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Rumors are swirling around embattled Niagara USA Chamber President Robert Newman and the real reason he resigned last year as president of his family's business, NOCO Express.
Newman, who worked for his family at NOCO since 1983, abruptly resigned in March, 2001, "to pursue other interests," according to news reports at the time.
"After some soul searching, I decided it was time to move on," he wrote in a prepared statement, adding that his exit was "amicable."
We don't buy it.
If you had a cushy, high-paying job as the head of a major corporation where the only person you had to answer to was a benevolent patriarch, what could possibly make you give it up at the tender age of 42?
After a year of working for himself as a "retail consultant," whatever that is, Newman turned up relatively unannounced in Niagara Falls. Members of the Chamber's own search committee told the Reporter they'd never heard his name mentioned until the day it was announced he'd gotten the president's job.
With the help of county Legislature Chairman and political hack Bradley Erck, Newman then tried to grab a chair on the county's Industrial Development Authority.
That didn't work out because he's not even a resident of Niagara County, despite his continued use of the pronoun "we" in the regular columns he writes for a financially strapped local newspaper.
There are other questions as well. In an interview with Buffalo Business First last year, Newman said, "The biggest unfair tax issue is Native American sales of tobacco and petroleum products," and vowed to "continue to fight against (these) unfair tax policies."
Question: How will our good friends, the Senecas, relate to Newman and his Chamber?
Then there's the issue of NOCO's monopoly of jet fuel sales at the Buffalo airport.
Question: Why would Newman work to see the Niagara Falls International Airport succeed in light of the fact his family doesn't have the fuel concession there?
But the biggest question remains.
Was there more to Newman's hasty departure from the family business he worked at for 18 years than was reported at the time? We've heard essentially the same story from a half-dozen sources but, until we receive proper documentation, can't print it here.
In the meantime, it would be far better for Newman to come clean now, before somebody slips an envelope under our door.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 23 2002 |