COMMENTARY
Bruce Andriatch: The promises were empty, Dr. Mohan
Published: March 17, 2009, 12:30 am
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Dear Dr. Mohan: I felt compelled to write you this letter after reading over the weekend that you would not run for another term as Amherst town supervisor.
I have watched you and read about you for more than three years. Like many Amherst residents, I had high hopes you would be the agent for change this region desperately needs.
But in the end, it’s hard to escape the feeling that, as town supervisor, you were little more than a nice man whose heart was in the right place but had no idea how to accomplish anything substantive or lasting.
There was no question you were different from the candidates we usually get around here. You had no political experience. You’re an engineering professor, a 73-year-old man who came to the United States from India three decades earlier to start a new life.
We had never elected anyone like you to any suburban office.
But you made us love you. You promised to reduce spending by 10 percent and cut taxes by 15 percent. You said you would do something about our skyrocketing assessments. You pledged to help the people who live in homes that are sinking because of soil problems.
Three years later, you haven’t accomplished any of those goals—unless you consider this year’s eye-popping reassessments doing something.
Why didn’t you keep your promises? During your news conference Friday, you said of the planned tax cut: “There was no political will on the Town Board.”
I wonder why. After this newspaper conducted a survey of your colleagues and associates to gauge your performance as supervisor, you were asked about your seeming lack of ability to compromise. Your response? “Compromise means what—half corruption, half honesty?”
A politician might have answered the question without suggesting that people who disagree with him are corrupt. Is it any wonder that some Town Board colleagues and others found it hard to work with you?
We should have known from the start that you didn’t understand how politics works. You all but told us so.
On that shocking November night in 2005, when you managed to unseat a two-term incumbent to become supervisor of Erie County’s largest town, you decided not to visit party headquarters.
“We really do not oppose the party leaders,” you said. “But there are no voters there.”
You were so naive.
At first, we applauded you for it. You honestly didn’t care a whit about politics. In retrospect, you should have. Because politics also means building bridges, finding consensus where none is apparent for the greater good. I’m not sure you ever understood that.
One of the first times you made headlines was at an Erie County Industrial Development Agency meeting when you dared to say out loud that the agency should not give tax breaks to profitable companies that need to be in Western New York. It was your “The emperor has no clothes” moment, and people ate it up. Residents in other towns started talking about wanting their own Satish. But in Amherst, you were one vote, which counted exactly as much as the other six on the Town Board.
You should be applauded for keeping at least one of your promises, the one you made to serve for one term only. You have held fast to your belief that people are not well-served by career politicians.
Maybe so. I just wish you had given us more reason to want you to hang around.
Yours truly,
Bruce Andriatch
bandriatch@buffnews.com
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