When Mike Plochocki was a child, his grandparents told him he wouldn’t get elected to any political office. When he became a teenager, Plochocki recalled, his parents told him to stay away from a career in law and politics. So when he went to college, Plochocki did what any teenager would do: he majored in government.
“I was destined to prove them wrong,” said Plochocki, 39.
Now, Plochocki—former mayor of Marcellus — is the Republican candidate for the open District 6 seat in the Onondaga County Legislature. His opponent is Democrat Toby Shelley, a deputy in the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department.
District 6 is in the southwestern part of Onondaga County, including Marcellus, Skaneateles, Spafford, Otisco and a small southern portion of Camillus.
Election day is Nov. 8.
In the election, Plochocki has a strong advantage in voter enrollment. Of the district’s 19,631 registered voters, 41 percent are Republicans. That compares to 26 percent Democrats and 24 percent unaffiliated with any party.
Plochocki’s younger brother James Plochocki is also his campaign manager. He describes Mike Plochocki as a “moderate” Republican who’s willing to challenge his own party. “He won’t pander, put up a front, try to blindly follow the party in the wrong direction,” said James Plochocki. “He is loyal to the party but not afraid to let them know when they’re doing something he doesn’t agree with.”
For example, when Mike Plochocki ran for the District 6 seat in 2005, he supported environmental-protection measures and ran on the Abraham Lincoln Party line after losing in the Republican primary. His decision to run as a third-party candidate and support an environmental platform made him unpopular among area Republicans, Mike Plochocki said.
In his campaign for the District 6 seat, Plochocki is promising to keep tax rates the same, to bring green technology companies to Central New York and to keep the financially troubled Van Duyn Home and Hospital open as a county-run facility.
Plochocki’s political resume includes: Cornell student body president, 1992. Intern at the White House, 1992. Intern in Governor Pataki’s Executive Office. Staff attorney for the New York State Supreme Court 4th Department Appellate Division in Rochester, 1997 to 1999. Issues researcher for John McCain’s presidential campaign, 2000. Onondaga County Legislature District 6 seat candidate, 2005. Mayor of Marcellus, 2006 to 2010.
Plochocki was a member of Boy Scouts of America throughout elementary, middle and high school. In college, he was elected the president of the Boy Scouts’ Explorer Program. He’s a member of the Marcellus Optimist Club, an adult organization that engages youth in community service.
Plochocki met his wife Debi, also a member of the Optimist Club, in Marcellus Hefferman Elementary School during the first grade. They married in 2003.
He has his law degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He also received a certificate in environmental law from SUNY Buffalo. He pursued environmental law, he said, because “I’m a child of the 70’s and Earth Day and all that. ” Added Plochocki, “Even though I come from a Republican family, they are teachers and pro-environment and so ever since I was a kid I was learning about recycling.”
In 1991, as an example of his environmental interest, Plochocki was elected the Cornell student body president by running on both the Republican and Green Party lines. He had allied with the Greens, he said, because they were starting a recycling campaign
As Marcellus mayor, Plochocki pushed another environmental initiative- improving the town’s urban forest. “We literally planted hundreds of trees on village streets,” Plochocki said. “We planted more trees than were ever planted in any four-year period in the history of the town.”
In his District 6 campaign, Plochocki is also promising to use his environmental background to bring green-technology companies to the area. And he will work to lower taxes, he said, through job growth and by cutting spending.
Marcellus Republican town chair, Dan Ross has known Plochocki since Plochocki was in high school. Controlling county costs is the first thing Plochocki would do if elected, Ross said.
He would “try to find efficient ways to provide services to residents that the country traditionally provides without looking to raise taxes,” Ross said. “I think the fiscal conservative policies are going to come first.”
One service Plochocki plans to preserve is the county-run Van Duyn Home and Hospital. His own grandparents spent their last years there, he said. And if Van Duyn closes, many of its patients would be homeless, he said.
Van Duyn’s hospital counterpart, Community General, is now part of SUNY Upstate Medical University. Plochocki proposes that Upstate also take over control of Van Duyn from Onondaga County. This would give Van Duyn access to both private and public funds and give it the financing to stay open, Plochocki said.
(Callan Gray is a junior majoring in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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