that open space preservation was an important issue and that work should proceed to compile an inventory of County and municipal open space inventories and plans. The Steering Committee will oversee this work activity.

The value of having a Council of Governments has been quickly realized. Recently, a number of communities within Monroe County have been approached by a wireless Internet provider requesting a right-of-way agreement to use light poles to install transmitting devices. Recognizing that this is an issue that is common to most of us, an additional committee was formed to begin looking at the details of the proposed agreement as well as the procedural elements we need to put in place prior to accepting a right-of-way agreement. Supervisor Jim Smith, Town of Perinton has agreed to chair a committee which will look to pool resources to allow us to best address this issue and provide answers in a timely manner.

The Council of Governments is a unique opportunity to continue to build Monroe County as one of the best places to live, work and raise a family. The benefit is that we now have a forum that allows the chief elected officials of the 31 governmental entities within Monroe County to meet and develop a common agenda that reflects the interests and desires of the majority of residents in Monroe County.

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