Audio Interview, Bill Pritchard, February 16, 2012

BILL PRITCHARD: This is a good microphone?

I won't have to shout?

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

It will pick it up fine.

I'm here with Bill Pritchard in his now new hometown.

And we've been talking about the past, and the Alliance,

and his contribution to politics in Rochester.

And it was very interesting for me to hear his story

pre-Rochester and how he came to be in Rochester

and how he and Michael met.

So the first thing I wanted to do was ask you

where were you born?

BILL PRITCHARD: St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then you went to high school?

BILL PRITCHARD: In Hilton.

EVELYN BAILEY: So you were from Hilton?

BILL PRITCHARD: Yeah.

Actually yeah, from Hilton.

I grew up in Hilton.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then where did you go to college?

BILL PRITCHARD: St. John Fisher College.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then you went into the military?

BILL PRITCHARD: Yep.

Air Force.

Air Force Intelligence.

EVELYN BAILEY: Air Force Intelligence.

Talk to me about that.

BILL PRITCHARD: Well, I can't, because otherwise I'd be shot.

(Laughter)

EVELYN BAILEY: Then talk to me about your experience.

Were you out in the Air Force?

BILL PRITCHARD: No.

I mean, not at work.

But my social life was all gay.

EVELYN BAILEY: And were you out in high school?

BILL PRITCHARD: No.

I wasn't out to myself.

I didn't know in high school.

I suspected but didn't know.

No, it wasn't until I got into college.

EVELYN BAILEY: And in the military did

you experience any negativity because of your being gay?

BILL PRITCHARD: No, they didn't know.

I mean, the people I worked with didn't know.

The military didn't know I was gay.

The only thing I was subjected to

occasionally was the occasional crude joke.

But no, I experienced no discrimination.

EVELYN BAILEY: And where did you meet Michael?

BILL PRITCHARD: In Norfolk, Virginia.

He had just gotten out of the Navy.

I was still in the Air Force.

And we met through a mutual friend.

EVELYN BAILEY: And how long were you out of Rochester?

When did you come back to Rochester?

BILL PRITCHARD: A total of five years.

I was gone for five years.

I came back to Rochester in September of 1990.

EVELYN BAILEY: And were you involved with the community?

BILL PRITCHARD: Almost from the beginning.

One of the first things I did was attend a meeting

that September actually, just after we

had moved to Rochester, of the Rochester Lesbian and Gay

Political Caucus.

And at that meeting, Susan John and Joe Morelle

were speaking as candidates for state assembly.

EVELYN BAILEY: And what happened?

How did that go from attending the meeting to becoming--

BILL PRITCHARD: Well, I think what happens in a lot of cases,

there were people who had been--

I think the chairpersonship of the group

had been handed back and forth between people who had

been members for a long time.

I was one of the newer faces in the crowd.

And by February of 1991--

(Side conversation with waiter)

So anyways, by February of 1991, it

was the person who was chair at the time needed to resign.

I think it was Jenny Bowker.

She had other things she needed to do,

couldn't be chair of the caucus anymore.

And I was nominated mainly because I

think everybody else in the room had

been the chair of the group at least once.

And I hadn't been chair at all so it

was my turn, even though I had only been there

for a couple of months.

And then I ended up being chair of the political caucus

for the next four years.

EVELYN BAILEY: And what did the political caucus do?

BILL PRITCHARD: Well, the political caucus

was the political group in Rochester

before the Empire State Pride Agenda.

And It had been in existence for a number of years.

I certainly wasn't the first or second chair of that group.

It had a long history before I came on board.

And pre-Emprire State Pride Agenda days,

it played a significant role in representing

Rochester's LGBT community in the political arena.

As Empire State Pride Agenda increased its presence

in Rochester, the political caucus' role

was less important, if you will, because the Empire State Pride

Agenda had full time people at their disposal.

They had lobbyists in Albany.

But it also represented the transition in our community.

One from where most of our political work

was done by community activists, to more

of a sophisticated role where we had people

paid to do that lobbying.

Still as passionate nonetheless, but they were paid.

And I think that that kind of transition

is represented across many communities, not just

the gay and lesbian community, and not

just in political groups.

Nonprofits go through the same thing.

AIDS Rochester is a good example of an organization formed

by activists.

And after a certain point as an organization grows,

there's a transition from its very committed community

activist leaders to those who have perhaps more

experience or training in running

nonprofit organizations.

It happened with AIDS Rochester, and to a degree

it happened on a broader level with the political activity

in our community.

We needed to rely on the paid guns, if you will,

like (unintelligible).

EVELYN BAILEY: Now, the political caucus a part of the alliance?

BILL PRITCHARD: It had a relationship with the Gay

Alliance, but it wasn't a formal one

because of the political nature of the group.

But we were considered in some way affiliated

with the Gay Alliance

EVELYN BAILEY: And did you recommend candidates?

Was it your group that put the list of gay friendly candidates

in the Empty Closet?

BILL PRITCHARD: Yes we did.

We would survey candidates, and based

on the responses to the survey we

would make recommendations who the gay community should

consider supporting in those fall elections.

I'll never forget one year, two interesting stories,

one dealing with David Gantt and Wade Norwood.

This had to have been 1993.

It was.

Wade was up for re-election to city council.

And we had surveyed all the candidates for city council,

and Wade never responded.

Now, I've gotten to know Wade a lot better many, many years

later, and I now realize that that was probably

a product of his disorganization and not a lack of caring.

However, because he hadn't responded,

we decided to not endorse an alternative to Wade

but just not include him in our recommendations.

I remember at the party's convention.

I remember like it was yesterday.

We were at the School of the Arts,

and it was me and Tom Fraase.

And I'm pretty sure Don Belack was there, and a few others.

And David Gantt walks up to us.

Because David Gantt, of course, was Wade's political mentor.

And he doesn't really know me, but he

knows Tom, because Tom had been involved in Democratic Party

politics for a number of years.

And David also knows, at the time, of course,

that Tom is involved in the gay community.

He walks right up to Tom Fraase, and he starts waving his finger

and screaming at him.

"How could you not recommend Wade Norwood?

What is wrong with you?

I'm going to get you guys, you're

going to regret this, blah blah blah."

And we're trying to explain to David.

We're jumping and trying to stand in solidarity with Tom,

because he was getting the full brunt of it,

to explain that Wade had never responded to the survey.

Well, that was probably putting gasoline on the fire for David,

because he basically in so many words,

and if I remember correctly, some of them

were colorful words.

"How could we be so stupid to withhold a recommendation

from someone like Wade?"

We know he's with us.

Just because he didn't return some kind of--

four letter word, he described it-- survey.

Second experience was in 1991, just a couple years

before that, actually, before the exchange

with David and Wade.

Bob King was running for county executive.

And he was running against Tom Frey, the incumbent Democrat

county executive.

And we wanted to meet with both candidates.

And of course, Tom was very available.

Tom came to the Gay Alliance where we met.

He met with the group and answered our survey.

And Bob didn't, and Bob wouldn't.

Instead, I met with Irene Matichyn,

who was his campaign manager.

And I was new and naive to politics.

I was new in politics and naive about politics at the time.

And I had some very good conversations with Irene,

and she came across as very friendly.

And I'm thinking, this is all really good.

At the time, it was looking like, of course,

it bore out that Bob did beat Tom Frye.

So I was looking at that time during the race,

he's going to be our county executive,

and we need to have a relationship

with the next county executive whether he's

a Democrat or a Republican.

The Empty Closet comes out with the story.

And it was true, but it probably could have been worded

differently for Irene's liking.

The article basically said that Bob would not

meet with the gay community unless it

was behind closed doors.

Which is all true.

She didn't say it that way.

She wanted to meet with the executive committee

of the political caucus.

Bob was too busy to come to a community type forum

to talk about his issues and his stance

on gay and lesbian issues as a candidate for county executive,

et cetera, et cetera.

She calls me up.

And now, this is before cellphones.

And we're living with my grandmother

and she'd had my number.

That was my number.

I didn't have a cell phone, that was my number to contact me

when I wasn't at work.

And she calls my grandmother's house

and my grandmother answers the phone.

And of course, Irene was very polite to my grandmother,

thank god.

Gets me on the phone, and when my grandmother

was just a few feet away in her kitchen,

starts screaming at me over the telephone,

over the Empty Closet article.

"How dare you tell people that Bob King won't meet with you,

won't meet with your caucus?

I told you we would."

I'm trying to hold my ground, but Irene Matichyn

was a bull in a china shop, she still is.

"Irene, you did tell me you didn't want

any kind of public meeting."

"I didn't put it that way."

I said, "Well, the article didn't quite

put it the way you said it, but the point

is basically still the same."

Tom was willing to meet with the community in an open forum

and Bob was not.

"He's going to be the next county executive,

and he's going to represent all the people.

And you've got to understand that."

Oh my God.

It was an interesting conversation.

It was one of the beginning ways that I

cut my teeth on politics.

And I would hope, certainly over the years,

I became less naive about politics.

EVELYN BAILEY: Did those experiences then

give you some insight into your future political career?

BILL PRITCHARD: Well, I knew I was always

interested in politics.

And I was at the same time, at the time

that this all occurred, I was working for Tim Mains

as his legislative aide.

So I was already immersed in city issues.

Two years later after this exchange with Irene,

it was the '93 election.

I had mentioned that earlier about Wade.

Tim's reelected 1994 fresh off of a reelection victory

where he was not the favorite candidate.

He did not get the party's endorsement.

He was able to be successful in the September

primary, of course, went on to win in the fall.

Early 1994, he decides now's the time

to pass domestic partnership legislation for city employees

and to establish a domestic partnership

registry for anyone, regardless of where they live,

to be able to come to the city and register

their domestic partnership.

That was a great opportunity for me,

because while working with Tim I was also still

the head of the political caucus.

I was on the Gay Alliance board by now.

So I was becoming very involved in the community.

And I took on in helping support the political side,

the electoral side, of this, the legislative side.

I organized the community effort to give him coverage,

give those on council who were supporting him coverage.

From what we knew, it was going to come their way, and it did.

In 1994, domestic partnership wasn't a new issue.

It had happened in a number of Californian cities before.

But for Rochester it was new.

For Rochester, it was breaking new ground.

And we were successful for both getting domestic partner

benefits for city employees and for the registry.

In fact, Michael and I were the first to register.

But it was coming out of that experience and the others

in that time period.

I had always been interested in possibly

being an elected official and being in politics.

Those experiences helped me focus on to the office

I wanted to hold, and I wanted to be on city council.

I had begun to develop a very strong passionate belief

in urban planning and city issues,

and doing what I could to help rescue

our cities from their decline.

At least what you're able to do on such a low level,

as far as a lower level in government.

So yeah, that was when I really began to focus.

I was already involved in democratic politics.

I was already involved in campaigns.

But it was really around that time period

I thought, you know, I could be an elected official.

I could do this, and I'd want to do it.

EVELYN BAILEY: What moved you to be

more involved with the alliance and become

president of the alliance?

BILL PRITCHARD: You know, it was 1992,

and it may very well have been Chuck

who was the one who said-- and you were on the board

too at the time.

It might have been you and Chuck.

I was already involved in the political caucus.

I was working for Tim Mains.

I can't remember if I approached you guys,

or maybe it might have been a combination.

I was thinking about it.

And I think there's some openings coming up.

And they said, "Geez Bill, you're

involved in this and that, why don't you, you know."

I had an interest in the organization.

I was already familiar with it, obviously,

as a member of the political caucus

and our affiliation with the GAGV.

And just being more involved in increasing involvement

in the community, knowing what the Gay Alliance did,

what it fought for.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were there any paid employees at that time?

BILL PRITCHARD: Susan Jordan.

And Harlow Russell.

Remember Harlow?

Who was our bookkeeper.

And may God rest him, God bless his soul.

But Harlow was so funny.

Even before I was on the board, I spent a lot of time

in the building on Atlantic Avenue.

And I was writing for the Empty Closet, I had a column,

and of course I was involved in the political caucus and all

that.

And Harlow would give me the hardest time.

"You're an assimilationist.

You're an assimilationist."

You know, frankly, I was younger.

I don't think I really understood

what an assimilationist was.

I just knew Harlow, the way he was saying it,

it wasn't a good thing.

I would say, "No I'm not."

So anyway, we had the two.

Harlow was part time, our time bookkeeper.

And Susan Jordan was the full time Empty Closet editor.

And I joined in '92, I was chair of the Human Resources

Committee.

And the next year I became vice president of the board.

And then I was in that position for about a year and a half.

During that time period, the alliance

did hire our first full time employee separate from Susan.

Susan was dedicated, as you know,

exclusively to the Empty Closet, had been for years.

We were hiring someone who would focus

on the rest of the operation.

We developed a job description, we had interviews.

There was some dissension in the community

and on the board of who we should choose.

We ended up going with Tanya Salinsky.

And I was still vice president.

Lloyd Gray was president.

He succeeded Paul Scheib.

I think, actually, Tanya came on board in the last months

of Paul Scheib's presidency.

He did.

Because I was still chair of human resources.

I led the effort in the hiring process.

First of all, I had no experience and resources,

so it was not the best position for me to be in.

But nonetheless, that's where I was.

Me and Marta Melinsky.

And there was somebody else on that committee,

and I can't remember who it was.

It was me, Marta, and somebody else.

Anyways, we ended up--

EVELYN BAILEY: Dick Cannett?

BILL PRITCHARD: No, it wasn't Dick.

It wasn't Dick.

So we recommended to the board, we recommend Tanya.

And I don't recall, I don't think it was a unanimous vote,

but majority went with Tanya.

Paul Scheib, in his final months, dealt with her.

And then of course Lloyd became president.

I became vice president.

And after Lloyd was there, he was there

for one full year term, and then part of a second one year term,

and he left.

I can't remember if he quit the board because he was moving out

of town.

I do know that I suspect that he left the board--

would have left the board anyways.

I say that laughingly, because a little over a year and a half

later, I did the same thing.

And the reason was Tanya.

I know this is going to be heard by people forever,

so I will withhold my most severe comments.

But a new organization, a new employee, and it

was volunteer board members who were

serving as de facto executive directors.

It was a challenge for everybody.

It was a challenging relationship for Tanya,

for Lloyd, and then for me.

And those were growing pains, those years.

EVELYN BAILEY: I want to go back, though.

Before the first center director was hired.

Were the services that the Alliance was offering,

were they in more demand?

Was the Alliance growing in its outreach?

What precipitated the need to hire

a center director or an ED?

BILL PRITCHARD: As people came on the board

like me, people who hadn't been involved

with the board as a board member for a number of years,

we saw the amount of work that board members put

into running the organization.

And then, of course, I experienced that firsthand,

to a lesser degree as vice president.

I did work closely with Lloyd, but Lloyd was the president.

And then as president.

But I knew it even before I got in those positions,

that it was a great deal of work.

And I felt, and others agreed with me, I think.

Most of the board agreed that if the organization was ever

going to grow into something bigger than it currently

was at the time, it would likely not

get there without the presence of at least a few, or at least

one, full time paid employee.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were there grants at the time?

BILL PRITCHARD: I don't call any grants.

Our main funding sources, The Empty Closet

was generating a profit prize for the organization,

our membership dues.

This was in the days before the New York state health grants.

EVELYN BAILEY: And the major fund raising efforts.

BILL PRITCHARD: The picnic, the events.

In those years too, though, those first couple of years

we were also receiving money from ImageOut.

Though I think the current organization does give the Gay

Alliance its due, ImageOut started as a program

with the Gay Alliance.

I had the good fortune of being there

when the relationship started.

And I had the misfortune of being president of the board

and at the meeting in November.

I think it was 1996 when Jamie went back

and Susan Soleil stormed into the executive committee,

handed us a letter, and left.

And the letter said, we, ImageOut are hereby--

actually, at the time it was called the Rochester Lesbian

Gay Film Festival--

are hereby announcing our emancipation

from the Gay Alliance.

And we will work with you and provide some of our net

proceeds to you over the next year,

because we need your 501(c)(3) status to operate.

But at the end of that twelve month period,

we will be completely emancipated.

And this wasn't posed to us in the form of a question.

It was a done deal.

And I laugh about it now.

Actually, you may have been in that room, Evelyn.

In that executive committee meeting.

EVELYN BAILEY: No, I don't think executive committee.

BILL PRITCHARD: For me, it was an extremely challenging

incident for a number of reasons.

And of course, now I have eighteen, almost twenty years

of hindsight to benefit from.

But at the time, it felt like a huge betrayal.

We felt we'd given life to the festival.

The people who had come together and dedicated their hearts

and souls felt otherwise.

Not to the degree that we did.

From the get go, there was a significant difference

of opinion over the true purpose of the festival.

We saw it on the board as being a revenue

generator and secondarily a nice thing for the community.

The group of volunteers that had come together,

Larry Chiampou, Susan Soleil, David Emert and others,

felt that first and foremost it was a community benefit.

A show of artistic expression in film and video.

And that the cost to put on the festival and the money

that it netted, the revenue that it netted,

were secondary issues.

And it was a difference of opinion.

We tried.

We tried in those months leading up

to that delivery of the letter.

The difference of opinion was just too great.

We were never going to completely cede

control of the financial arm of the group,

and they felt like we were holding them back

on the creative side.

And you know what?

In hindsight, they were right.

The best thing for the festival that ever happened

was breaking away from the Gay Alliance,

because it gave the group the opportunity

to focus on the artistic side.

And fortunately, over time, the individuals

I mentioned a minute ago and others who came on board

began to realize that this can be

a fantastic expression of art, and it can also make money.

And I think that came about because unlike when it was

under the Gay Alliance, they now had one-hundred percent

responsibility for the financial side of the event,

whereas before they didn't.

And so even though it was painful at the time,

and it was years before I ever spoke to Susan

or Larry or David again.

It took years.

And Jamie, to a lesser degree Jamie, but still

for a while Jamie.

But it was for the best.

And it was the best for them, and it was

the best for the Gay Alliance.

EVELYN BAILEY: So move forward to leaving the Alliance in 1997?

'98?

BILL PRITCHARD: November of '96.

EVELYN BAILEY: November '96.

And you no longer were president.

BILL PRITCHARD: Nope.

Well, I was president when I resigned.

I just came to a point where I was working

for Tim Mains and Susan John.

And in fact, I remember very clearly all these years later,

we were having the executive committee meeting.

And Michael and I didn't have a lot of money.

We had one car.

How I was typically getting between offices--

I would work for Tim in the morning

and Susan in the afternoons--

I typically walked between city hall and Susan's office

over the village gate.

Which on a nice day isn't such a bad walk.

This was November.

An early storm had come about.

I'm walking, I'm cold, I'm tired.

And I had a lot going on, and obviously that

wasn't the first day all that happened.

And I just broke.

I walk in to the executive committee meeting,

and I'm walking in there with the thoughts

of what am I doing?

And of course, there were also growing pains

with the new staff and the whole new structural relationship

that we were trying to build in the Gay Alliance.

So I had all that pressure and all that grief

and walking between jobs in winter.

I got to spend more time on me.

So I walked in, and about halfway

through the executive committee meeting,

I said Harry, sorry to do this to you--

because he was vice president--

I said I'm resigning.

This is it for me.

EVELYN BAILEY: I didn't know that story.

Never to return to the board.

BILL PRITCHARD: No.

Now, you and Chick, and a couple others are the exceptions.

Most board members leave never to return,

and I fell into that group.

I don't regret my little over four and a half years

on the board.

I don't regret it for a minute.

I met some great people.

We met way back when.

I've maintained some longtime friendships.

Having said all of that.

I never had any interest in returning to the board.

And John even asked me once, it was back a couple of years ago

actually.

So a number of years had passed.

I think he was vice president at the time under Tom.

It was the reincarnation of the HPA event,

that first year that they brought it back.

I'm at that one of the parties, and John said, "Would you

ever consider coming back on the Gay Alliance board?"

And I said something to the effect of,

"John, I'm extremely flattered that you would ask,

and absolutely not."

INTERVIEWER So talk to me a little bit

about the impact of AIDS during the early '90s.

AIDS Rochester had been begun in 1986, '85.

BILL PRITCHARD: '85, yes, something like that.

Well, actually, it started before that.

I think they started as a very small volunteer operation back

in '82, '83, on the second floor of Tara's.

EVELYN BAILEY: And by 1990, 92, AIDS Rochester

was incorporated, I think.

BILL PRITCHARD: Oh absolutely, yes.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then by '96, it was on University.

And the numbers had begun to come down and the funding.

Was the funding a problem?

BILL PRITCHARD: No, in fact, I was the development director

for AIDS Rochester for three years, from '97 to 2000.

During my time there, we had the highest and second

highest grossing AIDS walks in the agency's history.

At that time, funding was not an issue for AIDS.

There were still a number of people who were supporting it

with their individual gifts.

Corporations were still very supportive,

and there were a number of grants.

And the AIDS Institute was, if not flush with money,

certainly it was well funded.

But there were already changes happening in the demographics

of the disease.

Even by '97, we were beginning to see an increasing

number of women of color coming through as HIV positive, who

had become infected through unprotected sex.

In many cases, either with their husbands

who were on the down low, or not through sex

but through drug use, injection drug use.

And we also began to see, in the mid '90s, an increasing number

of gay men of color turning up HIV

positive for a number of reasons.

So the demographic and the face of AIDS was changing.

The funding hadn't really changed significantly.

In fact, we observed in my three years at AIDS Rochester,

we observed when you looked at our events, certainly

the AIDS walk.

You look around the faces of the people who were present.

And we knew back at the agency, our events

were probably at that time eighty-five

to ninety percent white people in attendance.

We knew back at the agency when it was food cupboard day

that seventy-five to eighty percent of our clients

were either African American or Latino.

The people who were comprising the stalwart supporters

were people who had lost sons, husbands, or partners years ago

and were still involved because they still

embraced the memory of their departed loved one over time.

We began to see inklings of this by the time I left in 2000.

It really started taking effect between 2000, 2004, 2005.

The decline in the funding for AIDS

mirrored the decline in interest for a number of reasons.

Some of them racial, some of them economic.

The people becoming infected were poor people, generally

speaking.

And then these people I had mentioned a minute ago,

the Caucasians who had lost husbands, sons,

partners, to AIDS.

Brothers.

And you notice I'm being very specific in my use of gender.

Because in the early '80s, early '90s, it was mostly gay men.

That had been changing.

And by the early 2000s there was a significant change.

Not the gay men, and as we know, gay men

were still becoming infected.

But the number of gay men becoming infected

was being outpaced by the number of straight women

and straight men through injection drug use, primarily.

Additionally, all the gay men who were becoming infected,

an increasing percentage were men of color.

And from a fund raising perspective, from a funding

perspective, from a community fund raising perspective,

we were beginning to have populations

that just didn't have the disposable income

to support the agency.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now, put this in a time frame.

Who was executive director at the time?

BILL PRITCHARD: At AIDS Rochester?

Paula Silvestron.

EVELYN BAILEY: And was Michael Beatty there?

BILL PRITCHARD: The associate executive director.

EVELYN BAILEY: And Jeff Kost?

BILL PRITCHARD: I replaced Jeff as director of development.

Who I stayed in touch with.

In fact, we were just in Washington a couple of weeks

ago for dinner with me and Michael.

We've stayed friends all these years.

He's been gone now.

He left Rochester in 1997.

EVELYN BAILEY: Well then, I will be coming down again,

because I would really like to get you

and Bilda Stevens and Bob Giordano.

And I want to interview Jeff Kost.

I emailed his sister to see where he was,

because he has another life.

He has many lives, but he has another life in the community

aside from AIDS Rochester.

BILL PRITCHARD: Well, he certainly did.

I think we both are referring to the same thing.

He dabbled for a brief period of time

in the entertainment business.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, he did.

BILL PRITCHARD: But Jeff is a wonderful person.

And in fact, we were just talking about Jeff

the other day with someone.

I was using him as an example, and I said, "You know,

Jeff and I have many of the same passions.

And we know many of the same people."

And actually, I got into my fund raising career because of Jeff.

EVELYN BAILEY: How so?

BILL PRITCHARD: Well, because when he left AIDS Rochester,

I was working for Action for a Better Community

and health in AIDS policy.

I had a little bit of fund raising,

but I really liked AIDS Rochester.

I had done some volunteer fund raising,

I had no professional experience.

But part of the job also involved AIDS advocacy,

and you know, I've been in government

for a number of years, I knew that stuff.

And so I took a chance and I applied.

And Paula took a chance on me.

Paula Silvestrone then hired me.

The difference between me and Jeff

though, our careers have been similar,

we have many friends in common.

Jeff's a lot nicer than me.

So there isn't a single person I've ever

met who doesn't like Jeff Kost.

That's true.

I have never met a person who does not like Jeff Kost.

He's just one of those people.

EVELYN BAILEY: He is, he is.

So after AIDS Rochester, you went on to city council.

BILL PRITCHARD: No, no.

There was a few years after that.

I went on to work at Rochester Institute of Technology

in fund raising.

And it was while I was there I was appointed to city council

in August of 2003.

EVELYN BAILEY: In the six years you were on council,

identify for me two highlights.

Two things that stand out most in your mind.

BILL PRITCHARD: Well, highlights not necessarily in a good way.

But the things that come to mind immediately, one of them

is I'll never forget the incident that happened

on South Goodman street.

There was a group of, I think, four women and one or two guys.

It was two in the morning, they were coming back

from one of the bars on Monroe Avenue.

It wasn't the Pub.

It was one of the others.

And they ended up getting in a fight

with a group of people who were sitting on their porch.

It ended up with a bunch of gay slurs being shouted.

It ended up with the police being called to the scene,

and a couple of police officers not being as sensitive as they

could have been to the situation.

And in fact, getting angry with and charging

three of the people who had been beaten up with disorderly

conduct.

In the gay community, it became a rallying cry

against the police because of the accusations of homophobia,

police brutality, you know.

And in my political career, I always

took the position that people are

innocent until proven guilty.

And I saw, as a lot of people did,

the raw emotion or emotions that were involved with that event.

And I knew something was wrong.

I wasn't one-hundred percent sure that it was all

the policemen's fault. Or even was is it

the number of policemen, was it one or two?

Did that group that got beaten up,

did they contribute to their own circumstance?

I did believe at the time, and I still do, they did.

But I wasn't going to call come out like others did

and call for the policemen who were in the incident

to be suspended, automatically saying

that they were homophobes, et cetera, et cetera.

And I met downtown at Presbyterian church,

and there's a community forum.

The Gay Alliance I think sponsored it.

Alex Cobus actually, the anti-violence project

sponsored it.

And I was the only member of city council who attended.

Somebody asked me a question about it.

And I said basically what I just said.

I said our police officers deserve the right to be

innocent until proven guilty.

There's been an investigation that has begun,

and they deserve the opportunity for

a fair, unbiased investigation.

Well, there were certain people in the room

who didn't agree with that.

And I was called several things.

And what bothered me was that a couple of the people

actually questioned my support of the gay community.

I said, "This has nothing to do with my support

for the gay community.

This is my opinion, is my support

of what I believe is right.

And people are innocent until proven guilty."

That stands out.

This is like a montage, a collage of impressions.

I can remember being in the gay parade.

And I think it was the last one.

It was.

It was is the last one I walked in.

It had to have been 2008, because I didn't walk in 2009.

I was already on my way out, and I said, "My time's done."

I hadn't watched the parade in like seventeen years.

I had marched in it every year.

I wanted to watch the parade for a change.

Well, we're marching, and I'm walking with Mayor Duffy.

And I'm still getting chills now, I can still remember it.

It was at one point along the march.

And of course they always have to have a couple

of haters in the group.

It was at one of the intersections,

and there were several of them.

And in the past, they would say just nasty

rotten anti-gay things, and then have signs that were horrible.

You learn to just ignore it.

None of the gay people in the parade

were receiving any of the attention from these haters.

It was all being directed in extremely negative tones

and words against Mayor Duffy and Chief Moore, Police Chief

Moore.

Hang on a minute.

(Side conversation)

And oh my God, the chief and the mayor were just being vilified.

Called all kinds of nasty, nasty things.

And the way the two of them handled it,

and I can't remember exactly what the mayor said.

We were walking together, and we were talking.

And it was his comments, his supportive comments

of the gay cause, and his dismissive comments of--

without even being rude or anything, but just

those poor people.

They're just sad.

And I started to tear up.

Even right now.

Because it was just such a moment

in the face of just unadulterated hate,

venomous hate.

That people who didn't need to be in that parade,

chose to be there.

EVELYN BAILEY: That's an incredible experience.

So now, having left Rochester and looking back,

as we've done quite a bit.

What would you identify in your Rochester experience

as the most growth producing personally for you?

BILL PRITCHARD: I mean, there were several experiences

and people who helped me grow as a person and in my professions,

political and fund raising.

Some of the people who I perhaps have ended up

having the most significant disagreements with I probably

learned the most from.

Over the years, Tim Mains and I began

to see less and less of an agreement,

or be less and less in agreement.

It was inevitable.

He'd been my boss, my mentor, and I'd

outgrown that relationship.

And I think it was a challenging dynamic for both of us

to handle, especially when we became colleagues.

And I was no longer the legislative aide.

I was now a full fledged colleague

with my own opinions, my own ideas, my own ambitions.

And so he and I certainly had our differences

and our disagreements, and in spite of the sometimes heated