The Spitzer Legacy: Silda Wall Spitzer’s Effects and Michelle Paige Paterson’s Prospects

Paterson plans a less active and extensive role in her husband’s administration

Dan Rivoli

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:09:00

New York did not just lose a governor when Eliot Spitzer resigned. The state lost a first lady, too.
Like her husband, Silda Wall Spitzer came into Albany as a strong-minded reformer. She did not have another job, intent instead on transforming the first lady’s office to enhance its responsibility beyond the kind of advocacy work her predecessors had done.
Two of Wall Spitzer’s initiatives were an outgrowth of her husband’s agenda: improving the environment and upstate economic development, which she often spoke about as being directly related.
Her extension of Spitzer’s agenda earned her comparisons to Hillary Clinton, and the Spitzers as a couple nurtured the “two-for-one” reputation. Wall Spitzer, while not paid by the state, had three full-time staffers on the state’s payroll.

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The new first lady, Michelle Paige Paterson, has limited the scope of her office. She has only one employee, a chief of staff. In her official capacity, she will focus exclusively on childhood obesity. She will be keeping her job as an executive at the Health Insurance Plan of New York (HIP).
“Childhood obesity is one of the serious issues facing our state and nation,” said Paterson in a statement. “As first lady, I plan to work on several initiatives to get kids eating right and enjoying exercise.”
Meanwhile, Wall Spitzer’s lasting legacy remains unclear.
Robin Schimminger (D-Erie/Niagara), chair of the Assembly’s Economic Development Committee, said he believes she was integral to the efforts to improve upstate.
“There’s no handbook on the role of a first lady, whether in Washington or Albany,” Schimminger said. “These are areas she chose to be involved in, much to her credit.”
Wall Spitzer’s “I Live NY” campaign, which led to the creation of the Young Leaders Congress (YLC), was an extension of the $1 billion dedicated to upstate economic development her husband had proposed.
A member of the YLC declined comment on the future of the organization, but mentioned that possible plans are being discussed.
Wall Spitzer appointed 15 people to the YLC, which she chaired, to try to fix upstate New York’s “brain drain” of young talent fleeing the area for job opportunities.
“Her ‘I Live NY’ initiative was ingenious and well placed,” said Schimminger. “It was a real bonus for an initiative like ‘I Live NY’ to have her arms around it.”
Due to the renewed efforts to attract recent college graduates to upstate New York, by several lawmakers, Schimminger said that the program could survive without Wall Spitzer.
“The program is not necessarily defunct,” he said.
Tying green technology to a new job market upstate, Wall Spitzer proposed environmental initiatives such as making the governor’s mansion the first in the nation to be green and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified.
“She was very realistic about saying, ‘If we’re going to talk the talk we need to walk the walk,’” said Peter Arsenault, a Rochester-based architect for Stantec Sustainable Solutions.
The greening of the mansion seems set to continue under the Patersons, but there is not likely to be the kind of press or fanfare for the process that Wall Spitzer fostered.
Arsenault said the lasting impact of Wall Spitzer’s emphasis on greening the mansion is showing that environmentally-sound living is achievable, which was a task placed mainly on businesses and corporations.

“It was certainly sending the right message to New Yorkers that sustainability starts at home,” Arsenault said. “I give her a lot of credit for that.”
On the state level, Wall Spitzer promoted a policy by the state Dormitory Authority that required all new state construction projects managed by the public benefit corporation to be LEED certified.
“It is leadership at that level that will help drive the green building market forward,” said Tracie Hall, executive director of the upstate New York chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council.
Hall is confident that Paterson will also be committed to improving the upstate economy, and she believes the new administration will continue to focus on green technology. She called this a testament to Wall Spitzer’s initiatives.
And, she hopes, Wall Spitzer will continue to be involved herself.
“People who adopt these types of agendas don’t do it for political purposes,” Hall said. “We hope that as a private citizen, the former first lady will continue her passion and advocacy.”