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Big smiles and hardy backslaps abounded at last week's Niagara Falls Area Chamber of Commerce dinner as Gov. George Pataki pledged $10 million for a new downtown museum and said New York State is "this close" to finalizing a casino deal.
The soiree marked the Niagara Falls Area Chamber's final self-salute before folding into the countywide Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce. But while the new body's leadership officially crowned Niagara Gazette Publisher Steven A. Braver as chairman of the board of directors and basked in Pataki's vision of the area's future, rank-and-file members had more mundane matters on their minds.
Like health insurance.
Hundreds of business people enrolled in the Independent Health insurance option received letters earlier in the week that carried a disturbing message -- the new, improved Chamber hadn't paid their premiums since Jan. 31.
"The group account is not up to date and we are very concerned about your health benefits," the letter read. "If Independent Health does not receive past due premiums from your employer immediately, your Independent Health coverage will be canceled retroactive to the last date through which premiums were received ... Cancellation back to this date will occur even if you have had premiums deducted from your paycheck."
The small-business owners who make up the bulk of Niagara USA Chamber's membership were less than thrilled.
"Health insurance was the whole reason I joined the chamber," said one irate member. An Independent Health spokesman said Friday that the situation had been settled and the Chamber paid up through March after the letters went out.
Robert Newman, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Niagara USA Chamber, said the organization had paid estimated premiums for the first quarter of 2002 in December, which wound up coming up short of the actual bill.
"They said once a group falls a certain number of days behind, they're forced by law to send out those letters," Newman said. "We rectified that immediately and paid the premium."
Newman said that from now on, the Chamber will pay the actual billed total, rather than an estimated amount, to prevent a recurrence.
While chamber members waited for a resolution on the insurance matter, Braver's newspaper published a glowing story Friday hailing the Niagara USA Chamber's new direction.
But the lapse in insurance payments heightened concern among some members about the goals of the toddling body, which was amalgamated amid much hoopla from the Niagara Falls Area Chamber, the Eastern Niagara Chamber of Commerce and the Niagara Business Alliance.
"A lot of people are concerned that you could lose the local flavor, especially when it comes to smaller, locally owned businesses," said a longtime Niagara Falls Area Chamber member. "We're more interested in things like the condition of streets in front of businesses, health insurance and building the local economy. The bigger ones are more worried about federal and state issues, like workmen's compensation."
Braver also serves as publisher of the Tonawanda News, Lockport Union-Sun and Journal and Medina Journal Register, which make up Greater Niagara Newspapers. The publishing group is owned by Birmingham, Ala.-based Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.
The selection of Newman, former head of the NOCO gas station chain and scion of one of the Buffalo area's most prominent families, to serve as president and CEO of the Niagara USA Chamber raised a warning flag for some Niagara-area members.
NOCO Energy Corp. and Prior Aviation Services, another Newman family business, are influential members of the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership. The Partnership (what passes for a chamber of commerce in Buffalo) has a history of promoting the interests of its wealthiest members, even when they conflict with its less-affluent majority.
That split grew public in the late 1990s, when Head of the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership Andrew Rudnick insisted that the Partnership endorsed building a steel twin span to increase Peace Bridge capacity, even though no vote was ever taken among members and many small businesses opposed the plan. Rudnick also maintained that public input on such a crucial project wasn't necessary.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Eugene Fahey disagreed in 2000, ruling that the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority hadn't done a proper review on the project's impact. Seven months later, the Authority shelved the twin-span campaign, at least temporarily.
Aside from inserting Niagara into the Partnership's name as part of an ongoing campaign to persuade Western New Yorkers to rename their region (would that make us Buffalo Niagarans? Buffalonian Niagarans?), Rudnick has attempted to expand his shaky power base in the past.
Despite only a handful of members from Niagara Falls, Rudnick visited the Gazette offices in 2000, wowing Braver and other easily impressed management types with his Ivy League witticisms and bow tie.
Local business leaders familiar with the Partnership's dismal track record and top-down management style are keeping an eye out for similar traits in the Niagara USA Chamber.
"We don't want (Niagara USA) to go the route of the Partnership or the Niagara Business Alliance, where all the decisions were made by the board and the executive committee," a member said. "The (Niagara Falls Area and Eastern Niagara) chambers operated more on a grassroots level, and paid attention to small businesses."
Braver's chamber is indisputably new. But improved?
The members who got those letters from Independent Health last week aren't so sure.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, City Hall fell to 0-2 in court last week in its attempt to invoke a supposed cap on health insurance payments for union employees enrolled in its self-funded plan.
On Friday, State Supreme Court Justice Ralph A. Boniello III stopped the city from withholding more than $400 monthly from the pay of members of the Niagara Falls Uniformed Firefighter Association, pending an April 8 hearing. Boniello's ruling marked the second such injunction against the city in five days.
Given the administration's shaky "because-we-say-so" argument that such a cap was ever intended for the self-insured plan, this would be an excellent time for Mayor Irene Elia to call a cease-fire before getting bled for more legal fees to fight a losing battle.
Even union leaders know that Niagara Falls needs to find ways to keep health care costs within some semblance of control. But the place to do that is at the negotiating table, not in court. But if Elia's administration continues attempting to impose its will without regard for petty details like collectively bargained contracts and the sworn testimony of former city officials, the administration won't have any problem spending that $60,000 it found to pay for the supposed labor expertise of the Albany firm of Roemer, Wallens & Mineaux.
The real problems will come when City Hall has to find the money for the judgments it loses AND mounting insurance costs.
In case you missed it, a story by Dan Herbeck in the Buffalo News last week detailed the ongoing federal investigation into the activities of Local 91.
For the first time in a daily newspaper, Herbeck described the Williams Road altercation in which three union members were charged with harassment for attacking a state Department of Transportation official and the Oct. 12 assault on Niagara Falls Reporter Editor Mike Hudson. As reported in the Oct. 16 edition of the Reporter, Herbeck's story said law enforcement officials are focusing on three men with ties to the union in the blind-side men's room assault that left Hudson with a broken and gashed nose, according to Niagara County District Attorney Matt Murphy.
While prominent local defense attorney Paul Cambria pooh-poohed the chances of indictments being handed down by the federal grand jury in Buffalo, several other defense attorneys connected to the case said they anticipate a raft of indictments against Local 91 leadership.
"I've heard there will be a number of indictments soon," one defense attorney told Herbeck. "I also believe the federal government may be trying to take over Local 91, like they did with Local 210."
As one source close to the investigation said after the publication of Herbeck's story, "When your own attorney says he expects indictments, you know you're in pretty deep stuff."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 26 2002 |