For seven years they didn't want anyone to see it, and when we got our hands on the contract between the New York State Parks Commission and the Maid of the Mist Corp. last week, it didn't take long to figure out why.
It's an indefensible outrage.
By his own estimate, Maid of the Mist owner James Glynn stands to make more than a half-billion dollars over the life of the no-bid contract. At the same time, taxpayers in the state of New York are looking at new or increased taxes on things like haircuts, cigars and going to the movies to help prop up a government in Albany that has shown no ability whatsoever to govern.
Why wasn't anyone else given the right to bid on the contract and perhaps give the state a better deal than the Maid of the Mist? Because Canada had already given the company "exclusive access" to the gorge under another no-bid contract that is currently being investigated by the government there.
The New York contract, signed in 2002 by Glynn and then-Parks Commission Chairman Ed Rutkowski, actually cut the dock rent paid by the Maid of the Mist from 10 percent to 4 percent of Glynn's take and awarded him 75 cents out of every dollar admission paid by tourists going into the state-owned Observation Tower at the park.
The revenue generated by admissions to the Observation Tower is greater than the measly 4 percent rent Glynn is paying, which means that he would turn a profit without getting a single one of his boats wet.
State Rep. Francine Del Monte and her cohorts plundered a half-billion dollars from the Power Authority a couple weeks ago. Again, it was money taken from the people of the Niagara Frontier, as more than half of the Power Authority's money came from sales of electricity generated by the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant.
Ostensibly, Glynn was awarded the 40-year, no-bid contract because he contributed $5 million toward the renovation of the Observation Tower back in 2002. That $5 million amounts to a small percentage of what he will make over the life of the contract -- a mere pittance in Glynn's grand scheme.
It's time that New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo took a look at this to determine exactly how such a one-sided, no-bid, incredibly lucrative contract was foisted on the beleaguered taxpayers of this state.
We'll see he gets a copy of ours today.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 7 2009 |