Buffalo Rising Online

Buffalo lacks a cohesive plan to pull all of our assets together, and a mentality that will enable us to do so. We have to enable people, businesses, and leaders to think differently about the WNY area. We have talent, innovation, methods of connectivity, and distinction. We sit on one of the largest fresh water reserves in the world, and we have the capability of harnessing the power derived from the wind and water that sits on our doorstep. Unfortunately, we have lost control of our key differentiators and core competencies, we have sold off our right to leverage the power and water to attract businesses. We have abdicated our authority to control our own future and our ability to leverage our strengths for the collective good of our residents. Our natural resources can set us apart from other areas of the country, they can be our future; however our opportunities have been neutered by years of mismanagement and state control. I would like to see our local government and business leaders work together to secure the future of our natural resources and to reverse the decisions made in a different place and time.

WNY has the leadership, the innovation, and resources to become a city of distinction. We need to bring the people of WNY on board. These are people who have learned to resent all corporations and big businesses, through years, and sometimes generations, of labor vs. management thinking. This dichotomous thinking holds us back as a region. We need people to see things differently than they did 30 years ago, they need to understand that we need to work together against the external threats to our businesses, people, and region, if we want to build a new WNY. Unfortunately, there are too many WNYers who are biding their time until they too can leave the area for sunnier states and lower taxes. It will take a serious change of heart and mind for everyone in the region, a challenge of the status quo, which is something that isn't part of our blue collar DNA.

I have a lot of faith and hope for Chris Collins and his team. I am encouraged by some of the challenge of the status quo in local government, examples include the election of Satish Mohan and Chris Collins. Listen to their nay-sayers and you will hear a fear of change in their voices, these are the voices that hold us back as a region. I am not saying that they are perfect, but at least they are trying. We need more people like Chris Collins and Satish Mohan and fewer politicians like Michael Tucker.

We need a change in mentality, a change in leadership, a change in taxes, and a reversion of years of self-serving practices by local politicians. Give it time and we might just make it.

As long as Byron Brown and every other leader refuses to agree that public unions are the biggest obstacle to change, change will bever happen. In yesterday's Buffalo News Brown, because the unions pay for his campaign, refused to even agree that the pension and other union issues are a problem. That's flat out failure on his part.

There are NO leaders here. Not a single one. A leader isn't Satish Mohan or Chris Collins, who find themselves acting alone as the only agents of change. Leaders are by definition those that can't get people to follow them. Who is following Mohan right now? No one. Who is following Collins? No one.

And really, how can you inpact change when you can't change anything because every single idea you have to make things better is protected by law after redundant law?

I used to be the bright-eyes WNY who thought things would change, that leaders would emerge. But after 5 years working professionally and having direct contacts with many insiders, I've realized it's hopeless.

Call it what you will, but it's the future of continual population decline, tax increases (at every single levelk above inflation. tax increases are on thing, outpacing every economic indicators is another), and union dominance.

You've read the stories about pensions and contracts. Tell me how that changes? Come on, someone name ONE politicians, just one, who has taken a puboic stance against union contracts. Just one, that's all I'm asking. And of you can, is he/she a first termer and do you expect them to get re-elected?

Let me add to everyone's knowledge. The Taylor Law, which is a disaster and the reason nothing changes, has a clause that allows the govt to make changes in staffing to reduce costs when economics are an issue for a govt. However, many public unions (cops in particular) managed to get govts to put minimum staffing levels in contracts, which the unions will never agree to remove which ensures that staffing can never be reduced and ensure that even in the face of massive population loss and fiscal hardtimes, staffin stays the same.

Why is the city of Buffalo hiring 100 cops and blaming it on overtime? Overtime is a result of minimum staffing. Unlike my private sector job, when I call in sick, they don't call someone in to replace me and pay me my salary plus someone else 1.5 times thiers.

We will never complete with the south's easy and low cost of doing business. In the south, the high school grads and dropouts make what they should, a living wage. Here they make more than the teachers.

Thinker - you wrote "We will never complete with the south's easy and low cost of doing business. In the south, the high school grads and dropouts make what they should, a living wage. Here they make more than the teachers." I don't think the high school grads and dropouts make between $35k (Start, in general) to $90k (wage at retirement in many WNY areas). And just for the record, I don't think these salaries are too high for teachers. I'm just saying I don't see the logic.

Thinker - you wrote "We will never complete with the south's easy and low cost of doing business. In the south, the high school grads and dropouts make what they should, a living wage. Here they make more than the teachers." I don't think the high school grads and dropouts make between $35k (Start, in general) to $90k (wage at retirement in many WNY areas). And just for the record, I don't think these salaries are too high for teachers. I'm just saying I don't see the logic.

Buffalo is not part of that Great Lake consortium either. What gives?

Wait can I just this straight here - please clairify me if im wrong. We want CEO's to help bail out Mayor Brown and fix Buffalo after taxes eat away all profits, unions make the cost of business uncompetitive, and politicians keep pushing for more welfare and public assistance and drive up business costs? Ha! As we have all seen, businesses are not welcome here. What businesses are left are only those that would be expected: low income services. The McDonald's, SuperCuts, Banks, all are low level businesses, catering to basic needs. CEO's are NOT going to help bail out Buffalo as long as these conditions exist. Not before, not now, not ever. I'm not trying to sound mean it is just dollars and sense.

Flyguy - Weather has very little impact on business, unless you own Tropicana. As a business owner, if you can get quality workers for a fair market wage, and are fairly taxed, you will incorporate there. NYC is slightly warmer and every company in the world is there (and continues to move there). If you ask 100 CEO's weather might be the 50th most important factor on their lists.

Elena, No one could disagree that cities need ideas and fresh blood to thrive, but why not start an article like this on a positive chord, instead of the dusty old song about Buffalo being "behind the curve"? The freshest thinking about Buffalo will step outside that box of imagery right away, and that will invite much healthier comments and dialogue.

The business of running cities is so volatile today-- what with ever-changing policies, unpredictable demographic shifts, a tenuous economy, competing ideas about what works and what doesn't--that it's probably true that many cities are behind the curve of "innovation." We're all sort of flying by the seat of our pants in a society that runs at this kind of clip. And innovation is not necessarily always good nor should it be always accepted uncritically. The urban planning mantras out of Portland or whatever city du jour are sounding a lot less innovative and a lot more dogmatic every day.

Cities are not all the same and shouldn't be the same. They have different histories, climates, cultures, personalties and tastes. The worst thing I see happening to American cities is this steady homogenization towards a predictable formula of vibrant "cool." It's often driven by a strange marriage of progressiveness and corporate media hype, but whatever it is, this top-ten mentality in America is making the country very dull. With its cut-throat embrace of "innovation," it has had the ironic effect of making places more and more alike. I don't think it's coincidental that American cities have lost so much flavor over the past fifty years at the same that innovation for the sake of innovation and corporate management style have become fashionable.

As for Mr. Collins, he could be truly innovative and identify as a political independent. If indepedence of mind and fresh thinking are so important to him, what on earth does he call himself a Republican for?

1. Dropouts in the south don't make a living wage. Only a stupid person would think that.

2. A "living wage" means something specific. It doesn't mean "a wage that I think is fair for someone else to make." It's an economic formula. A living wage in Buffalo is something like $10/hr with benefits.

3. Let's outlaw collective bargaining -- huzzah for the 19th century!

...air conditioning opened upon a massive new and irresistible frontier to Americans, that was once nearly inhospitable.

Air conditioning was invented,in Buffalo, in 1902 and the rest is history. It looks like we were laying the ground work for our demise even back then. Way to go Mr. Carrier, way to go.

wizard - one of the most outlandish posts to date - weather was a greater cause of migration than unions/high taxes/ and incompetent bureaucracy? lol

The transfer of industry south also had a lot to do with racism. Southern states would promote their "Anglo-Saxon" working population to northern businesspeople who were unsettled by their increasingly pigmented northen workforce. Check out a book called "Mollie's Job" for a good rundown of how this happened.

simcoe: http://www.unionfacts.com/