Cayuga County Legislator Dan Schuster said he wanted to generate public discussion by issuing his 5,000-word statement rejecting an offer of funds from the Stardust Foundation to help establish a new city-county economic development entity.

Public discussion is a great idea, and we hope that it leads to a needed agreement among all stakeholders.

But Schuster easily could have brought these talks into the public arena simply by doing what he did a couple of days later at the Cayuga County Legislature meeting. That's when he announced a special planning and economic development committee meeting to discuss economic development efforts. The meeting takes place at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES.

But instead of calling a meeting and leaving it at that, the Auburn lawmaker, who chairs the committee, wrote a manifesto laced with conspiracy theories that don't hold up to further scrutiny. He talked about the evils of allowing a group of private residents to dictate public policy. And he said the publisher of this newspaper #- who has worked aggressively on the economic development issue as a member of the Blueprint group of private sector business leaders #- would use the power of the press to make anyone look bad who didn't go along with what he wanted.

Somehow he failed to mention that this same newspaper last month gave Schuster an entire column on the opinion page to outline his preferred plan for economic development reform. He also failed to mention that this newspaper gives him a monthly column in his role as director of the Downtown Auburn Business Improvement District.

The newspaper also printed an opinion piece on the matter Friday by the City Manager Mark Palesh, and has offered the same opportunity to County Manager Wayne Allen.

And guess what? The publisher had nothing to do with any of the decisions on what to print on this issue or how to cover it. He also removed himself from the editorial-writing process on this issue. It's worth pointing out that this type of recusal is hardly some type of magnanimous gesture - it's just how a newspaper should operate.

Perhaps Schuster's theories stem from Blueprint people pointing out to him that he might look bad in the court of public opinion should he decide to walk away from $500,000 in private funding because he didn't like the model requested by the donators.

Ultimately, though, that is a risk calculation that only the legislators can make. That hasn't changed and never will, and neither will the concept of elected officials being accountable for their decisions.