One of the oldest plays in the damage control handbook is to deny -- as angrily as possible -- a narrow specific of whatever charges have been leveled against you, do your best to smear those bringing the charges, and then hope that the whole thing just blows over.
Bob Baxter and his friends at the Niagara Heritage Partnership have apparently studied the handbook.
Last week, in the pages of a competing paper, they called me an irresponsible, ignorant and malicious liar.
My crime?
I wrote about the very real safety hazard posed by the closing of two lanes of the Robert Moses Parkway and pointed out the fact that the lanes were closed following a major lobbying effort, led by Baxter and the Partnership, to close the road altogether.
If it makes them feel better, Baxter and the Partnership can tell any story they want.
But when you start calling someone a liar, you'd better make sure that you're doing so from the high ground of truth.
In this case, Baxter and his misguided comrades fall far short.
They point out, quite rightly, that their crusade never advocated closing two lanes of the parkway, they wanted the whole thing shut down. They were opposed by a number of interests, including elected officials, businesspeople and residents of Lewiston and Youngstown who see the Robert Moses as a vital link to their communities.
Baxter and his allies wrote dozens of shrill letters to the local newspapers, shouted down opponents at public meetings and aggressively lobbied politicians in Albany.
On the other side, Lewiston Mayor Richard Soluri, members of the Old Fort Niagara Association and others voiced their objections in a far more civil manner.
It's called politics, and the state did a politic thing. It arrived at a compromise.
In September of 2001, two lanes were shut down in a pilot program originally scheduled to last two years and since extended for a third year.
That Baxter and the Partnership only got half of what they asked for doesn't change the fact that, without their crusade, the state would have left the parkway as it was.
You wouldn't have pedestrians, including small children, attempting to cross two lanes of traffic without the benefit of any signal or crosswalk.
You wouldn't have ambulances carrying heart attack victims to Mount Saint Mary's Hospital getting stuck behind slow-moving snow plows.
And you wouldn't have ponds of standing water and overgrown grass that promise to produce a bumper crop of mosquitoes and renewed fears of West Nile Virus this summer.
Their failed effort to completely close the Robert Moses Parkway has resulted in an eyesore that is also a health hazard and a dangerous traffic nightmare.
Make no mistake -- other than Baxter, the Partnership and various individuals supporting them, there wasn't anybody asking that anything be done about the parkway at all.
If you don't believe me, ask state Sen. George Maziarz. He's the one who was being lobbied.
Acknowledging that, in its current configuration, the parkway is acceptable to no one, Maziarz left little doubt as to how it got that way.
"There was one group this was an issue for, and that was the Niagara Heritage Partnership," he told the Reporter. "It was their efforts that led directly to the present situation."
But rather than take responsibility for their role in the affair, Baxter and company choose to blame the state for not completely caving into their demands and me for writing about their undeniable involvement.
Aside from being a pompous ass, Bob Baxter is a retired English professor and birdwatcher from Ransomville who apparently has way too much time on his hands.
A quick check of various newspaper archives shows he's felt the need to offer up his opinions not only on the parkway, but on topics as diverse as the sale of food on Goat Island, restoration of the United Office Building in downtown Niagara Falls, and the Observation Tower project at the state park.
I also have it on good authority that food gets stuck in his beard when he eats but, thankfully, have never witnessed this personally.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 8 2003 |