Establishment of hard control board brings great relief
BRIAN ACKLEY Political Columnist
It is a little known fact, but in case you were otherwise occupied, you might have missed Erie County Executive Joel Giambra continuing his fine, upstanding tradition of giving taxpayers color-coded budgets.

In the shadows of his green/red ruination of county finances and taxpayers' bank accounts, the now-supplanted king cobbled together a 2007 spending plan in his make-believe monarchy which henceforth will be known as his ex-excellency's white budget.

For remember, Giambra had the unexpected good fortune of releasing his proposal in the middle of the county's battle back from a devastating October winter wipeout, when people's attentions were focused on power, not power plays.

Turns out, upon further reflection and obvious analysis, that the storm and his document were both snow jobs of historic proportion. One was a surprise.

One was as expected as a political TV commercial on Nov. 6.

What the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority did last Friday in voting to end his blizzard of "bogosity" was provide taxpayers a shovel. And it isn't only for the continued snow being deposited by the squalls of denial that blow almost daily off Giambra's threadbare throne, if you get my drift.

"There's no gimmickry in this budget. It's real," he said in announcing his plan. Of course, he's still so very impressed that David Copperfield actually made the Statue of Liberty disappear, too. So spectacular is the Fantasyland he has constructed that even Disney has called to obtain Giambra's blueprints.

ECFSA executive director Ken Vetter breezed through 31 different examples of where the Giambra plan was sleight of pen before last week's vote for authorizing a hard control board. He could have listed 310 had he wanted to, or 354, one for every job the county has added to a payroll since the first colorful and crippling crisis of 2005, every one of which is still financially unsustainable. Assumptions and miscalculations were not only the foundation of the fictitious four-year plan, they pretty much made up the better part of the walls, roof and overpriced furniture to boot. A third-grader with a No. 2 pencil and single sheet of notebook paper could have put together a more believable budget.

There's no meaningful debt reduction, unions were suddenly going to give back millions, and Medicaid miscreants were going to be hunted down as frequently as the Buffalo Sabres win hockey games. Operational expenses were going to be covered by additional borrowing, an inspired idea in a county which already has the second highest sales tax in New York State. In just three years, county debt has mushroomed fourfold, according to former budget director Sheila Kee.

Typically, and since it's the only way in which Giambra can cling to even a pinprick of pertinence, we'll likely now have to endure repeated lawsuit threats. How convenient that someone else gets to pay for a personal hissy fit. Of course, when you've wasted tens of millions of dollars, what's a few hundred thousand more among taxpaying friends? It's of no matter, apparently, that control boards and their enabling legislation have repeatedly been proven to be more bombproof than NORAD headquarters.

How right you were, Mr. Giambra, when back in February, in the throes of one of your greatest fits of fiction -- a.k.a. your latest "State of the County" address - you uttered, "I strongly believe that our Western New York region has a special destiny." It's one of the few things on which you've been right.

We're the first ones on the block to ever be forced to turn over the city and county keys to unelected boards which were given no choice but to occupy the otherwise empty garages of government.

No one sees it as great victory for democracy. No one is pretending, like our county executive does so well, that all our fiscal ills will be cured by some magically concocted control board pill. There's no joy, just relief, that we no longer have to pay any attention to the little man behind the curtain.

"The solutions are right in front of us if we are bold enough and brave enough to see them," Giambra added on that cold winter's day. True, except that they're impossible to find when one refuses to recognize a political career already faded to black.