No savings too small in our troubled county
BRIAN ACKLEY Political Columnist
It's a warm, dry, sunny January day in Buffalo when something wafts down from the top of the Edward A. Rath Erie County Office Building that doesn't remind us all of driving through Lackawanna when Bethlehem was a thriving economic interest.

So when it actually happens twice in one day, it's time to dial up a local chiropractor, so quick was the head turn late last week, when not one but two cogent thoughts actually crystallized from the Humpty Dumpty heap of broken promises that collectively have come to define Joel Giambra and his administration.

The first didn't actually come from Giambra himself, but Jim Hartman, whose appearances before Erie County's now "hard" control board could easily rival "I Love Lucy" or "Everybody Loves Raymond" as one of television's all-time great comedies. As Giambra's delegate on all things dollars, what is supposed to be a monthly thrust and parry of ideas and solutions between the budget director and seven-person board is usually more like a stomp and sigh session.

It is impossible to side with the Giambra administration in almost any argument - that's what happens when you've spent seven years shoveling your credibility into a steel plant's blast furnace - but one of Hartman's parting shots, a challenge to the control board to go ahead and freeze county wages, was spot on, if not for the reasoning, at least for the idea itself.

Why won't the control board do just that? Obviously, it's an unpopular step, and those who might want to take that leap argue that it would result in less savings than many people might think. Hartman said he believes the board won't do it because it doesn't want to tick off local unions.

With an administration that continually finds ways not to save money - did they hear the news that American Axle and its 1,700 Western New York jobs are on the verge of "going Bethlehem" too? - the control board must use all the tools at its disposal in doing just that, regardless of who might be made unhappy in taking that step. There are no savings too small, no union too large (rarely does any court ever rule against the broad and undisputed powers of a state-created control board), to continue to ignore such low-hanging fruit. There is little argument that such a freeze has been one of the key pillars of Buffalo's financial rebuilding.

The best line of the week was all Joel's, however. On the same day he ripped page No. 353 off his "Days 'Til I Leave Office" calendar, Giambra boiled down problems with the ongoing Buffalo Creek Casino conundrum with this succinct and dead-on analysis: "Screwing local business is not economic development."

Of course, unable to contain himself (understanding that less said is oftentimes more, especially after a perfect zinger like that was never a strong suit of his), the king tried to use his Cracker Jack box crystal ball, the same one undoubtedly he uses for all his financial forecasts, to predict, "Today is an historic day. There will be no casino in the City of Buffalo."

Guess again. By the time this winds its way through levels of the federal government most of us have never heard of, the casino will be pouring drinks and collecting chips at a prodigious rate. After all, how can we shut down a project that's this far along now, is how the argument will ultimately go.

Since there is no legacy left to protect - all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Joel back together again - and rebuilding it in such a short period of time would be akin to reconfiguring the Aud into a new Bass Pro in approximately 11 months, maybe Giambra and his administration will spend their time between now and Dec. 31 more rooted in a reality that would for once be constructive to our region. That would be a relief.

We're tired of holding our noses.

(Brian Ackley is a columnist for the Weekly Independent Newspapers (WIN) of Western New York. WIN is a consortium of 19 community based weekly newspapers in Erie and Niagara counties with a combined paid circulation of 75,000 homes, providing collaborative advertising and editorial support for member publications. For more information on WIN, or to provide feedback on this column, visit our Web site at www.wnynewspapers.com. Opinions expressed here are those of the author.)