VIEWPOINT: 5 Insights to Help You Start a Real-Estate Business

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A real-estate career, over the long term, can be a lucrative small business. Let’s take a look at five steps you should take to start a real-estate business (this is a condensed version of How to Start a Real Estate Business: The Definitive Step-by-Step Guide): 1. Develop and refine your idea. How do your natural strengths differentiate […]

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A real-estate career, over the long term, can be a lucrative small business.

Let’s take a look at five steps you should take to start a real-estate business (this is a condensed version of How to Start a Real Estate Business: The Definitive Step-by-Step Guide):

1. Develop and refine your idea.

How do your natural strengths differentiate you from the other real-estate businesses in the area? Consider the following questions:

• What skills set me apart?

• What is the purpose of my business?

• Who am I providing a service or product to?

• What is the maximum figure I can safely spend on this real-estate business?

• Do I need outside capital? How much?

• What kind of work/life balance am I looking to achieve?

• What are my expectations for starting a real-estate business?

Competition is hard enough — make it easier to stand out with a specialty when you start a real-estate company.

Maybe you want to be the area expert in short sales, only focus on rental-property management, or perhaps you are the go-to resource for landlord/tenant laws for your state.

It’s important to find a niche. Choosing a niche will increase your chance of success.

2. Write a business plan.

A business plan defines your company’s objectives and then provides specific information that shows how your company will reach those goals.

Although a business plan isn’t mandatory, it can help you to crystallize your ideas. Keep your business plan short and concise and focus on the essential details. There are several great one-page business-plan templates you can use.

3. Get a real-estate license.

There are four necessary steps you need to complete to get your real-estate license and start working as a realtor:

• Take the real estate pre-licensing course for your state. You’ll need to study the topics covered on the exam, including fair-housing laws, property-ownership types, fiduciary responsibilities, titles, deeds, contracts, and other necessary aspects of real-estate law.

• Pass the real-estate licensing exam. The exam length varies from about 1.5 hours to 3.5 hours, based on the state. In most states, you must answer 70 percent to 75 percent of the questions correctly to pass.

• Submit your license application to your state’s real-estate board as soon as you pass your exam. Your state may require all real-estate license applicants to submit their fingerprints for a criminal-background check.

• Find a real-estate broker. Having your license associated with a licensed brokerage is required to start working as a real-estate agent.

4. Create a strong brand identity.

Real-estate agents and brokers often market their services on the strength of their brand and personality.

Crafting a memorable brand identity is a crucial element for any real-estate professional.

Your brand identity represents how people know you and your business. It affects how customers perceive your reputation or the reputation of your company.

Ask yourself these essential questions:

• What identity/personality do I want my real-estate brand to project?

• Who will want my products or services?

• What can clients get from my services that they can’t get anywhere else?

• What can clients get from working with me that they can’t get anywhere else?

• What are my brand values?

• What is the most critical part of my customers’ experience?

Your answers to these questions (and others like them) will build the core of your brand. All of your future branding and rebranding decisions should expand on these ideas. Your business name, logo, and website should all grow from the concepts you laid out here.

Far too many real-estate companies have identical logos. Be sure your real-estate logo is unique.

And don’t forget about real-estate signage. Leave dull signs to others and instead, get real-estate signs that sell.

Whenever you make personal appearances, be sure to carry business cards and brochures for people who want to learn more about your services.

Before you decide that you should delay building a strong brand identity for your real-estate business because you might not have a considerable budget, rethink that plan. The truth is that you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on building a strong brand identity.

5. Build an online presence.

Customers choose real-estate services based on the brand, the real-estate professional behind the brand, and that person’s reputation. Your website is often the first contact point between you and potential clients. Make that first impression a good one with a well-designed site.

According to a study on homebuyers, 90 percent start their search online, and 40 percent contact a real-estate agent after researching the web.

You must be on the internet to compete in the real-estate market. Ensure that your website design truly embodies your real-estate brand. Visitors should understand who you are, the services you offer, and your qualifications and reputation.

Your real-estate website design and marketing copy should project your personal or broker’s brand voice and identity. Here are some suggestions:

• If you work as a real-estate agent, include a photo and bio. Homebuyers want to know the person behind the site.

• Be authentic and avoid marketing “happy talk.” Speak the same language as your customers.

• Include high-quality examples of sales you’ve closed, and make sure to include social proof wherever possible.

• Give site visitors an easy way to get in contact with you.

There’s a lot to think about when you’re starting your own real-estate business. But with this guide, you have a proven step-by-step plan that shows you how to start your own real-estate business.

Ross Kimbarovsky is founder and CEO at crowdspring. He mentors entrepreneurs through TechStars and Founder Institute and has founded numerous other startups, including Startup Foundry, Quickly Legal, and Respect. You can read his full guide, called “How to Start a Real Estate Business: The Definitive Step-by-Step Guide,” at https://www.crowdspring.com/blog/how-to-start-a-real-estate-business/

Lewis County Economic Development seeks developer for Lyons Falls property

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Regional News, Subscriber Only

LYONS FALLS, N.Y. — Lewis County Economic Development on March 1 said it is looking for people or companies interested in acquiring and redeveloping a 46-acre former industrial property at 3823 Marmon Road in Lyons Falls. The property is located adjacent to an active paper mill and the Moose River and sits just outside the

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The property is located adjacent to an active paper mill and the Moose River and sits just outside the boundary of New York’s Adirondack Park.

The organization has released a request for expressions of interest (RFEI) on the property.

ReEnergy Biomass previously owned the property, Brittany Davis, executive director of Lewis County Economic Development, tells CNYBJ in an email.

Lewis County Economic Development is looking for respondents with plans for the property that will “support economic growth in the local community and region, including creating new jobs and enhancing the local tax base,” per a March 1 news release.

“The IDA board and staff welcomes creative redevelopment ideas and concepts that will take advantage of the assets Lewis County offers, such as agriculture, our natural resources, and outdoor recreation and tourism industries. We look forward to seeing proposals that create jobs and enhance the local tax base,” Davis said in a news release about the property.

Until 2020, the property had been used as a biomass-to-electricity facility and still includes infrastructure that a future occupant can use at the site. After Lewis County Economic Development acquired the parcel, other “obsolete facilities” have been cleared from the site to create areas ready for new construction.

The “obsolete” items that were removed included a steam-plant building on the lower portion of the property. And on the upper portion, large equipment and tanks were removed, according to Davis.

Three buildings remain on the property, including a large steel building, an office building, and a mechanic building, along with truck lifts, scales and a large conveyor belt that was used for the biomass, Davis tells CNYBJ.

Lewis County Economic Development officials say they “see great potential” in the property, including several uses that would fit with the site and the potential to sub-divide the property for multiple uses.

“The proximity to water, timber and our strong agricultural base present a wide variety of development opportunities,” Davis said. “The property could take on a similar role as an industrial site, but we could also see the site used for housing or recreation. We are looking forward to what creative ideas and concepts result from the RFEI process.”

The organization is accepting “brief” expressions of interest through March 26. The document can be downloaded by visiting the Lewis County Economic Development website: www.naturallylewis.com/initiatives/lyonsdale-development-opportunity.

Officials will use the preliminary information provided by respondents to chart the next steps for the disposition of the property, which may include asking respondents to submit a full proposal for the property.

For immediate information on the property, contact Cheyenne Steria, director of finance & incentives at Lewis County Economic Development at (315) 376-3014, or email: cheyenne@naturallylewis.com.

Jefferson County hotel occupancy rate falls nearly 21 percent in January

Regional News, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — Hotels in Jefferson County saw a decline in guests in January compared to the year-ago month, as the COVID-19 crisis continued to hamper travel and hospitality businesses, according to a recent report. The hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county fell 20.7 percent to 28.8

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New York milk production edges up less than 1 percent in January

Regional News, Subscriber Only

New York dairy farms produced 1.3 billion pounds of milk in January, up 0.7 percent from almost 1.29 billion pounds in the year-prior month, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) recently reported. Production per cow in the state averaged 2,080 pounds in January, 0.7 percent higher than 2,065 pounds a year earlier. The number of milk

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New York egg production up slightly in January

Regional News, Subscriber Only

New York farms produced 148 million eggs in January, up 0.3 percent from 147.5 million eggs in the year-prior period, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) recently reported. The number of layers in the Empire State averaged nearly 5.79 million in January, up 1.2 percent from 5.72 million layers a year ago. January egg production per

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New York Air Brake develops improved rail-brake system

Manufacturing & Engineering, Regional News, Small Business, Subscriber Only, Technology

WATERTOWN — New York Air Brake LLC (NYAB) of Watertown announced it is working with a sister company on an “improved and innovative” brake system for passenger trains. NYAB is partnering on the product with Knorr Brake Company (KBC), which is headquartered in Westminster, Maryland. Both firms are sister companies within Munich, Germany–based Knorr-Bremse. Knorr-Bremse

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WATERTOWN — New York Air Brake LLC (NYAB) of Watertown announced it is working with a sister company on an “improved and innovative” brake system for passenger trains.

NYAB is partnering on the product with Knorr Brake Company (KBC), which is headquartered in Westminster, Maryland. Both firms are sister companies within Munich, Germany–based Knorr-Bremse.

Knorr-Bremse specializes in braking systems and is a supplier of other “safety-critical” rail and commercial-vehicle systems.

NYAB and KBC collaborated on a product called the EE-26 brake system, which the company says is “engineered for safety, performance, uptime, and lower total cost of ownership.”

The EE-26 uses electronic closed-loop control to provide “higher reliability, real-time” diagnostic capability, and a “platform for future advancements.” Designed in compliance with an American Public Transportation Association (APTA) standard, EE-26 is “aligned with new standards being adopted by many leading railways.”

“North American passenger railcars have been equipped with the same conventional pneumatic brake control for decades,” Michael Gibbs, KBC’s deputy director of OE sales, said in a release. “Now, with adoption of electropneumatic control technology significantly increasing in North America, we’ve engineered the EE-26 brake system with the capability to handle both true pneumatic and electropneumatic control of a braking system. It’s a bridge to the future of passenger car brake control.”

About NYAB

New York Air Brake develops and supplies air-brake control systems and components, electronically controlled braking systems, foundation brakes, training simulators and train-handling systems, and wayside equipment to the rail industry.

New York Air Brake was founded in 1890 and is headquartered in Watertown. The company has 750 total employees and operates manufacturing plants in Nixa, Missouri; Riverside, Missouri; Salisbury, North Carolina; West Chicago, Illinois; and Wheatland, Missouri; along with Train Dynamic Systems (TDS), a technology development unit located in Irving, Texas.

More on the product

In a “traditional purely pneumatic system,” individual passenger-car brakes are activated in response to changes in air pressure through a control pipe that runs the length of a train. In an electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) system, the brakes respond to electronic signals sent from the locomotive.

ECP braking — widely used across the rail industries in Europe, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia — provides “increased safety, improved train-level brake performance, and better diagnostics,” NYAB and KBC said.

“We often relate the comparative communications speed of pneumatic and ECP signals through a brake system to the speed of sound versus the speed of light,” Brendan Crowley, NYAB manager of sales and systems engineering, explained. “In addition to the safety and performance enhancements of greater signal speed, ECP systems deliver real-time diagnostic information and alerts to operators and maintenance staff, which benefits train engineers and technicians, improves train handling, and decreases maintenance downtime.”

Based on NYAB’s EP-60 product line, the EE-26 brake system “represents the future” of passenger ECP braking in North America, the sister companies contend. The system increases the recommended valve overhaul period to 10 years, “more than doubling the previous four-year period,” per the release.

The EE-26’s design, the firms contend, “saves space, makes installation easier for car manufacturers, and provides more accessible maintenance compared to existing traditional pipe-mounted equipment.” Additionally, the EE-26’s integrated diagnostics technology and vehicle networking are supposed to make it easier to spot problems earlier and make repairs more quickly.

The EE-26 system has undergone a “rigorous battery of testing” at both KBC and NYAB’s laboratories and has been under continuous field trial in North America since 2014, accumulating over 1.8 million miles of service, the companies said.

New owners take over two North Country businesses

Regional News, Small Business, Subscriber Only

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. — Two North Country businesses have been sold to new owners, according to the North Country Center for Businesses in Transition (CBIT). CBIT made the Jan. 28 announcement as the partnership enters its third year supporting transitioning businesses. Over the last two years, retiring owners of Tug Hill Vineyards and Adirondack Soy

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SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. — Two North Country businesses have been sold to new owners, according to the North Country Center for Businesses in Transition (CBIT).

CBIT made the Jan. 28 announcement as the partnership enters its third year supporting transitioning businesses.

Over the last two years, retiring owners of Tug Hill Vineyards and Adirondack Soy Candles used local business-support services and resources — including CBIT’s community liaison network — to develop business-succession plans and connect with potential buyers.

“Preparing to sell a business can be intimidating,” Jenna Kraeger, economic-development specialist at Lewis County Economic Development, one of CBIT’s new community liaisons, said in a release. “These stories are testament to the hard work and dedication of these business owners, their professional services team and the economic development staff who supported them through the transition process.”

The North Country Center for Businesses in Transition works to “to help owners sell their businesses on the open market, complete intergenerational family transitions or convert to an employee-owned or cooperative model,” per the website of the Adirondack North Country Association (ANCA)

CBIT is a collaboration of regional organizations and leaders that seeks to support existing business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs in developing successful business-transition strategies, ANCA said.

Tug Hill Vineyards

Sue and Mike Maring decided it was time to sell Tug Hill Vineyards in Lowville, a farm winery that grows French-American cold-hardy grapes.

The Marings planned, connected with professional support, and were “patient and flexible” in finding the right buyers. As a result, they successfully passed on their business to the Beller family this past January, CBIT said.

Jon and Taren Beller — and their three sons, Owen, Ty, and Dax — are long-time Lewis County residents. Jon Beller is an owner at Beller Farms where his family has milked cows for more than 100 years. Taren Beller is a special-education teacher in Beaver Falls, a hamlet in the town of Croghan in Lewis County.

“We are very excited to be purchasing Tug Hill Vineyards,” Jon Beller said. “It is truly a dream come true for us and combines Taren’s love of cooking and country style with my hobby of fruit trees and all things orchard related. We look forward to working together as a family to maintain and grow the wonderful business the Marings have established. We plan to make small changes, growing the restaurant and events, and adding more family-friendly activities. The staff at Tug Hill Vineyards are all maintaining their current roles and have been very patient teaching us about a business we knew little about.”

Adirondack Soy Candles

Another business — Adirondack Soy Candles, a home-based candle company in Saranac Lake — also transferred to new ownership. The 17-year-old business now belongs to Terry Reed, who is the store manager at The Village Mercantile, also in Saranac Lake.

Previous owner Sue Amell moved out of the region and continued to operate the business from out of state. She explored various transition options and contacted CBIT in 2018. She wanted her candle company to continue to grow in the place where it “took root.”

Reed told Patrick Murphy, executive director of the Saranac Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, that she credits CBIT and the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for “making the transition process run smoothly,” per the CBIT release.

“The connection with SBDC made possible by CBIT was wonderful. We had a great conversation with them to help start our business. The resources they provided were great and being able to go back to them to review was really good too,” Reed said. “SBDC provided the resources to help us understand how to finance the purchase … I had no clue on how to even get a tax ID number. [CBIT] really got me moving forward and where I needed to go to get the business moving.”

Reed also praised Amell, who supported her with an informal “apprenticeship” over the phone in the months leading up to the sale.

March 8, 2021 People on the Move News

People on the Move, Subscriber Only

Want to be listed in our weekly People on the Move? Email your information to movers@cnybj.com ACCOUNTINGD’Arcangelo & Co., LLP recently announced several promotions and new hires. JENNIFER TAYLOR is a tax partner and a CPA with more than nine years of experience with the firm. She has extensive experience in individual and small- to

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ACCOUNTING
D’Arcangelo & Co., LLP recently announced several promotions and new hires.

JENNIFER TAYLOR is a tax partner and a CPA with more than nine years of experience with the firm. She has extensive experience in individual and small- to medium-sized business taxation. Taylor specializes in tax preparation for individuals and businesses, compilation and review engagements in various industries, QuickBooks consulting, and small-business consulting. She works out of the East Syracuse office. Taylor is a graduate of Clarkson University and Syracuse University.

ABIGAIL (ABBY) DRUMM is a tax partner and a CPA with more than eight years of public-accounting experience. Drumm’s experience has been focused on federal and state income tax compliance and consultation. She specializes in individual income-tax preparation and planning; federal and multi-state income-tax preparation and planning for corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietors in a variety of industries; new-business consultation; bookkeeping support, payroll, and payroll taxes; and financial-statement preparation, reviews, and compilations. Drumm works from the firm’s Utica office. She is a graduate of Syracuse University and the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

BEN MACIEWICZ has been promoted to audit manager. He is a graduate of SUNY Brockport and has been with the firm since 2015 working on a variety of complex audit engagements. Maciewicz works primarily from the firm’s Utica office.

Additional promotions at the firm are NIKKI TUBBS, ERIC ARMITAGE, CHASE LARSEN, and STEVEN NEUHAUSER to senior accountant. ANDREW MUCICA, KATIE MARRIS, DALTON ELIAS, MARY ELLEN BROCKWAY, VALERIE HAMILTON, and NICK BARNES have also joined the firm as new hires.

ARCHITECTS
Keystone Associates Architects, Engineers and Surveyors, LLC, has hired ANTHONY AMBROSIO as a technician in the architectural department. His duties include CADD drafting, design, field investigations, and conducting code reviews. Ambrosio has nine years of experience in project management and CADD drafting for hospitality, residential, and commercial facilities. He holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Capiz State University in the Philippines.

BANKING
KeyBank Community Development Lending and Investment (CDLI) has appointed KATE DE LA GARZA as a senior relationship manager to expand community development lending and investment activity in the Northeast. She will be focused on KeyBank’s community-development banking efforts in New York state and the surrounding markets, which are critical to the bank’s affordable-housing growth plan. De La Garza is based in Syracuse and reports to Kyle Kolesar, CDLI eastern region manager. She brings more that 15 years of affordable-housing experience in finance, development, and consulting. Prior to joining Key, she was a VP and senior project manager at US Bank Community Development Corporation. De La Garza also previously worked at Beacon Development Group and Capitol Hill Housing. She earned her master’s degree in urban planning & public affairs from the University of Washington and her bachelor’s degree from Smith College in Massachusetts.

EDUCATION
Herkimer County Community College has appointed FREDDY J. CICCHETTI, III as admissions assistant. He is the former senior adviser of international admissions and outreach at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, where he oversaw all aspects of international student recruitment and enrollment. Cicchetti earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from CUNY Baruch College and his master’s degree in communication arts from the New York Institute of Technology. He also served as the assistant director of admissions and then the associate director of international admissions at the New York Institute of Technology. In his new role with the Herkimer College Admissions Office, Cicchetti will help the college meet undergraduate enrollment goals through a variety of marketing and recruitment initiatives, as well as help prospective students with the admission and enrollment process.

ENGINEERING
RANDY ARNOLD has joined C&S as a senior project environmental scientist. He will serve as the manager for C&S’s new hazardous building materials consulting services line. Arnold has more than 20 years of diverse environmental consulting experience. His expertise is in performing and managing hazardous-material surveys, abatement design, and monitoring services for asbestos, lead, PCBs, and other hazardous materials. His background includes providing extensive services to public and private-sector clients, including health care, pharmaceutical, private developers, K-12 education, colleges/universities, municipalities, industrial, commercial, and the energy sector. Arnold was previously a senior project manager at Asbestos & Environmental Consulting Corp, where he performed hazardous-material services and managed complex hazardous material and environmental projects for clients throughout New York. He also previously worked at Kleinfelder Inc., and AECOM. Arnold is a New York-certified asbestos project monitor, building inspector and designer.

HEALTH CARE
DR. THOMAS J. WELCH II recently joined the St. Joseph’s Health Cardiovascular Institute in DeWitt, which provides cardiology care to the community. Welch earned his medical degree from the University of Virginia and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan. Dr. Welch completed a residency at the University of Virginia. Prior to joining St. Joseph’s Health, he served as a fellow at the University of Rochester, focusing on complex coronary intervention and structural heart interventions. Dr. Welch is board certified in cardiovascular disease and internal medicine. He specializes in interventional cardiology and is an active member of the American College of Cardiology. St. Joseph’s Health Cardiovascular Institute is located at 4939 Brittonfield Pkwy.

REAL ESTATE
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices CNY Realty announced that SEAN HAGAN has earned his associate real estate broker license. He became a licensed salesperson in 2011 and has been the top producing agent in the Cazenovia School District for several consecutive years with a total volume of more than $47 million in sales. Hagan works from Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices CNY Realty’s Cazenovia office serving Madison and Onondaga counties. He served six years in the Marine Corps as a military police officer. Hagan owned a landscaping company prior to earning his real-estate license.

SPORTS
MIKE SCHMIDT has joined the Syracuse Orange football program as the offensive-line coach. Schmidt comes to Syracuse from San Diego State, where he served as an assistant coach for the last 12 years, after graduating from the university, including the last nine years as offensive-line coach. Schmidt replaces Mike Cavanaugh, who left Syracuse after three seasons, to take the offensive-line coach position at Arizona State. Under Schmidt’s tutelage, San Diego State consistently ran the ball well and 15 different offensive linemen earned All-Mountain West honors, including six first-team honorees in the past six seasons. In 2017, Schmidt’s line paved the way for All-American running back Rashaad Penny to lead the nation in rushing. The year prior, Donnell Pumphrey became the NCAA’s all-time leading rusher with 6,405 yards and the Aztec offense set program records in rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, and points. Prior to coaching the offensive line, Schmidt worked with the San Diego State program as an offensive graduate assistant from 2010-11. He got into coaching after a successful playing career at San Diego State from 2005-08 that saw him transition from a walk-on defensive lineman to a scholarship offensive lineman and team captain in his senior season.

AMEER RILEY has joined the Colgate Raiders football program as an assistant coach for the secondary. Riley, a Colgate alum and former football star, joins the team’s coaching staff after one season of coaching at Miami Northwestern Senior High School and five seasons at St. Thomas Aquinas School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He served as defensive coordinator at both stops and also as the strength and conditioning coach for St. Thomas Aquinas, a high-school football powerhouse. Riley graduated from Colgate in 2002. He played safety for the Raiders football team from 1998-2001 and was a two-time All-Patriot League selection. He earned First Team honors in 2001 and was named to the 2001 Don Hansen Football National Gazette All-American Team. A native of Norwood, Massachusetts, Riley went on to play professionally for three seasons in the Arena Football League, before later getting into coaching.

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OPINION: Health-Budget Hearing Offers No Closure in Nursing-Home Cover-Up

Opinion, Subscriber Only

[On Feb. 25], New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker was questioned regarding the Department of Health’s (DOH) budget and response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The budget hearing was designed to review the public-health portion of the executive’s budget proposal. As such, it fell woefully short as a platform to obtain an understanding of the full

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The question-and-answer portion of the meeting was severely limited — legislators barely had enough time to ask their questions, let alone time enough to get adequate answers. The need for more hearings is evident. When the topic of nursing-home deaths did come up, Zucker was predictably evasive. He stuck to the same narrative he has in recent months, saying he needs more time to get information requested and the DOH followed relevant directives. Zucker maintained that the March 25 order requiring nursing homes to admit COVID-19-positive patients had little to do with the spread of the virus.

On this matter, Zucker’s testimony is in direct contradiction to an Empire Center report that found a direct correlation between that order and additional nursing-home deaths. According to their analysis, as many as 1,000 more residents died between March and early May due to the DOH directive.

Our Assembly Minority Conference has continually called for both state and federal subpoenas and a full investigation into potential criminal actions that took place during the pandemic and subsequent cover-up of the true number of deaths that occurred in elder-care facilities. [The Feb. 25] budget hearing must not be construed as a means of closure. Until a full investigation is launched, and answers are provided under oath, we are still in the beginning stages of finding the truth.

It is disheartening that we are still so far from a full picture of what took place. The Assembly and Senate Majority Conferences continue to rebuff our calls for subpoenas, and they have still not acted to remove Gov. Cuomo’s emergency powers as some indicated they would. State government is moving far too slowly for the people of New York. Every day the families of those who died do not have answers is a day that this state has broken its promise to deliver equity and justice for all its residents.

William (Will) A. Barclay, Republican, is the New York Assembly Minority Leader and represents the 120th New York Assembly District, which encompasses most of Oswego County, including the cities of Oswego and Fulton, as well as the town of Lysander in Onondaga County and town of Ellisburg in Jefferson County. Contact Barclay at barclaw@assembly.state.ny.us.

OPINION: Our Country Rests on People Doing the Right Thing

Opinion, Subscriber Only

As the events of the past few months have unfolded, I have often found myself wondering what our Founders would have made of it all. Impossible to know, of course, but they had plenty of insight to offer. In particular, I keep returning to these lines from James Madison. He delivered them during the Virginia convention to

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In particular, I keep returning to these lines from James Madison. He delivered them during the Virginia convention to ratify the Constitution, arguing that the surest safeguard against legislators and a government bent on malfeasance is the people themselves. “I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom,” he said. “Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks—no form of government can render us secure.” We depend, he said, not on the virtue of the people we elect, but of “the people who are to choose them.”

That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? Our country rests on the faith that we the people will do the right thing. The design of our government may be remarkable, but it does not matter nearly as much as the qualities of the American people and their capacity to make it work. If we do not step up, if we do not invest our time and energy and abilities in making the system work, it will not.

One of the remarkable aspects of the founding era was that a relative handful of people, in a country that did not even number 4 million at the time, developed a constitution with very little to go on and then made it work. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and a few others had the skills, knowledge, and insight to hammer out, debate, and craft a system from the ground up, then to articulate it and persuade the political elite that this republican form of government could work.

And what may have been most impressive was that they had confidence in the notion that people had the capacity to govern themselves. Yes, they hedged, both in the elaborate balance of power they built and in who actually got to vote. But they also created a system that, over the centuries, was capable of expanding the franchise and delivering a more equitable, broader voice in government because that was the idea at its core.

A key aspect of that idea, as Madison articulated, is that virtue is part of republican government. This sounds strange to say in the modern world. We tend to think of “virtue” as moral probity or honesty or integrity. Madison and the other Founders had something more encompassing in mind. They thought of virtue as including a sense of civic self-sacrifice — the ability to overcome self-interest and act for the benefit of the broader community. And they expected it not just in political leaders, but in citizens themselves.

What may be most striking is that they had confidence in the American people to carry out this grand experiment and believed in the patriotism and capacity of those people to serve as protectors of civil liberties and of the due process of democracy. I could not help but think of that faith in the wake of last November’s election, as countless poll workers and elections officials in towns and cities and states around the country stoically carried on their work to the best of their ability in the face of unrelenting antagonism.

We remain in a time of great testing for the system Madison and his generation created. Though it is a remarkable constitutional design, created during a period of enormous change, turmoil, and confusion, they understood that the whole thing would fail if the people lacked the capacity to make it work. A lot of Americans have lost trust in the government, in the system as a whole, and in one another. This is not without reason. But it helps to look back and remember that everything rests on us — on our ability to choose our leaders wisely, to work with one another, and to reward the Founders’ faith that ordinary people can, by dint of their efforts, make this a more perfect union.

Lee Hamilton, 89, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south central Indiana.

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