Published: September 03, 2008 10:30 am      

ELECTIONS 2008: Lady of the house?

Environmental attorney would turn experience into public policy

Alice Kryzan may be banking on the fabled success of the tortoise, the adage about flies, honey and vinegar, or both.

Relatively low-profile since she launched her candidacy for Congress nine months ago, Kryzan burst onto the public stage in a memorable way last week.

Her first TV ad hit the airwaves, employing the priceless image of a boy and an old man scuffling to send a message to Democrats: If you’ve had enough of these brawling boys and their hubris-driven campaign antics, you don’t have to pick either of them on Primary Election Day.

While Jonathan Powers and Jack Davis have grabbed headlines all summer, mainly for their blistering attacks on one another’s character, Kryzan has stayed in the background, largely ignored by her opponents and the media.

Her style has been to withhold comment unless the question involves the public. In one of the few instances in which she offered a comment about an opponent — Davis when the U.S. Supreme Court sided with him and overturned a section of federal campaign finance law relaxing the fundraising rules for candidates facing self-funded competition — she focused more on the big-picture effect of the ruling than Davis personally.

“I really don’t think the media attention I’ve missed out on is a problem,” Kryzan said. “Most people are only starting to pay attention to the race now, and we’re getting good media coverage wherever I go.”

In person, Kryzan’s manner is soft-spoken and elegant, yet down-to-earth and steeped with a sense of mission. She’s proud of her Democratic roots — her dad was a mayor of their hometown, Youngstown, Ohio, and was among the first Ohio Democrats to throw in with John F. Kennedy for President in 1960 — and she doesn’t hesitate to point out that her competitors are both former Republicans.

Kryzan, 60, is semi-retired from her 30-year career as an environmental lawyer. One of her first big cases was representing Occidental Chemical Corporation in the Love Canal, Niagara Falls, lawsuits; her job was to hash out settlements for landowners and victims of toxic exposure.

Kryzan was the first woman partner in the high-powered Phillips Lytle law firm and served as special counsel to municipalities struggling with environmental issues. She helped the Town of Batavia negotiate remediation of a landfill on the Superfund list and the Town of Clarence as it opposed expansion of a hazardous waste transfer station. Presently, she’s working with the Chautauqua county towns of Ripley and Westfield to write wind farm siting rules.

The nexus of environment, energy and economic health is Kryzan’s self-identified “signature” campaign issue.

She wrote a fairly extensive policy statement linking environmental protection, U.S. energy independence and western New York economic growth opportunities. Among other things, the statement calls for a federal goal of 20 percent renewable-source power generation by 2020; a moratorium on construction of coal-fired power plants; enhanced federal tax credits for renewable energy producers and no new drilling for oil; ramped-up fuel economy standards for vehicles and expanded public transportation; sprawl control and encouragement of “walkable” communities. For western New York, she picks ecotourism and development of “green” industries like biofuels as growth engines.

Kryzan acknowledges the plan is ambitious but she’d argue it’s no more so than President Kennedy’s call to send men to the moon. She figures that got done and so can this.

“All we have to say is say, ‘we’re going to be energy independent in 10 years. We’re going to marshal all of our resources to do it,’” she said. “All we need are leaders who have the courage to do it and people to follow them.”

Kryzan and her husband, UB Law School Professor Bob Berger, have one adult son. They live in Eggertsville.

Contact reporter Joyce M. Miles at (716) 439-9222, ext. 6245.