By Rikki Cason<br><a href="mailto:rikki.cason@journal-register.com">E-mail Rikki</a>
Many gathered Friday for the annual Orleans County Chamber of Commerce Legislative Luncheon held at Tillman’s Village Inn.
Speaking about local and state issues, politicians and leaders came together to answer several questions on what’s important to Orleans County.
“I think this is probably one of the neatest events for the Chamber to put on every year,” said Chamber Executive Director Kevin Lake. “I think that is because it’s a win-win situation.”
Lake said he thinks it is important to bring business owners, who act as the voice of the community, together with local officials so they both can understand what is really going on in the county and around the state.
During the luncheon, Orleans County Legislature Chairman David Callard, Assemblyman Steve Hawley, R-Batavia, Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, and Maggie Moree of the Business Council spoke to more than 75 people.
Callard spoke about the upcoming difficulties that the county will face as the state’s fiscal crisis looms.
“My fellow legislators and I have worked hard to maintain a consistent tax rate for three years in a row,” Callard said. “The budget in the county continues to perform well, to conservative and realistic planning.”
He said the struggling state has the potential to derail the stability that they have tried hard to maintain.
“We as a government body continue to position ourselves to react to quickly-changing and very challenging environments,” said Callard. “Many of the environmental factors are not in our control. However, we continue to do our best so the voice of Orleans County is heard. Our fate is intertwined with the State of New York.”
Callard also spoke about how New York state is the only state in the country whose government places the responsibility of delivering state services at a local level.
“No other state in the country places this responsibility and fiscal burdens on its counties,” he said. “Short-term fixes, one shots and incremental changes are no longer going to be sufficient in Albany.”
Another topic that both Callard and Maziarz spoke about was the New York Power Authority and Google.
“The New York Power Authority slamming the door in Google’s face when they attempted to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in this county, 1,000-plus jobs with salaries that would average between 50 and 100,000 were lost,” Callard said. “We must continue to support business activity. Our citizens need jobs.”
Maziarz referenced Yahoo moving into Lockport, saying that it was a very positive addition, creating new jobs in Western New York and Niagara County.
“The Google proposal to locate in Orleans County was actually a much better proposal,” he said. “It actually created more jobs and the ratio of power to jobs was actually better. We could have gotten more jobs for less power than the power authority gave to Lockport.”
Recently being appointed chair of the Senate’s Energy Committee, Maziarz said he has been on a crusade with the power authority, fighting to help allocate low-cost power to Western New York to create more opportunities and jobs in the area.
“We have this great asset here in Western New York and we pay the second-highest electricity rates in the country,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense, and they just can’t explain it.”
The state budget and taxes also raised concerns.
“Albany has always been very dysfunctional, but never more so than this year,” Maziarz said.
He said he believes that people are growing tired and angry with how things are run and feels there may be a change in the future. He said three candidates will be running against incumbent Democratic Assembly members in the 2010 election. If they win, then the issues of Upstate New York will more likely be heard among the Assembly, Maziarz said.
Among tax increases, Maziarz spoke his distaste to taxing the wealthy.
“It’s easy and politically popular to say let’s tax wealthy people,” he said.
Moving to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida, Maziarz said that instead of making more money, the millionaires’ tax backfired because wealthy people looked at that as a reason to leave New York, paying less taxes or no taxes in another state.
“What a disincentive for people who have strived to live the American dream by becoming successful and earning a living,” Hawley said. “What a slap on the face to say to anyone, ‘We’re going to charge you more on income tax so we can redistribute that income to others.’”
Hawley said many of the multi-millionaires have chosen to leave the state, or live six months and one day in another location, but many of the business owners or farmers who may make $500,000 to $1 million a year are the ones getting penalized.
“Why should they be penalized for paying more,” Hawley said. “Some say because they can afford it, but that’s not OK.”
Hawley spoke about the importance of reducing the Medicaid program cost in the state.
He said the cost of the program is more than Texas and Florida combined, and New York has half as many recipients in the state as California, but costs $12 billion more in that state alone.
“People move here because of our Medicaid programs,” he said “They move here because of what’s covered. Not for families. Not for business.”
Hawley would like to see some of the 32 optional programs scaled back. “No other state in the nation has that,” he said. He would also like to see the state go after some of the $5 billion in annual fraud.
“We encourage thieves and crooks,” Hawley said. “We could go after two to three billion of the five billion, still not doing it well enough, but better; and guess what, there wouldn’t be a deficit any longer.”
Hawley would also like to see legislation that will allow people to vote to make Upstate New York and New York City two separate states.
“It’s like a twilight zone down there,” Hawley said. “It’s like they don’t get it. People are leaving. Businesses are leaving.”
He said the two areas are two very different states, with two very different ways of living, as well as different needs, wants and desires.
He also said that 65 percent of the income taxes that once came from New York City and the Wall Street area is not coming from there anymore. Many still believe that NYC provides more than they receive, Hawley said, stating that that is absolutely incorrect.
“We have an interesting state,” said Hawley. “Probably the most difficult state in the nation to legislate in because 67 percent of the population is downstate.”
Contact reporter Rikki Cason at 798-1400, ext. 8227.
