MAY 12, 2008

COUNTY BORROWING SHOULD BE APPROVED, CONTROL BOARD GONE

Borrowing of the $51 million necessary for much needed capital projects has been stalled for another few weeks. The Erie County Legislature failed to approve it by one vote. Now we have to wait until May 29 until it can be presented to the County Legislature for vote and approval. I was in favor of the borrowing because to me it's about good governance and it's a matter of public safety. I'm confident that this proposal will be approved by the legislature at our next scheduled meeting.

I believe that right now the hold up is the amount of the borrowing and the lack of city projects. I do think these issues will be ironed out, but I think that the next big hurdle will be addressing who is going to do the borrowing. Right now, the County Executive and the Control Board are haggling over this issue. And as an elected official, I'm siding with the County Executive. This is not a political issue for me; it's simply about good government. The issue is who can borrow the money at a better rate. The County Executive and the County Comptroller claim that they can borrow and get a good rate simply because now the rates are low. The Control Board on the other hand claims that if they can borrow the money, they will save the county about $2 million over the next 30 years. Now here's the hook. If the county allows for the Control Board to do the borrowing, the Board will be in control for the next 30 years. Taking into account that it costs the county about $750,000 a year to fund the Control Board it doesn't take much of a mathematician to figure out that it costs us taxpayers a whole lot more to keep them around.

Moreover, the Control Board has never been, and will never be, accountable to you, the voters. Our political system in this country provides checks and balances, and one of the most crucial checks occurs every year on Election Day. If you don't like the job your elected officials are doing for you, you can always vote them out of office. You can control politicians. You can't do that with a control board that's out of control. The Control Board is just another form of bureaucracy that is not necessary. It was a temporary response to a temporary situation and now for the last several years Erie County has been operating in a fiscally stable way. We no longer need the obstruction of an entity that you, the voters, can't control.

Hopefully, the county executive in tandem with the legislature can petition the new governor to help release this bureaucratic stranglehold. After all, not many would deny that our roads and bridges need work, our roofs need to be repaired and our parks need to be kept safe and ready for our use.

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