The complaint is a familiar one in these parts.
"I'm sick of seeing Niagara Falls deteriorate, nothing being done, and the same politicians getting elected over and over," says Tateanna Jenkins, a 24-year-old city native.
Unlike the thousands of her peers who shrug their shoulders before heading for warmer climates and hotter economies, Jenkins decided to dig in her heels and do something about it.
The 1998 graduate of LaSalle High School, where she finished in the top 10 percent of her class, is challenging one of the area's most entrenched elected officials, County Legislator Renae Kimble. A registered Democrat, Jenkins is challenging Kimble in that party's primary. Her campaign kicks off with a fund-raiser at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 3 at Cafe Etc. on Third Street.
"I'm not a politician," Jenkins said of her first foray into that realm. "I'm just a concerned citizen who wants to make a difference."
Like Niagara County's other 18 legislators and their 15 Erie County counterparts, Kimble approaches a re-election campaign while facing a rising wave of voter anger. That fury erupted in the Buffalo area earlier this month, leading to a collapse of the annual budget process that likely will result in the loss of more than 2,000 county and county-related jobs.
Much of the venom has been directed at the practice of patronage, the time-honored custom of politicians giving jobs to friends, family and supporters.
Kimble, first elected to represent the Second District in 1993, was named risk manager for the City of Niagara Falls by Mayor Vincenzo V. Anello after he took office in January 2004.
Despite the administration's adamant claims that Kimble is qualified for the $46,000-a-year position, Anello felt the need to create a new position of safety director and hire an Albany firm to handle duties that normally fall under her job description.
Jenkins, who graduated cum laude from Tuskegee University in Alabama with a degree in economics, serves on the Niagara County Commission on the Status of Women as she pursues a graduate degree in business administration at Niagara University.
"It's been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result," Jenkins said. "Around here, people keep voting in the same politicians, hoping they'll do different things."
Jenkins' fund-raiser on Thursday marks the opening of Election Season 2005, which was heralded by the arrival at the Niagara Falls Reporter of the year's first official campaign announcements.
Sam Archie, who managed Glenn Choolokian's successful bid for a City Council seat last year, said he's running for one of three Council openings on November's ballot. Choolokian, who is serving the final year of the four-year term that opened up following Anello's election as mayor, is running for a full four-year term. City Council Chairman Charles Walker and Candra Thomason, the body's lone Republican, are also up for re-election.
A union steward for Steelworkers 12970 at the former Nitec Paper Mill, Archie has been active in the Kiwanis Club and Hyde Park Little League, as well the Cataract Lodge I.S.D.A. and the Magnet School Advisory Committee.
He said his campaign will focus on maintaining public safety services such as police and fire protection.
Archie is running for the Democratic nomination for one of the three open seats. A third candidate could complete a ticket with him and Choolokian, who won last fall's Democratic Primary against incumbent Jimmy Stewart despite being denied the party's endorsement. John Dilletti, owner of Club Joey's on Pine Avenue is mulling a run with Choolokian and Archie.
Jeff Williams, former clerk of the Niagara County Legislature and a behind-the-scenes force in a number of local campaigns, is stepping out front himself in a bid for Lewiston Town Board. Williams is seeking the Republican, Conservative and Independence lines, with abolishing Lewiston's town tax his primary issue.
"If we do the right things to control our costs while working with organizations like the New York Power Authority, Modern Disposal and the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, we can fund our town services without resorting to a town-wide tax," Williams said.
Williams owns and manages a property management company with holdings in Lewiston, Niagara Falls and Grand Island. He will be leaving his post as Local Government Relations Manager for Niagara Mohawk at the end of the month, according to his announcement.
The First District seat vacated by Steve D'Anna late last year shapes up as another wide-open race. Legislators appointed restaurant owner Jason Murgia to finish the term won by D'Anna, who earned the Democratic line in 2003 but caucused with the Republican-dominated "majority caucus" before giving up the seat after his job took him out of the area.
Though a lifelong Democrat, Murgia has been greeted by hostility from what's left of that party's caucus, including Kimble and new county chairman Charles Naughton. What remains of the Democratic establishment is expected to run its own candidate. Of the names being bandied about, former City Councilman and mayoral hopeful Paul Dyster, who narrowly lost to Anello in the 2003 Democratic Primary, is said to be leaning against running.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 1 2005 |