Once again, opposition to the expansion of the Niagara Falls International Airport by Buffalo business interests is rearing its ugly head.
According to an article in the Buffalo News last week, United States senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer deliberately stressed the Falls airport's use as a cargo hub in their announcements concerning a $2.5 million federal grant the facility received because of "opposition in Buffalo business circles" to any expansion of passenger service here.
The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority is expected to open bids later this month for the construction of a new $27 million passenger terminal at the airport, a development stymied by the Buffalo interests for more than 30 years.
Politically influential Buffalonians, led by the odious Andrew Rudnick of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, have done their best to quash development at the airport, an effort aided and abetted by the Buffalo News.
That's because the only people who fly into the Buffalo airport and actually intend on staying in Erie County are those with family or business there. The destination for a large number of the 5 million passengers who pass through the Buffalo airport's gates is actually Niagara Falls. In fact, a majority of passengers coming to Western New York from overseas don't want to go to Buffalo at all, but come only to see the magnificent falls and gamble at the casinos here.
To top it off, passengers coming to Niagara Falls from Europe or the Far East must first switch planes, in order to accommodate the Buffalo airport's puny runways, while the 5,000-foot runway at Niagara Falls International is capable of handling any aircraft that flies anywhere in the world.
Ask someone in Paris or Peking about "Buffalo" and they'll tell you about a large, four-legged animal, while people in Los Angeles might remember a joke about the weather they heard Jay Leno tell. But ask about Niagara Falls -- anywhere in the world -- and you'll hear tales of romance, Marilyn Monroe and daredevils defying death at the brink of the mighty cataracts.
Niagara Falls is what attracts tourists -- and their dollars -- to Western New York, as it has since before airplanes were invented. Buffalo exists solely because it was the western terminus of a canal system that is no longer in operation.
But more planes landing at the Niagara Falls airport means fewer planes landing in Buffalo, which would put a crimp in the sale of jet fuel and the obscenely high landing fees charged by the robber barons there.
The Buffalo-based Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority has controlled the Falls airport since 1969, treating it with a not-so-benign neglect that didn't start falling apart until money for the Seneca Niagara Casino was earmarked for airport development in a deal hammered out by state Sen. George Maziarz.
Buffalo control further weakened with the death of former NFTA chairman Luis Kahl and the appointment of three members from Niagara County -- Niagara Falls City Schools Superintendent Carmen Granto, local attorney James Roscetti and political power broker Henry Sloma -- to the NFTA board of directors.
Kahl was replaced as executive director by Lawrence Meckler, a largely ineffective administrator known primarily for his appearances in cutesy television commercials promoting the use of public transportation by pretending that he actually rides the buses himself.
The combination of local funding and Niagara Falls representation on the board seems to have cracked the ice, although many in the community continue to ask why the airport is not under local control, and remained skeptical of yet another project emanating from Buffalo.
"The new NFTA terminal is in no way the one that Niagara Falls is going to need to fulfill its dreams of becoming a chief destination for international travelers, flying in the big planes," said Falls social critic and probable future political candidate Ken Hamilton.
Hamilton said he doesn't believe that the one jetway provided in the proposed new design will allow for the passengers loads of a 747 or other large aircraft.
But while acknowledging that such skepticism may be well grounded historically, Granto said the new proposal represents a historic new beginning for the long moribund airport.
"It's a good plan," Granto said. "It's a sensible plan and it's a fiscally responsible plan."
Granto pointed out that the new terminal design allows the facility to be expanded as warranted by increasing traffic, and expressed concern that local opposition to the expansion could be used as yet another excuse by the Buffalo members of the NFTA not to do anything at all.
The editorial page of the Buffalo News -- which, ironically, is pushing to become Niagara County's "newspaper of record" -- has been particularly harsh in its criticism of the expansion.
"It's hard to imagine a more ill-considered decision than the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority's push to spend $24 billion (sic) of hard-earned taxpayer dollars on a Niagara Falls airport terminal that shows every indication of getting somewhere between little or no use at all," the paper editorialized in response to the announcement that the expansion would be undertaken. "We'd love to see a thriving new terminal, but the history of trying to make the Niagara Falls airport work is one of constant failure."
As is usually the case, there was a grain of truth in the News editorial. The history of trying to make Niagara Falls International Airport work has been one of constant failure. The fault for that, however, lies not in the airport itself, but in the laps of Buffalo's predatory promoters of "regionalism," on the Niagara Frontier.
And Buffalo News President Warren Colville, who has served on the board of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, runs his paper as though as though it were a wholly owned propaganda arm of that foul organization.
If the Partnership takes a stand on something, you can bet that an editorial favoring the position will appear in the next edition of the News, no matter how absurd that position is. In recent years the News' editorial page has come out in favor of closing Buffalo Children's Hospital; opposing Tom Golisano's bid to buy the woeful Buffalo Sabres hockey franchise with his own money so that fly-by-night huckster Mark Hamister could buy it with public funds; against the building of a clean coal power plant in Niagara County so that one could be built in Erie County; and backing sad-sack Republican Kevin Helfer for mayor in Buffalo's last election.
Along with Rudnick and Buffalo Niagara Enterprise kingpin Thomas Kucharski, Colville has used the News to beat the drum of failure at Niagara Falls International while, at the same time, doing everything in his power to see that no money is invested in the facility and that no one with any interest in making it a success is put in a position to do so.
The News even editorialized in favor of selling the airport for a pittance to a foreign corporation, Cintra, despite the fact that the facility hosts a military base and is important to our nation's security. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, put an end to the insane proposal, though it is frequently cited by Rudnick, Kucharski and Colville's paper as further evidence of failure here. Regionalism is a fine concept, but until the same gang of creepy rich white guys who have just about succeeded in running Buffalo into the ground realize that the people of Niagara County don't like being pushed around, it's never going to happen.
And until NFTA director Meckler starts spending as much time doing his job as he spends on shamelessly promoting himself in nonsensical television commercials subsidized in large part by the welfare recipients who actually do use public transportation here, Granto, Roscetti and Sloma remain the best hope of getting a fair shake for the airport.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Nov. 20 2007 |