In the proposed 2013 Niagara County budget there seems to have been set aside a generous $200,000 for moving the county storage records and improving the property of land lord David Ulrich.
Ulrich owns an old warehouse in Newfane that will apparently soon house the county storage records.
As readers know, Ulrich is one of the big-time contributors to county Republicans and, in October, he was awarded a no-bid lease to store county records despite the fact that the county has its own facility and plenty of land to expand.
Instead the county will pay Ulrich $128,000 per year to lease his warehouse, a property Ulrich paid only $75,000 when he purchased it.
Now, it seems, County Republicans plan to spend $200,000 to move the records out of the county-owned Davison Road storage facility and transport them to Ulrich property.
It raises an interesting questions: Why aren't county employees being utilized to move the records?
According to Niagara County Blue Collar Workers President Bill Rutland, his men have exclusivity for this kind of work.
“Our guys and the CSCA employees, who direct welfare work crews, can handle the move. They don’t have to hire an outside company. The taxpayers are already paying us.”
According to Rutland, when the county moved its records ten years ago to its present facility, county employees handled the move.
Now it is suspected that the County's GOP will spend as much as $100,000 to hire an outside company to move records.
When county workers can do the work for free, and even welfare workers can help, the Niagara Falls Reporter cannot help but be curious to find out who will or will not get the assignment to move the county records, and if it is decided to hire an outside mover, how much will that company be paid and in turn how much did the company pay the County GOP for the privilege.
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