With the self-destruction of the Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce all but complete, prominent local businessman Frank Amendola said the time is right for a new organization to represent local businesses, and is thinking seriously about launching the effort himself.
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The last straw, he said, was the Chamber's decision to move its offices to the largely deserted former Inducon Industrial Park site, located in a remote section of Wheatfield.
"That's a good place for them," Amendola said. "They can be the Wheatfield Chamber."
In recent years, the Chamber has become little more than an adjunct of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. Former executive director Bobby Newman made no bones about his allegiance to the Buffalo interests and his replacement, David N. Greenfield, is a longtime political hack who once worked for the New York State Gas and Electric Corp. and most recently served as a commissioner on the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.
Five members of the Chamber board are also on the board of the Partnership. Next year's board chairman, Tony McKenna, sits on the Partnership's Executive Committee. With less than a year of experience on the Chamber board, it's difficult to think why he'd be elevated to the chairmanship unless it was to further facilitate the group's merger with the Partnership.
Membership in the once-proud organization has plummeted, with groups like the Niagara Street, Main Street and LaSalle business and professional organizations, the Niagara Military Affairs Council, and the Lockport Business Association and Canal Development Task Force resigning en masse.
In Youngstown and Lewiston, alienated business owners recently formed the Lower Niagara River Region Chamber of Commerce, which boasts more than 300 members, nearly all of whom were formerly affiliated with the Niagara USA Chamber.
The reason for the defection is simple. Once a grassroots organization comprised mostly of small and medium business owners, the Chamber was taken over several years ago by a board of directors that includes the likes of Niagara Mohawk shill Steve Brady and Niacet Managing Director Kelly Brannen. They've made plain their disdain for the moms and pops of this world, choosing instead to turn the organization into a vehicle bent on advancing their corporate agenda through politics.
One of their first moves was to end the traditional practice of the membership electing the board, seizing that power for themselves. Even some veteran board members are saying enough is enough. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one told me that that the new, overtly political direction of the Chamber has caused problems.
"I'm an executive with a major service provider in Western New York," he said. "The last thing my employers want is for me to be getting mixed up in politics."
The decline accelerated when popular longtime Chamber officials such as Fred Caso, Claudia Miller and Dave Kinyon were fired or forced to resign. More recently, five of the eight remaining staffers were let go.
Why would Brady, Brannen and company seek to gain control of an organization only to put it out of business? A year ago, we predicted that their ultimate goal was the takeover of the county Industrial Development Agency by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.
And guess who's the only other tenant at out at Inducon Park?
Brady was appointed to the IDA board of directors last December, and Kevin Schuler -- the Partnership's Governmental Affairs Director -- sits as its chairman.
"The takeover has been referenced indirectly at the last four or five (Chamber board) meetings," the board member told me. "Now the plan is almost final and people will be standing around wondering whatever happened to the Chamber."
But Frank Amendola's never been much for standing around.
"By moving out to Wheatfield, the Chamber's shown it's not interested in Niagara Falls or Lockport," he said. "Whatever their agenda is, it's not the agenda of the vast majority of business people here."
Amendola said a new organization is needed to pick up the responsibilities abandoned by the Chamber, and has been meeting with community leaders in recent weeks to discuss the idea.
"There are hundreds of independently owned and operated businesses whose interests are often at odds with the corporate mentality the Chamber has adopted," he said. "Small business is the backbone of the Falls' economy."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Dec. 28 2004 |