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Talk about a sore loser.
When Paul Bellreng was booted off the county Industrial Development Agency following his indictment on federal racketeering and extortion charges, county Legislature Chairman Bradley Erck stepped into the breach with a proposed replacement, Erie County resident and Niagara USA Chamber President Robert Newman.
The problem was that the appointment would have been illegal, given that Newman doesn't live in Niagara County. That wouldn't have bothered Erck, but other legislators found it troubling. Newman's appointment was denied.
The vacant IDA seat instead went to Carmen Granto, Niagara Falls school superintendent and possibly the city's next mayor.
This didn't sit well with Newman, who, on June 27, dashed off a letter to the legislators.
While claiming the Chamber has "great respect" for Granto, Newman complained about his appointment.
"(W)e were dismayed with the lack of opportunity for public dialogue on this nomination," he wrote. "The real concern is the lost opportunity to add private sector employers to a board that is supposed to be adding new, private sector investment in our community."
Perhaps Newman hasn't been in town long enough to be aware of Granto's thriving software business, but that isn't the point. As a spurned candidate for the position who himself is not a "private sector employer," Newman's protest comes across as unseemly at best.
Furthermore, there was at least as much "public dialogue" about Granto's nomination as there was about Newman's, and Granto's had the added advantage of not being illegal under state law.
While Newman claims private business is "vastly underrepresented" on the board, IDA sources say the presence of private business presents potential conflicts of interest. If you were manufacturing and selling a product here, would you be likely to vote in favor of a proposal to manufacture and sell the same product, regardless of the proposal's merits?
The legislators who gave us copies of Newman's letter said they didn't appreciate his ham-handed attempt at influencing them.
"We told him he couldn't serve on the board and he responds by telling us he should be able to pick a member to serve," one said.
While Newman and the rest of his Buffalo crew currently exert an inordinate amount of influence in the Niagara Falls mayor's office, we doubt whether that influence will continue following the election now just 15 months away.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 30 2002 |