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It sounds like a good idea.
Bringing business people together to discuss ways to more efficiently run the Niagara County government, proud owner of the best-watered golf course in the greater Lockport area, can only help, right?
You'd think so. But then you look at who's behind the "Who Does What? Niagara County" study announced last week.
Niagara County's newest, bestest friends at the Buffalo Niagara Partnership are busily forming committees to conduct said study with the help of its toddling sibling, the Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce. Which virtually guarantees that the findings will prove cosmetically intriguing, yet useless.
Such grandiose undertakings are a form of busy-work favored by Partnership President and CEO Andrew Rudnick. The punctuationally challenged "Who Does What? Niagara County" follows "Who Does What?" (an analysis of Erie County's government) and "Who Spends What? Niagara Falls," delivered well behind schedule last spring with much fanfare in the local dailies.
While each title asks a legitimate question, given the wholesale dysfunction rampant in most local governments, the first two Partnership productions proved remarkably short on answers. In the case of the Niagara Falls study, the group found somewhere between $9 million and $15 million in potential savings. If only the city could break virtually every contract into which it has ever entered.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what passes for "regionalism" in these parts -- rooms full of business people, most of them well-intentioned, mulling how sweet life would be if only nuisances like collective bargaining agreements and state laws would magically vanish.
Once the committee finishes its wish list, less purely motivated types like Rudnick and his apprentice at the Niagara USA Chamber, Robert Newman, engage in enough self-congratulation as to run the risk of shoulder separation. This thrills those with few or no innovative ideas of their own (e.g., politicians) to no end.
Then, nothing happens.
That's understandable, since the people involved devote all their time and resources to ideas, and none to how to implement all those brainstorms. This wouldn't be so bad -- at least it keeps them off the streets -- but for one fact.
We pay for it.
In governmental terms, $30,000 (the amount procured from Albany by state Sen. George Maziarz to fund the newest study for which Rudnick, Newman and company will proudly take credit) is a pittance. But it's still $30,000 that could have gone toward something that would actually have an impact.
Niagara County Legislature Chairman Bradley Erck is thrilled at the idea of someone telling he and his 18 esteemed colleagues how to run things with a modicum of intelligence. Funny.
And the proponents of regionalism, Western New York-style, wonder why such an innocuous-sounding term is quickly becoming a profanity to many locals.
Regionalism, as practiced in metropolitan areas like Jacksonville, Louisville and Portland, is the sharing of services and elimination of duplication, leading to mutual benefits for the cities involved and their surrounding communities.
In Erie County, the debate has reached the point of absurdity. County Executive Joel Giambra campaigned on the concept of regionalism, but has done little more than blame the City of Buffalo for the county's economic problems with his incredibly condescending "No Handout, No Bailout" policy.
Giambra's revisionist view of local history ignores the fact that Buffalo receives a minuscule portion of Erie's extra 1 percent sales tax. Former Mayor Jimmy Griffin, another victim of selective amnesia, brokered that deal to prop up political buddy Ed Rutkowski when he sat in Giambra's seat.
The sort of regionalism envisioned by Giambra and Rudnick, a member of the County Exec's "kitchen cabinet," involves the city contracting services from the county, making Buffalo irrelevant and turning Giambra into King of All He Surveys. At the moment, Niagara County lacks an elected CEO to crown. So Newman will have to do for now.
Real regionalism, which hinges on building a thriving urban area, streamlines government, makes economic development easier (or at least possible) and saves taxpayers money.
The local version treats the city as a naughty child to be punished and taxed for the benefit of the wealthier suburbs.
The real thing requires bold leadership to overcome parochial urges and get people to see the greater good.
As our champion of regionalism, we get Newman, whose idea of leadership is accusing anyone who disagrees with what he says (or, more accurately, what Rudnick tells him to say) of negativity.
Just about everywhere else, regionalism has been a vehicle for growth. Around here, it's little more than a way for politicians and quasi-public officials to stay in power despite decades of abject failure.
The danger of such studies is that they mislead the people they're designed to help -- you -- into thinking something is actually being done. But while all that superficial studying occurs on the surface, the patient continues to hemorrhage.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 13 2002 |