Elmira's Greatest Catastrophe...Was it Really the Flood?
An investigation into Agnes, the devastating flood of 1972 that impacted Elmira, New York.
What happened to executive government in Elmira—and why? In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression and amid serious municipal financial difficulties, Elmira began questioning the very structure of its government. Through the pages of the Elmira Star-Gazette, citizens debated taxes, efficiency, political machines, patronage, party influence, executive power and whether an elected mayor or professional City Manager should run the administration. Plan C won—but by only 794 votes. The result was 5,074 to 4,280, with nearly 46 percent voting against the change. The decision transferred the city's principal executive and administrative function away from the elected mayor and into the City Manager system that would shape Elmira government for generations. But the original newspaper record reveals something remarkable. Opponents warned that Plan C might not eliminate political influence at all. If political parties controlled the council, they argued, those politicians would ultimately control the body responsible for hiring and retaining the City Manager. Evidence from Binghamton was presented to Elmira voters warning that political influence over appointments had persisted even after manager government was adopted. In this three-part Raven for Mayor Elmira Investigation, Julian Raven returns to the original 1932 record and asks whether Elmira attempted to solve a political problem by redesigning government instead of confronting partisan control itself. The investigation culminates in Raven's alternative for Elmira: restore a full-time elected executive mayor, elect six independent councilmembers, reduce formal party control of municipal government, preserve professional administration and checks and balances, and return direct responsibility for executive performance to an official elected by the people. Ninety-four years ago, Elmira was willing to reconsider its government because circumstances demanded it. The question now is whether this generation is willing to do the same.