I can't say that I didn't ask for it.
Last week in this space I offered a penny for the thoughts of Erie County residents on the aftermath of the $108 million deficit that remained when the county Legislature turned down a request to temporarily hike the sales tax by a cent. My reasoning was that, in wanting to slash excessive county spending, the denizens of Erie County had thrown out the baby with the bath water through the massive loss of vital services. I asked if, knowing now what you didn't know then, you still would ask your representatives to vote down the sales tax hike.
An avalanche of answers poured in and the response was overwhelmingly unified. Yes, we'd do it again and, quite frankly, the cuts weren't nearly deep enough.
Even armed with the knowledge that those opposed to your views are far more likely to tickle a response out of their keyboards than those in agreement, I have to say that I was shocked by the numbers. I also found myself experiencing an emotion rare to my time writing for this newspaper -- I got pretty ticked off.
To be sure, some of the letter-writers were articulate and thoughtful. They made good points. They used proper structure that would cause their junior high school English teachers to beam with pride. Most importantly, they signed their names and accepted ownership for their words.
Then there was the rest of a motley crew of would-be deep-thinkers. These people made the ditto-heads and rednecks that took Mike Hudson and me to task over the Rush Limbaugh flap look like Rhodes Scholars. They were crude, rude and often lewd. I was embarrassed to be from the same region as some of these people. Then I took a closer look at the signatures and realized that I'm not, at least not anymore, that is. But more about that later.
A few of the respondents accused me of engaging in "yellow journalism" by suggesting that rapists may see overgrown park land as prime areas to ply their nefarious trade. Others leveled the same charge and referenced my prediction that the one-man plowing crews would lead inevitably to a serious pedestrian accident. I was accused by all of using "scare techniques" to drive home what they felt to be a weak argument.
For the record, I hope that I'm wrong and that the bludgeoning of services does not lead to anyone's harm. However, never one to engage in hyperbole, I have spoken to many in the know in Erie County who have told me privately that they are dreading the months ahead. Skeleton crews and limited resources can only lead to problems not yet realized. Mix in the dogs days of summer, which always see a rise in the crime stats, and there is a very real potential of Buffalo residents spending the months of July and August embracing the word discontent.
Other missives slung the word "simplistic" at me for not understanding that the sales-tax increase was recessive, meaning that it is most detrimental to the poor. For that reason alone, many wrote, it had to be voted down. Sure, the poor have come out of this mess smelling like roses. Inner-city school nurses terminated, ECMC staff slashed, shut-in van service halted, parks closed, DMV offices shuttered -- why, the poor should be dancing jigs on the streets of Buffalo. And just wait until they see what happens to their rents when property taxes go through the roof. Thank God the well-to-do in Erie County are so altruistic and not simplistic.
Some folks gave me good food for thought. Like attorney Alan J. Bedenko, who wrote, "Upstate New York, in particular, bears a remarkably heavy tax burden due to Albany's exceedingly generous and expensive Medicaid coverage, and our bloated public employee payrolls. The ratio of local government workers to population in upstate New York is more than 25 percent above the national average. New York's Medicaid program costs more than that of Texas and California combined; each state has a larger population than New York."
He laid the problems faced by Erie County squarely at the feet of the county executive: "What's distressing is that Giambra lowered our property taxes by over 30 percent since 1999, but he used rainy day funds to cover the shortfall. Now that the tobacco money and surplus are exhausted, Giambra's mismanagement is coming back to haunt him. Had he engaged in a more moderate, systematic and thoughtful reform and downsizing of government, we'd be better off today. Had he kept property taxes about where they were and avoided dipping into the surplus, we'd be better off today. Had he been serious about competently managing Erie County, we'd be better off today. Instead, he steered us into an emergency situation that called for radical and drastic action."
Don Kowalski was among those who felt that the cuts were not deep enough: "The layoffs did not go far enough. Erie County now will have 8,100 employees for a population of 950,000 while nearby Monroe County gets by with 4,900 employees for 735,000 citizens. If we were to have the same per capita county employment as Monroe we should still eliminate another 1,767 positions."
He closed by pointing the finger at who he thinks is responsible for the fiasco: "So don't go blaming the taxpayers, the government is the problem. The problem is not a lack of tax revenue; it is one of a lack of governmental spending restraint."
Frank Boeck felt that past tax sins were the stone sticking in voters' craws: "Many years ago in Erie County a temporary sales-tax increase of only one penny was enacted with the promise to fix things. Were they fixed? No. In fact, by the actions of the legislators, I really don't believe that any of them had any idea what the budget really was until about two weeks after the penny increase was shot down. I think that some of them still don't have a clue. What was the county controller doing all this time? Oh, running for office. Do they even now have a handle on finances?"
Gary H. Bauer of Wheatfield was among the small percentage of readers who agreed with my stance that accepting the increase on a temporary basis and keeping services was a better choice than the one made: "I agree with everything you said. The sales tax should have been raised the penny to prevent the chaos and every single elected official should have been put on notice that they should start looking for a new job."
He also blamed local talk radio for skewering the facts to drive up rating points: "I will give Giambra credit for one thing. He did say that the 1 percent would only be raised until the end of the year so the budget mess could be sorted out. And then he said he would never raise the sales tax again. Unfortunately, by the time he made his statement, the two WBEN talk show hosts had whipped up the taxpayers' emotions to such a frenzy that nobody was really listening."
Bauer was also one of the very few letter-writers who hadn't forgotten all of the hardworking families put on the unemployment line because of the incompetence of the people at the top of the food chain: "I really feel bad for the county employees who are receiving pink slips through no fault of their own, while those that caused the whole mess are still collecting a paycheck. If Pataki had the guts, he would remove all the elected officials in Erie County from their offices for incompetence, bring in a control board and raise the sales tax 1 percent, until the state comptroller can sort out exactly what the real budget numbers are. At least then the real troublemakers would receive what they deserved."
I mentioned earlier that some of the surliest e-mails in response to the column had something in common. Former citizens of Erie County now scattered throughout the country wrote them. Most of them started out by saying something like, "When I moved away and the tax was 6 percent, I knew that Erie County was doomed."
They then go on in mind-numbing detail about how their current county of residence gets by on far less and provides far more. My response to them was, "So when are you loading up the U-Haul and coming back?"
If you are in such a state of solidarity with the people finally revolting against tax increases, then it's time to come back to the mother nest, right?
Wrong.
Evidently, the thought of living in a county with no parks, few police, a slashed DA office and decimated social services doesn't appeal to them any more than it does to anyone living the all-too-real nightmare here. It seems they are coming more from the "I was forced to leave home to get by, so let it all burn to the ground" syndrome that plagues many who have prospered elsewhere but carry resentment that the same opportunities weren't available back home. Considering the unnecessarily belligerent tone of their letters, I respectfully wish them a life lived out far, far away from the waters that spawned them.
I also got a real sense of a backlash from Niagara County residents at what they see as an encroachment on their resources by displaced Erie County residents.
"I see now where they are going to charge us to use their libraries. We should charge them to use our DMV offices," wrote Bill from Niagara Falls.
"I hope they're going to sit down their kids and tell them why they need to sacrifice and won't be going to the park and swimming this summer. I sure don't want to see our parks filling up with license plates from Erie County," added another resident of the Cataract City.
In the past week alone there have been many heated exchanges over the DMV office "poaching." One Erie County Legislator was even caught using the DMV office in North Tonawanda instead of standing in the long lines at the Cheektowaga office. More distressing is the fact that Fitch's lowered the Erie County bond rating to BBB. BBB is the lowest investment-grade rating, meaning that it will be significantly more difficult for the county to borrow money and when they do it will be at much higher interest rates.
The biggest thing that the past week taught me is that the citizens of Erie County are convinced overwhelmingly that they have made the right decision. They say that they are ready to live with bare-bones services and are ready to make sacrifices like sending their kids to schools with no nurses and sacrificing a day's wage to stand in line at the DMV.
They feel that there was a line drawn in the sand that they just couldn't cross. Like Peter Finch's character in "Network," they were primed to open the windows and shout, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore."
Last week I offered Erie County residents a penny for their thoughts. This week I'm wishing them a lucky penny to find and pick up for good luck.
I have a feeling they're going to need it.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 22 2005 |