Citizen outrage, a blistering cover story in the Niagara Falls Reporter and an unusual unanimous vote by the county Legislature led Buffalo Niagara Enterprise CEO Thomas Kucharski and Buffalo Niagara Partnership CEO Andrew Rudnick to back off a bit regarding their non-committal attitude toward -- and open hostility to -- a proposal to attract a new clean coal power-generating facility to Somerset.
Last week, Kucharski and Rudnick sent out a pair of letters -- one to county Industrial Development Director Sam Ferraro and the other to outgoing Gov. George Pataki -- announcing lukewarm support for the project, which would result in an infusion of more than $1 billion for Niagara County. AES, which already operates one such facility in Somerset, is actively seeking the Power Authority's approval.
Whether the letters will do any good is anyone's guess.
Previously, Rudnick and the BNP endorsed a competing proposal submitted to the Power Authority by an Erie County company, Huntley Station, while Kucharski maintained that his BNE wasn't in the business of making such recommendations. Whichever community gets the nod for the project will receive $1 billion in state-subsidized funding that will create 1,000 long-term construction jobs and 170 permanent jobs once the plant is up and running.
Rudnick's letter to Pataki could be read as an endorsement of either of the proposals.
"Awarding this bid to a clearly qualified and competitive Buffalo Niagara facility not only will help NYS achieve its environmental and economic goals, it also will support direct and indirect new jobs and new tax revenues for local jurisdictions in our region which certainly needs them (sic)."
Kucharski's missive to Ferraro was equally shifty.
"I commend you for your work thus far on this very competitive project and look forward to working together to make certain it becomes a reality in Buffalo Niagara," he wrote.
Many in Niagara County are uncertain as to the exact location of this "Buffalo Niagara" Kucharski and Rudnick are always talking about. Is it at the Buffalo Niagara airport, which is situated in Cheektowaga? Or is it at 665 Main St. in Buffalo, the fashionable office building that serves as headquarters for both the BNE and the BNP?
It is there, after all, that the dynamic duo earn their enormous salaries mangling the English language in endless correspondence with businesspeople and government officials who, in most cases, earn far less. While Rudnick collects $298,800 for his services each year, Kucharski settles for a modest $263,932, according to the organizations' IRS filings.
Both Kucharski and Rudnick claim to work without compensation for a charitable organization called the Buffalo Niagara Partnership Trust, which took in $1.1 million in "gifts" between 2000 and 2003, records show.
The trust is also located in the 665 Main St. building, and all three organizations share the accounting services of one Anita Genovese, who's probably got some fascinating stories to tell.
The BNE and the BNP pull in combined revenues of more than $6 million annually from a mix of memberships, donations, government grants and consulting fees. While Rudnick and Kucharski are listed as the only key employees of their respective organizations, they've apparently got a lot of help, shelling out more than $2 million a year in "other salaries and wages."
Altogether, that comes to more than $2.6 million, not counting a benefits package that includes perks such as a suite at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
Offices, an accountant and difficulty in explaining exactly what it is they do to earn the enormous sums of money they're given aren't the only things the BNP and the BNE share. Five people, including Rudnick and Kucharski themselves, sit on the boards of both organizations.
Civic pride also runs deep in Randall Clark of Dunn Tire, David Smith of National Fuel and Brian Keating of HSBC Bank, who likewise sit on both boards.
Thus far, the organizations have been spared the journalistic light normally cast on those who make a lot of money without apparently doing anything for it, but cynics suggest that the presence of Buffalo News Executive Vice President Warren T. Colville on the Partnership's board of directors has effectively silenced that city's most effective newsgathering apparatus.
Other luminaries on the Partnership board include Paul Kolkmeyer, who was sacked last week as CEO of First Niagara Financial Group, and Mark Hamister, whose bid to buy the Buffalo Sabres hockey franchise hit a snag when it was discovered he had no money and wanted local and state government to buy the team for him.
Needless to say, the Partnership supported Hamister's proposal, opposing the eventually successful efforts of Tom Golisano to acquire the franchise using real money. Likewise, the Partnership supported the closing of Buffalo Children's Hospital, opposed any attempt by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority to expand service at Niagara Falls International Airport, and lent its endorsement to Republican nobody Kevin Helfer, who went on to lose 64-27 to Byron Brown for mayor of Buffalo.
Opposition to the Senecas opening a Buffalo casino and the imposition by the state of control boards to oversee the city's finances have rounded out the Partnership's dance card recently.
"There's a pattern here and it's pretty obvious," said Niagara Falls Redevelopment Executive Vice President Roger Trevino. "Whether you're talking Tom Golisano or the Senecas, the Partnership isn't interested in having anyone come in who might shake up the status quo."
Trevino said that backroom deals have been the Partnership's bread and butter.
"You've got a group of around 50 people (in the Partnership) who control banking, the media and, by extension, local government. They're pretty much happy with the way things are, with their place in the world."
Bob Confer, vice president of Confer Plastics, expressed similar thoughts last week.
"Despite their ramblings that they offer a cure to the cronyism and political mismanagement that plague the upstate economy, they are instead a big part of the problem itself," he said.
County Legislator Dennis Virtuoso, who introduced the resolution calling on the BNE to support the AES proposal, said he might not be done with Kucharski's organization.
"The resolution passed unanimously and we've got this letter to show for it," he said. "My next resolution was going to be to demand a refund of the $50,000 we paid them for help in attracting business to Niagara County, and that's still on the table."
And when the BNE contract comes up for renewal next year, it most definitely will not receive the rubber-stamp treatment it got from the Legislature's Republican majority this year, he added.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 12 2006 |