Reporter Volume 25, No.15 February 3, 1994

By MARK WALLACE
Reporter Staff

Getting involved with the community, and giving something back--to New
York State, and to the greater Buffalo area--that's the push behind
the University at Buffalo's new Institute of Government, which
inaugurated its activities Jan. 27 with a Local Government Symposium
for Western New York local government officials in the Center for
Tomorrow.
	The all-day symposium was designed to introduce local
government officials to the various types of training and information
services that the institute will provide, and to begin the process of
improving the quality of governmental operations and policy-making in
New York that is central to the institute's mission, said Molly
McKeown, assistant vice president for governmental relations and
director of the institute.
	The institute was created to help UB become a facilitator of
the training of government officials in New York State, and to make
resources and services available for state and local government
officials, McKeown said. The institute will help train elected and
appointed officials in the things they need to know as administrators,
she said.
	"We plan to work with various government bodies, commissions,
associations, and committees, and to bring various groups and
individuals together both from inside and outside UB," McKeown said.
"We will work with mayors, county legislators, school boards, town
supervisors, aldermen, and others.
	"We will provide the training they need in a variety of areas,
such as how to deal with budgeting, with questions of ethics, with the
media, and other hot topics such as waste management," McKeown said.
The institute will provide opportunities for officials from different
communities and different levels of government to come together, share
techniques and ideas, and develop a network of peers, she said.
	According to McKeown, the Institute of Government will provide
services similar to several other institutes currently operating
across the country--the Kennedy School at Harvard, the Institute of
Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the
Lyndon Baines Johnson School at the University of Texas at Austin, and
the University of Georgia Institute of Government. "Our focus will be
on practical training," McKeown said. "We are not issue-oriented like
organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation."
	The institute is strictly non-partisan and does not advocate
any particular policy or agenda, she said. According to McKeown, the
Institute will draw on such diverse academic disciplines as Political
Science, Education, Law, Architecture and Planning, Management and
Social Work, as well as the Edwin F. Jaeckle Center for State and
Local Government Law.
	At the symposium, interaction, discussion and debate were
lively, as government officials from around New York State aired their
concerns on a variety of topics. Symposium sessions included a local
government overview, and sessions on government ethics, governmental
budgeting, waste management, and dealing with the media.
	Francis J. Pordum, state assemblyman for the 146th District
and chair of the local governments committee, was the featured speaker
at the luncheon.
	In his remarks, Pordum told the gathered government officials
"you're out in the trenches every day. As a state assemblyman, I'm
away from my home town three to four days of every week. But if
something goes wrong in your communities, people know how to find
you."
	Pordum said that government at the state and national level
has often been lax in developing aid through means such as
revenue-sharing projects that can help local governments with their
tax burden. "We in Albany, and the federal government, have to do a
better job," he said.
	He said that relief mandates at the state level have often
come at the request of local governments, and stressed the necessity
of keeping dialogue open between state and local governments. He
pointed to his recent work on reforming Industrial Development
Agencies (IDAs) as an example of giving local government more input on
the issues that affect them.
	"You have to be partisan to get elected," Pordum said, "but
once you do, then it's your job to represent people. We should try to
work together to make this a better state to live in."
	McKeown said that the symposium "was our pilot project and
featured a number of top speakers. A lot of written material was given
out, and we will be doing a variety of follow-ups. This is just the
beginning of the variety of expertise that we are going to bring in,
both from our own School of Management and from outside UB as well.
	"We are proud to establish this institute at UB," McKeown told
symposium participants in her opening remarks. "It offers us what we
think is a very important way to become a more active partner in your
public service. Public service is central to our mission as a SUNY
campus, and sharing information and exchanging ideas are central to
our mission as a university.
	"These are the things that we do best. Doing them with and for
you is a special and significant part of our job."