Kevin Gaughan

Kevin P. Gaughan (Born March 17, 1954) is an attorney and an advocate of government reform, in particular for the establishment of regional government and regional consciousness within the Buffalo-Niagara region, which encompasses the cities of Buffalo, New York and Niagara Falls, New York, their suburbs and surrounding rural areas. Gaughan became a nationally-recognized advocate of regionalism largely because of a series of regionalism conferences at the Chautauqua Institution in which he organized in 1997 [http://www.lwvbn.org/sprawl/wned.html] . The following year he was named a citizen of the year by the Buffalo News, and in 2001 he became the yougest recipient of the Red Jacket Medal, awarded by the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society for civic leadership.

Politics

Gaughan is the son of a judge who acted as an advisor to several presidents including Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. The family relationship continued when Kevin became college roommate to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while both were undergraduates at Harvard University. Later, Gaughan studied law at Georgetown University and international relations at the London School of Economics. He opened a law office in the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg, and in 2005 ran for the mayoralty of Buffalo losing the Democratic primary to State Senator and eventual mayor Byron Brown. In early 2006 he launched an abortive campaign for the senate seat vacated by Brown, but dropped out at the urging of local Democratic Party leaders, who backed another candidate. In 2007 when David Swarts was appointed Commissioner of the NYS Department of Motor Vehciles and the office of Erie County Clerk was vacated he sought to be appointed as Erie County Clerk.

Writings and Activism

Gaughan is the author of "At First Light: Strengthening Buffalo Niagara in the New Century" which was published by the Canisius College Press in 2003. The book is a collection of speeches and short essays by Gaughan on such subjects as regionalism, government reform, race relations, US and local history, and patriotism. The forward to this book was written by his former roommate, RFK Jr. Additionally, Gaughan is on the Advisory Committee for SUNY Buffalo's Institute for Local Governance.

In late 2006, he released the results of a study entitled "The Cost" which detailed the amount paid to elected and appointed officials at various levels of government in the Buffalo-Niagara region. He compared this to other regions and found that Buffalo-Niagara had significantly more paid elected officials than other regions in both absolute and per capita measures. Additionally, a high number of small towns replicating services- such as police, highway maintenance and parks departments lead to a higher number of civil-service government employees. Gaughan uses these numbers to support his thesis that entire layers of government should be done away with in Buffalo-Niagara.

ee also

*Unigov
*Council of Governments

References

* Gaughan, Kevin P. "At First Light: Strengthening Buffalo Niagara in the New Century". Buffalo, New York: Canisius College Press, 2003.

External links

* [http://www.kevingaughan.com/ Gaughan's Personal website]
* [http://www.thecost.org/ "The Cost" study website]
* [http://artvoice.com/multimedia/gaughans_got_your_number Clip of Gaughan speaking on the history of Buffalo-Niagara]
* [http://www.canisius.edu/ccpress/at_first_light.asp Canisius College Press "At First Light" page]
* [http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20061106/1043228.asp Buffalo News Editorial Discussing "The Cost"]
* [http://www.speakupwny.com/Government_Cost_Waste_Erie_County.shtml Article about "The Cost"]
* [http://regional-institute.buffalo.edu/ Buffalo Regional Institute]