By Mark Scheer
Niagara Gazette
NIAGARA FALLS —
Jobs and the economy took center stage on Wednesday during a discussion involving three Democratic candidates for New York’s 60th state Senate District seat which includes Niagara Falls and Buffalo.
Incumbent state Sen. Antoine Thompson and challengers Rory Allen and Al Coppola all agreed during a candidates forum at the Niagara Falls Public Library that improving the business climate was a top priority for Niagara Falls and other communities across Western New York.
They weren’t all on the same page when it came to explaining how they would go about trying to bring more jobs to the area.
“It’s nice to say that buzz word,” said Allen, a Buffalo businessman and one of two candidates looking to unseat Thompson in Tuesday’s Democratic Primary. “The question is ‘what qualifies you to do this? What qualifies me is that I understand best what the small business community needs.”
Allen said he entered the race in hopes of reversing the trend of young people being educated in Western New York and leaving to find better opportunities elsewhere. If elected, Allen said he spend at least the first three months on the job lobbying companies nationwide in an effort to get them to re-locate to Niagara Falls and Buffalo.
“The only way to stop it is to start attracting jobs and businesses,” Allen said of Western New York’s so-called brain drain.
Allen said he’d also push to make both communities more appealing by devoting state resources to infrastructure improvements. Allen pointed to Niagara Falls, Ont., as an example of what the downtown cores in both Niagara Falls and Buffalo should strive to become in the future.
“Really, what they figured out is that it’s a place where people want to get out and walk around,” he said.
Coppola, a former member of the Buffalo Common Council who held the 60th Senate District seat in 2000, said he viewed cutting costs and trimming spending as key steps to improving Western New York’s economic condition. Coppola said he’d continue to fight against increases in utility costs, which he said have driven away small business owners and deterred new investors from coming into the area. He also said he’d work to put an end to some of the more questionable taxpayer funded practices that have become commonplace in Albany, including stipends lawmakers receive simply for attending meetings.
“Why can’t Albany cut back on some of these programs they are involved with?” Coppola said. “Why can’t some of the elected officials cut back on some of their stipends?”
When asked about tourism development, Coppola pointed to Niagara County’s new airport terminal as a key selling point, noting that the airport’s lengthy runways are capable of landing larger aircraft the Buffalo terminal cannot accommodate. He suggested local tourism officials should be placing more emphasis on attracting specific markets like Asia.
“They travel,” he said. “We could lure them here.”
Thompson, the incumbent who has represented the 60th Senate District since 2007, said he continues to work on several jobs-related initiatives that he believes are producing results in Western New York, including a new training program he helped sponsor for small business owners and entrepreneurs in Niagara Falls. Thompson pointed to the ongoing redevelopment of the Tract II brownfield site in the city’s North End as an example of the type of project he will continue to support in an effort to create more “shovel-ready” properties in the city. In the future, Thompson said he would push to bring more environmentally friendly businesses to the area, including those involved in the wind, solar and alternative energy industries.
“I think we have a lot to do,” Thompson said. “We are well positioned as a region in terms of green jobs and green development, but we have to harness these resources.”
On the tourism front, Thompson said, if elected, he would continue to apply his focus on the development of “niche areas” within the local tourism market, including the development of attractions like the county’s wine trail and the Underground Railroad heritage area in the city’s North End.
“People know the Niagara Falls brand, but we have to do a better job of keeping them here longer,” Thompson said.
