The folks who've made keeping Buffalo a crumbling relic with a serious inferiority complex their life's work have been sniffing around Niagara Falls ever since a casino became a realistic possibility.
Andrew Rudnick's Buffalo Niagara Partnership provided Niagara Falls with the comprehensively useless "Who Spends What?" study, a plan slightly more realistic than rubbing an empty beer bottle in hopes of rousing a genie.
The Partnership also planted (with a big assist from Niagara Gazette Publisher Steve Braver) one of its own, Bobby Newman, at the head of the newly congealed Niagara USA Chamber. Aside from that organization's planned move of its offices to Lockport, creative accounting that led to a health-insurance scare for dozens of Chamber members and a series of other public-relations blunders, that's worked out quite nicely.
Last month, USA Niagara Development Corporation repaid Buffalo parking-lot fetishist Carl Paladino's generosity to Gov. George Pataki's re-election campaign by giving the parasitic developer title to the long-vacant United Office Building.
In case you're wondering about what all this has in common, look no farther than the battle over Proposition No. 1 on this year's ballot in the City of Buffalo. At issue -- the size of Buffalo's Common Council.
The shadowy "Committee for Council Reduction" has been plastering homes in that city with flyers full of baseless assertions, yet devoid of any information about just who makes up the committee, a phone number or address beyond a Post Office box.
Proponents have repeatedly accused Common Council President James Pitts, who is black and whose position would be eliminated if the proposition passes, of turning the issue into one of race. Yet it's the anonymous committee's literature that includes photos of exclusively white people giddy over a plan that supporters claim will restore lost jobs in the police and fire departments, renew the city's moribund economy and restore civic self-esteem. The fliers fail to outline any logical connection between the proposition and these supposed results.
Opponents, meanwhile, cite the mantra of Woodward and Bernstein in "All the President's Men" -- follow the money.
Despite claims of widespread, grassroots support for the downsizing measure, the money comes exclusively from several decidedly non-proletarian sources.
You guessed it -- the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, its corporate decision-makers and Carl Paladino.
In an analysis more in-depth than the he-said, she-said stuff the Partnership's cheerleaders in the boardrooms of the Buffalo News have published, University at Buffalo Professor Bruce Jackson outlined the financial backing for the "Get Pitts" drive on his Web site, buffaloreport.com.
The piece breaks down the money going into and coming out of both the Committee for Council Reduction and the Buffalo Niagara Partnership's Political Action Committee between Sept. 30 and Oct. 21. The Committee lists $47,373 in contributions ($20,000 of it coming from Paladino), $43,628 in expenses and another $6,305 in liabilities. The Partnership's PAC itemized $43,174.50 in contributions during the same period.
The list of givers reads like a who's who of the city's power mongers: Gerald Lippes, the driving force behind last winter's unsuccessful campaign to close Children's Hospital; Reginald Newman II, chairman of NOCO Energy Corp., father of Bobby Newman and puppeteer for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority; and the Hamister Group of Companies (Mark Hamister serves as chairman of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, owns the Buffalo Destroyers of the Arena Football League and has submitted a bid to buy the Buffalo Sabres that sources within the franchise describe as both laughable and larded up with hoped-for government subsidies).
One other notable contributor -- the Maid of the Mist Corp. contributed $5,000 to the Partnership PAC.
Why, precisely, a Niagara Falls company (the only one on the statement) would care how many members make up the Buffalo Common Council is anyone's guess.
It's not as if the Partnership PAC successfully donated money to any other candidate or cause during the filing period. They did attempt to give $175 to Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte's campaign. To her credit, the Friends of Francine DelMonte returned the money.
Of its take for the filing period, the Partnership PAC said it donated $10,000 directly to the Committee and paid another $36,500 to cover postage for those all-Caucasian mailings. And, in a country founded on the principle of freedom of speech, there's nothing wrong with that. Except that the Committee for Council Reduction failed to report either contribution by the Partnership.
In all, this "grassroots" movement, consisting entirely of wealthy white men who went to great lengths to conceal their involvement, or at least make it more complicated than they thought anyone would take the time to trace, spent $93,873 in three weeks to eliminate four Common Council positions, three of which are held by black officials.
It's impossible to look at the literature in support of the downsizing and ignore the racial tactics behind it. But the motivation for all that check-writing has another motive -- power.
Paladino has been actively trying to get rid of Pitts for at least a decade, when he financed another ballot initiative that never made it to the voting booth. He and the Partnership backed David Franczyk's attempt to unseat Pitts as Council President in 1999, a bid that also failed miserably.
Almost no one disputes that Buffalo's Common Council is too large and expensive, and a review commission proposed a plan to slice it from 13 members to 11.
But that plan would have kept the Council President's post, which wasn't nearly good enough for Paladino or the Partnership. So the Council put the nine-member proposal on the ballot instead.
That only succeeded when Rosemary LoTempio flip-flopped following threats to the more than half-million dollars her family receives annually in the form of patronage jobs, leading to a 7-6 racial-line vote.
Pitts incurred the wrath of the elite and their flacks at the Buffalo News (who were joined last month in their attacks by a Niagara Gazette "Editor" who couldn't find his way around the Queen City with a map, a compass and a tour guide) by simply doing his job.
When Paladino and his contemporary developers cook up plans that involve using taxpayer money to fatten their own bank accounts, Pitts asks serious questions while Masiello and his dupes on the council clap their hands and squeal with delight.
Worse yet, Pitts fails to show proper deference to Paladino, who is accustomed to having his ego gently stroked by the politicians he finances and easily impressed media types. In Jackson's story, he quotes Pitts as telling Paladino during one of the developer's tear-it-down-and-pave-it forays, "You sit on top of the City of Buffalo like a vulture on dry bones."
Now, thanks to the largesse of the state's local development agency, Paladino is sinking his talons into the skeletal remains of Niagara Falls while the Partnership eagerly tells us they know what's best for this city.
Unlike Buffalo, though, Niagara Falls lacks a single official with the political cojones to question their motives.
So if you happen to live in Buffalo, take the time to look through the transparent hype and see what's really behind Proposition No. 1.
And if you don't, realize that if it passes, Niagara Falls can look forward to Paladino and his fellow vultures helping you out, too.
Election 2002 is over. Let Speculation 2003 begin.
A testimonial for Niagara Falls School District Superintendent Carmen Granto is scheduled for Jan. 17 at Antonio's on Niagara Falls Boulevard. With seating available for up to 600 and tickets going for $100 each, raising 50 grand rates as a distinct possibility.
That would make for a nice little start to a campaign war chest. Not that Granto's running for mayor, or anything.
At least officially. Yet.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 5 2002 |