Buffalo News (New York), March 11, 2007, Sunday

Copyright 2007 The Buffalo News

All Rights Reserved

Buffalo News (New York)

March 11, 2007 Sunday

FINAL EDITION

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. B7

HEADLINE: Education, jobs top list of concerns

BYLINE: By Deidre Williams - NEWS STAFF REPORTER

BODY:


They wanted to know about education reform, especially in the City of Buffalo.

They wanted to hear about plans for economic development in Western New York and ways to create more jobs.

And they wanted more information about smart growth and anti-sprawl, primarily in Erie County.

Those were some of the issues discussed Saturday during a town meeting in Buffalo State College's Bulger Communications Center.

Hosted by Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, the annual meeting focused on Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer's 2007-08 budget proposal and how it could affect Western New York residents, programs and services.

About 25 current and former city residents attended, as did other elected officials and leaders from various organizations.

Robert Matecki, a former city resident, talked about the difficulty facing city residents trying to secure well-paying jobs. He said many in the region's work force live in the city and want to work, but they can't get to jobs outside the city.

Hoyt, the new chairman of the Assembly Committee for Local Government, agreed.

"We're killing ourselves," he said. "It's next to impossible for persons living in the Lower West Side to get a job in East Aurora. Taking four different buses to get there is a real disincentive. Put those jobs and industries in the city, and the work force is there and the infrastructure is there."

Lou Jean Fleron, a director of Workforce, Industry and Economic Development at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, pointed out that there are still a lot of Buffalo residents who don't earn a living wage.

"How do you create practices where people have access to succeed?" Fleron asked.

Hoyt said a source of the problem is the "pirating" that takes place among industrial development agencies throughout Western New York.

"There are several hundred IDAs throughout the state. Maybe there ought to be regional IDAs," he said. "There are nine regions for the state. We're number nine. Maybe one regional IDA for each region. The bottom line is one of the principles of smart growth is to invest where there's already infrastructure. Stop taking green space to build subdivisions and office parks."

Hoyt referred to plans under consideration by the State Legislature to develop a plan to demolish dilapidated, vacant homes and have municipalities and counties opt into a statewide land-banking authority.

"We were once a city of 600,000 people, and we have an infrastructure that was built for much more," Hoyt said. "Now we're at something like 285,000 to 290,000. With a shrinking population, there are a lot of abandoned homes. We want to put them in a land bank where the money could be used for economic development, new housing or green space."

Peter Aiello, a Riverside resident, said it's frustrating when he receives a bill from Kenmore Mercy Hospital that came from Florida.

"It burns me up," he said. "They can't find someone in Buffalo to stuff an envelope, lick a stamp, and put it in the mail?"

e-mail: dswilliams@buffnews.com