Buffalo Insert - New York Canada Report

DECEMBER 19, 2014

NEW YORK– CANADA REPORT SPOTLIGHT ON BUFFALO / NIAGARA CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

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McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP represents a wide range of clients in the areas of energy, environment, finance, government contracts, infrastructure, health care, public policy, and technology.

Our bipartisan New York Government Affairs team is comprised of former legislative and gubernatorial staff, prosecutors, and corporation counsel. We represent a wide range of clients in front of the executive and legislative branches of New York State and City government, including nearly every regulatory agency in New York, the Office of the Attorney General, the Office of the State Comptroller, and many county and municipal governments across New York.

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CONTENTS

NEW YORK–CANADA Special Issue — December 19, 2014

7...... A TOUR OF BUFFALO’S TROUBLED PAST AND HOPEFUL FUTURE

CITY & STATE’S NEW YORK– CANADA SUMMIT

11..... TRADE BUSTLING, BUT SLOW GOING ON NY– CANADA BORDER

13.... MAYORS WITHOUT BORDERS

15.... ERIE COUNTY AIMING TO

RECRUIT MORE CANADIAN SUBSIDIARIES

PERSPECTIVES

16.... ERIE COUNTY’S ECONOMIC RESURGENCE UNDER WAY

By Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz

18.... AVOIDING THE

ECONOMIC DRAIN OF BAOOMER FLIGHT

By Bill Armbruster

20.... THE INVALUABLE

PEACE BRIDGE

By Dottie Gallagher-Cohen

22.... THE PAST IS

BUFFALO’S FUTURE

By Jack O’Donnell

24.... TOR-BUFF-CHESTER

NEEDS A NORTH AMERICAN SCHENGEN

By Alan J. Bedenko

26.... REVIVING A BORDER COMMUNITY

By Alan Oberst

28.... SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP: A Q&A WITH BUFFALO MAYOR BYRON BROWN

61 Broadway, Suite 2825 New York, NY 10006 Editorial (212) 894-5417 General (646) 517-2740 Advertising (212) 284-9712 advertising@cityandstateny.com

CITY AND STATE, LLC Chairman Steve Farbman President/CEO Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com PUBLISHING Publisher Andrew A. Holt aholt@cityandstateny.com Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@cityandstateny.com Chief of Staff Jasmin Freeman jfreeman@cityandstateny.com Business Development Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com Director of Marketing Samantha Diliberti sdiliberti@cityandstateny.com Distribution Czar Dylan Forsberg EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Morgan Pehme mpehme@cityandstateny.com Managing Editor Michael Johnson mjohnson@cityandstateny.com Albany Bureau Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com Albany Reporter Ashley Hupfl ahupfl@cityandstateny.com Buffalo Reporter Chris Thompson cthompson@cityandstateny.com Policy Reporter Wilder Fleming wfleming@cityandstateny.com Associate Editor Helen Eisenbach PRODUCTION Art Director Guillaume Federighi gfederighi@cityandstateny.com Graphic Designer Michelle Yang myang@cityandstateny.com Marketing Graphic Designer Charles Flores, cflores@cityandstateny.com

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Photo credits: Nancy J. Parisi

Web Manager Lydia Eck, leck@cityandstateny.com

November 24, 2014

Illustrator Danilo Agutoli

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NO FENC GOOD NEIGHB NO FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS

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By Morgan Pehme Editor-in-Chief

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repare to have your mind blown: Canadians are just like us.

If you hung giant photos of Americans and our neighbors to the north at the border, side by side without identification—as the artists JR and Marco did of Israelis and Palestinians on the separation barrier back in 2007—I am certain that even the most observant of patriots would not be able to tell the difference between us.

And as plausible as the conspiracy theory advanced by South Park is—that Canada is draining money from the United States to fund its infrastructure projects via an insidious mobile app—the truth is, shockingly, quite the contrary.

In 2009 alone, our relationship with Canada, the U.S.’ single largest trading partner, amounted to $592 billion in the two-way exchange of goods and services—in excess of an astonishing $1 million every minute. This commerce supports an estimated 8 million jobs across America, and has a monumental effect on New York’s local economies.

As Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown points out in the Q&A that appears in this special edition of City & State, between 2013 and 2014 about 38 percent of the new investment in his city came from Canadian businesses.

It is no surprise that the enormous growth of Toronto—which recently eclipsed Chicago to become the fourthlargest city in North America, and where the number of giant cranes currently on its skyline give the metropolis the look of a massive Erector Set—has not just trickled 90 miles down to Western New York but showered it with new opportunity, and in so doing played a vital role both in the region’s rescue from the Great Recession and its blossoming renaissance.

Given that Republicans and Democrats alike have declared job creation and economic development their foremost priorities, it would seem a bipartisan no-brainer for us to do everything we can to keep the floodgates of trade between our countries open and

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to embrace every measure possible to encourage Canadian dollars to flow our way.

But rather than adopt an invisible, unpatrolled border like the Eurozone has done between its member states, our country is still trapped in an alarmist post-9/11 mentality that induces us to view even our closest of friends with suspicion. Just a little over 13 years ago, we thought it was perfectly safe for Canadians and Americans to cross our shared border with a mere driver’s license. Granted the world has changed since then, but the relationship between the United States and Canada has not.

As last month’s attack on Parliament Hill in Ottawa demonstrated, our two nations are united in braving the perils of terrorism and regard with equal seriousness the threats posed by extremism. It is hardly a stretch to conclude that were the U.S. and Canada to apply ourselves to devising a common set of laws and regulations to jointly seal our borders at the oceans that we could come up with an arrangement that assured both countries of our mutual security.

The notion that, were we to ease the restrictions at our northern border, terrorists would come streaming down from Canada, frankly, is absurd. The revelations in recent months about ISIS’ recruits have demonstrated that even were we able to achieve the impossible and hermetically seal our borders, doing so would still not safeguard us against homegrown extremists. Truth be told, if anything, Canada has more to fear from us in loosening the border, given the preponderance of guns on our side of the divide.

As for the concern that Canadian healthcare and its socialist ways would

be unchecked to infect the good ol’ U.S. of A. were we to be any less vigilant in our self-defense, it is worth noting that Canada is both a devoutly capitalist nation and one currently governed by a prime minister who is considerably more conservative then our president. Sure, we work 4.6 percent more hours than the average Canadian, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, but as former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert

Prime Minister of Canada

NCES

border crossings between the U.S. and Canada may seem fanciful, the appetite is there among those who depend upon our symbiotic relationship and understand it firsthand. For example, the mayors from both sides of the border who participated in City & State’s New York–Canada Summit in October were wide open to entertaining virtually any scenario that meant a freer exchange of economic opportunity between

The world has changed since 9/11, but the friendship between the U.S. and Canada has not.

HBORS cit yandstateny.com

Reich recently enumerated, at the same time we don’t live as long, our literacy and numeracy are inferior, our typical worker’s pay is lower, our disposable income after taxes is smaller, and—guess what?—we’re less satisfied. You can see why we would want to keep all those statistics safely on the other side of the border.

While the idea of eliminating the

our nations. Nobody saw thinning the border as compromising our security.

Mirroring the rapport between our two countries, these Canadian and American mayors are friends, and they trust each other. After all, isn’t that what friends do? Let us not forget that when Robert Frost wrote “Good fences make good neighbors,” he meant it ironically.

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FROM THE DESK OF

December 12, 2014 RE: Buffalo Joint Schools Construction Program Audit Dear Comptroller DiNapoli and Commissioner King: The Program Provider seeks to close out the 12- year, $1.4 billion, Buffalo Public School System– Joint Schools Construction Program (Program) with the Joint Schools Construction Board (JSCB.) The current Board of Education majority members appointed to the JSCB conducted an independent inquiry and have found clear and convincing evidence that the oversight, review and internal audit performed during the course of the Program was severely lacking and corrupted, requiring a comprehensive independent audit to be conducted immediately. What some want to describe as a model school reconstruction program appears instead to have been an intentional ongoing conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers of New York State of millions of dollars.

The Program Agreement was not consistent with usual and customary controls over the Program Provider. The Program Provider’s procedures, the bidding and award of sub-contracts, the lack of definition, the lack of transparency and the lack of any agreement to establish the amount of profit earned by the Program Provider, its consultants and contractors, self-dealing, political “fees” paid to consultants and the disbursement of taxpayer funds must all be reviewed.

Until recently, the JSCB and its representatives never asked for, nor were they made aware of, all of the Program Provider’s subcontractor bids received or the manner in which bids were awarded. In some cases bids awarded to contractors who had close relationships with certain consultants, paid the consultants to secure contracts for them. The same consultants also received funds from the Program Provider. JSCB representatives, who had no experience with construction management, were never instructed to request, obtain and review such documents. There were no checks and balances over executed contracts and no evidence of the amount and nature of all payments, disbursements and profits made on any of the projects.

The hybrid and unique nature of the Program Agreement was not consistent with usual and customary controls over a Program Provider. It is evident that from inception the provision for a guaranteed maximum cost allowance, apparently determined jointly by the State Education Department and the Program Manager, prior to the rendering of a definition, feasibility and any scoping and the preparation of any plans or specs, left the Program Provider with the exclusive right, without oversight, to determine the scope and cost of the work and the amount of its own profits. The Program Provider dictated the plans and specs, hired and guided the architect, negotiated and awarded contracts with sub-contractors and set its own profit margins, all without objective public scrutiny. Allegedly the Program Provider also owned a non-union contracting company which was allowed to bid on certain sub-contracts.

As a result of the above, the JSCB and the Buffalo Board of Education voted to have a complete and thorough independent audit of the entire Program from Phase 1 to Phase 5. The JSCB also voted to request that the New York State Office of the State Comptroller (NYSOSC) conduct a full and comprehensive audit with respect to the Program.

The politics involved, considering the special relationship between the Governor and the Program Provider, especially in the context of the Albany’s corruption, will put NYSOSC and the State Education Department (SED) in an unbearable position, if not a clear conflict. The audit may very well turn into a forensic audit as the history of the untoward relationships are peeled back.

For that reason, I request that NYSOSC and or SED fund an independent comprehensive audit by a credible private auditor. Note that an audit conducted by the NYSOSC of the Phase I of the Program for the period from September 2003 to February 28, 2006 was incomplete and resulted in little or no follow up on its recommendations. The audit pointed out that the Program Manager was self- dealing but did nothing except to say that the practice must stop (which it apparently did not.)

Also in September, 2014, the JSCB voted to request that the Program Provider furnish it and its agents with copies of all subcontractor bids, contracts, payments and disbursements made from the maximum cost allowance which was paid to the Program Provider during the entire term of the contract. It is now three months later and the Program Provider is non- responsive, stonewalling, refusing to answer whether or not and when they might produce the requested information and documents.

The Program Provider’s attorneys are conflicted insofar as they are also outside counsel to the Buffalo Public Schools.

Please advise of your intentions.

Very Truly Yours, 6 December 19, 2014 Carl P. Paladino

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HISTORY A TOUR OF BUFFALO’S TROUBLED PAST AND HOPEFUL FUTURE

BY CHRIS THOMPSON

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o one can say for sure how the city of Buffalo got its name.

There is some evidence that buffalo actually roamed Western New York at one point, but they very likely died out or moved west in the early eighteenth century, long before Western Europeans settled the region. The most popular theory among the city’s leaders is that early French trappers named the area either beau fleuve (“beautiful river”) or boeuf a l’eau (“the cattle by the water”) and that English-speaking

settlers eventually corrupted the name to Buffalo.

In other words, Buffalo was born in an enigma. After the western terminus of the Erie Canal was established here in 1825, Buffalo became one of the richest and most populous cities in America, driven by trade, steel production, and grain processing.

When the heavy manufacturing center fled in the 1950s, Buffalo lost half its population and entered a period of profound and traumatic decline, which

still haunts the memories of its older residents. But thanks to a new influx of high-tech, green technology, and medical research industries, Buffalo has begun a new economic and cultural renaissance. City & State is proud to also be part of that resurgence, having opened a new bureau earlier this year to cover the city’s reinvigorated dynamism. In appreciation of our new home, we asked former Buffalo mayor Tony Masiello to give us a historical tour of The Queen City.

Ralph Wilson Stadium is one place practically every Buffalonian embraces.

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HISTOH RY T

LARKIN SQUARE

MILLARD FILLMORE’S TOMBSTONE

BUFFALO PSYCHIATRIC CENTER

Larkin Square once housed one of the most important businesses in America, the Larkin Soap Company, located in “the Hydraulics,” Buffalo’s center of industry and manufacturing. In 1875 John Larkin started the Plain and Fancy Soaps company, which once employed 2,000 people, and the corporation commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build a signature office complex in 1906, which has since been torn down. The company collapsed in the 1940s, and the rest of Buffalo’s manufacturing center went with it, leaving this neighborhood a ghost town for decades. In the last 10 years, however, developer Howard Zemsky has redesigned the old factory into a new center for office, commercial and recreational space. Tuesdays in the summer, gourmet food trucks make the rear end of the old factory into a new party, and local bands complement the festivities with free concerts every Wednesday.

Born in 1800, President Millard Fillmore is regarded as a son of Buffalo, despite hailing originally from Cayuga County.

He co-founded the Buffalo Club, which remains the place where many of Buffalo’s political and business elite meet to discuss the affairs of the day, as well as the University of Buffalo and Buffalo General Hospital, now known as Kaleida Health. To this day the Daughters of the American Revolution honor him and his wife every January, and the White House sends a wreath. But he also ran for office on an anti-Catholic and anti-Freemason platform and as president signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

One of the most beautiful and terrible buildings in Western New York, the Buffalo Psychiatric Center opened in 1880. Originally called the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, this vast complex warehoused thousands of people, some with serious mental illnesses as well as many who suffered from lesser ailments such as depression or Down syndrome. Untold numbers of children whose parents did not want to bother taking care of them were abandoned at the institution. After the Center shut down in the 1970s, administrators from the nearby SUNY-Buffalo campus repeatedly tried to bulldoze the building—one of New York’s most beautiful Romanesque complexes, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson and Frederick Law Olmsted—to make way for a parking lot. Today the complex is being redesigned to house a hotel and international conference center.

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Bellissimo threw a batch of chicken wings— at the time considered garbage, soup stock at best—into a skillet, added some butter and Frank’s Hot Sauce, fried them up—and the rest is history.

ANCHOR BAR Can you say Buffalo wings? It can get cold up here in Buffalo, and there’s nothing like comfort food to take our minds off the grim reality outside—something hot and spicy and deep-fried, for example, with hot sauce and cow’s milk. That was the recipe Anchor Bar and Restaurant owner Teresa Bellissimo came up with one Friday in 1964 when her son Dominic asked for food for his drunken Catholic friends. With meat verboten,

ERIE CANAL PROJECT Buffalo would be nothing without the western terminus of the Erie Canal.

Opened in 1825, the canal established Buffalo as a key port in the transportation

of manufactured goods from the industrial Midwest down to New York City and abroad. Along the way it made Buffalo’s great era of industry and enterprise possible. The canal was largely abandoned in 1918, helping precipitate the collapse of Buffalo’s most important businesses. But today, as the city enjoys an unexpected resurgence in medical research and solar technology, the canal is being reborn as a center for music, sports and curiosity. The Empire State Development Corporation is overseeing a grand project to build a replica of the canal along the very route it once ran. The Buffalo Sabres play just a few hundred yards down the stretch of a new park and concert area.

HarborCenter, a new space for ice rinks and restaurants, is likewise within eyesight of the canal. Food pavilions are being built alongside the site of the old canal, and people will be able to skate on the canal in the winter, just as they did a century ago.

The Erie Canal will never float furniture down to the Hudson the way it once did, but Buffalo has found a new use for it.

Congratulations to on the opening of their new Buffalo News Bureau

Government Rel ations | Public Affairs

Honorable Paul A. Tokasz, Partner 726 Exchange Street, Suite 815 • Buffalo, NY 14210 716-854-4100

www.plynchassociates.com Honorable Paul A. Tokasz, Partner

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726 Exchange Street, Suite 815

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Buffalo, NY 14210

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716-854-4100

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GUN THAT KILLED McKINLEY AND HANDKERCHIEF THAT HID IT

ROOSEVELT’S SWEARING-IN CEREMONY

Leon Czolgolcz, a young Polish-American steel worker and anarchist, admired the writings of Emma Goldman and resolved to carry out what was then known as “propaganda by the deed.” On Sept.

5, 1901, he walked up to President McKinley carrying a gun hidden in a handkerchief, and shot McKinley twice.

One of the bullets pictured above lodged in the president’s jacket, grazing him. The other bullet was fatal.

Hiking in the Adirondack Mountains when President McKinley was shot, Theodore Roosevelt was rushed to Buffalo to be at McKinley’s side. Once it became clear McKinley was dead, Roosevelt was immediately sworn in to reassure the American public that someone was in charge. Out of respect to the McKinley family, Roosevelt did not want to make the ceremony too ornate, so he took the oath of office in the library of his friend Ansley Wilcox’s mansion at 651 Delaware Avenue, where Roosevelt stayed while McKinley took his last breaths.

THE BUFFALO HISTORY MUSEUM This is the only building left standing from the great Pan-American Exposition, held in 1901 in Buffalo, at the height of its industrial power. Located in northern Buffalo and spreading out over 342 acres, the Pan-Am Expo was designed to

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highlight the most important industrial and manufactured products of its era. The most dramatic moment was intended to be the lighting of thousands of electric lights along the Pam-Am’s cityscape— the first time that electric power was used on such a large scale and from such a long distance. As a result, Buffalo was dubbed by some the “City of Light.”

SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS USED TO EXTRACT THE BULLET William McKinley would have most likely survived Czolgolcz’s assassination attempt, if only his doctors had been able to find and extract the killer’s second bullet. These are the forceps and probes doctors used to dig into his stomach and look for Czolgolcz’s bullet.

Unfortunately, they never found it, and McKinley died eight days later of gangrene.

SITE OF McKINLEY’S ASSASSINATION President McKinley was shot in a temporary structure known as the “Temple of Music,” on a site that is now the corner of Elmwood Avenue and Fordham Drive. The assasination cast a pall on the Pan-American Exposition, ruining its momentum and, some say, marking the symbolic beginning of Buffalo’s decline. cit yandstateny.com

NY

On Oct. 16 City & State hosted an all-day New York–Canada Summit, co-sponsored by Parsons, Bolton St.-Johns, Ellicott Development, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and the governerment of Canada.

The following articles are takeaways from that event.

TRADE BUSTLING, BUT SLOW GOING ON NEW YORK-CANADA BORDER

Jim Dickmeyer, the consul general of the United States in Toronto, opened the summit by praising the relationship between the U.S. and Canada.

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Nancy J. Parisi

BY CHRIS THOMPSON

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very year Canada and New York State exchange over $34 billion in goods, maintaining more than 500,000 jobs in New York alone—but troubling environmental and national security issues, along with simpler matters such as passport processing, continue to slow down an otherwise happy friendship.

Political leaders from both countries met in Buffalo to discuss how to resolve these problems at City & State’s New York–Canada Summit, co-sponsored

by Parsons, Bolton-St. Johns., Ellicott Development, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, and the government of Canada.

Jim Dickmeyer, the consul general of the United States in Toronto, led off the summit, taking care to praise the fruitful relationship between the two countries, but acknowledging that it is also “full of minor irritants,” including how to secure the border in the wake of 9/11 and dealing with the issue of Americans crossing the border to buy cheap prescription drugs.

Nevertheless, he said, “Let’s not die a death of a thousand cuts.”

Canadian Consul General in New York John Prato also struck a hopeful tone, but when the first panel about bridges and trade across the Great Lakes began, panelists began to be more granular in their analyses of the border issue. Bryan Roth, the manager of regional development for the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, argued that New

York State needs critical reforms to maintain and grow the current level of U.S.–Canadian trade, including ensuring that the tax on gasoline is dedicated to funding infrastructure projects, and expanding the plaza of on-ramps and off-ramps along the Peace Bridge, which connects Buffalo to Canada.

“You really need to talk about the $100 billion of products that crosses the border, whether it stays in New York or not,” Roth said. “Because that leads to jobs.”

James Weakley, the president of the Lake Carriers’ Association, was particularly pointed about the problems confronting the future of a healthy trade relationship between the two countries.

“Despite the inspirational remarks of both consul generals, I’m kind of the Debbie Downer here today,” he said.

“Because things are not working.”

Weakley’s main complaint was that the Canadian government has unilaterally demanded freight ships from both countries install state-of-the-art systems to sanitize ballast water before they dump it into the lakes, even in cases where freight ships don’t actually dump ballast water. Weakley went so far as to complain that much of the sanitizing technology Canada is demanding doesn’t actually exist. Moreover, he said, this represents a fundamental abrogation of American sovereignty in the name of an unattainable ideal.

“They’re intentionally implementing something they know it’s impossible for

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us to comply with,” he said.

During the second panel, the talk turned to commercial traffic on the bridges of Western New York. Lew Holloway, the general manager of the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, warned that delays along the region’s bridges were “extremely costly to trade, and extremely frustrating.”

Buffalo Niagara Partnership’s Roth argued that the NEXUS alternative inspection system, which is designed to expedite the cross-border inspection process for prescreened travelers, is dysfunctional at times and needs improvement. Sam Hoyt, Western New York’s regional president for the Empire State Development Corporation, warned that New York’s side of the Peace Bridge had an alarmingly small capacity for off-ramps, often forcing diesel trucks to drive through the dense and impoverished community of West Buffalo—although he touted a major project under way to ease traffic jams and bottlenecks.

Nevertheless, the panelists took great pains to stress that these are the sorts of issues that arise when two countries have such a fruitful, amicable and lucrative relationship. There may well be no more friendly international relationship in the world than that between Canada and America, they asserted.

There are real problems, everyone agreed, but problems between very close friends. cit yandstateny.com

MAYORS WITHOUT BORDERS

Nancy J. Parisi

BY CHRIS THOMPSON

(l to r) Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren; Buffalo Deputy Mayor Ellen Grant; Niagara Falls, ON Mayor Jim Diodati; Fort Erie, ON Mayor Doug Martin; Niagara Falls, NY Mayor Paul Dyster

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ORERS

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n Oct. 16, as part of City & State’s New York-Canada Summit, mayors from cities on both sides of the border met to assess the state of international relations, the potential for a more lucrative economic partnership, and whether infrastructural barriers such as border crossing logistics can be overcome. And unlike the earlier panel discussion, in which customs officials and business leaders warned that legal and infrastructural problems have kept trade between New York and Canada from realizing its full potential, both Canadian and American mayors were encouraged by the region’s growing synergy.

The key regional leaders who participated in the forum, including Niagara Falls (New York) Mayor Paul Dyster, Buffalo Deputy Mayor Ellen Grant, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren, Niagara Falls (Ontario) Mayor Jim Diodati and Fort Erie (Ontario) Mayor Doug Martin, largely agreed that the region’s trade, tourism and sports industries were only getting stronger.

The Peace Bridge, the key conduit connecting motorists from Fort Erie to Buffalo over which more than $40 billion worth of trade passes every year, was given as an example of the positive nature of the international relationship.

The Peace Authority, which oversees the

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operation of the bridge, is governed by a board of 10 Canadian and American members. For years the two sides have bickered over the pace and direction of Buffalo’s economic development, clashes that have occasionally devolved into petty squabbling. Recently Kavinoky Cook, the Buffalo law firm that has represented the Peace Bridge Authority for 30 years, decided to end its relationship with the Authority.

Canadian members of the Authority Board sued the firm to force it to turn over legal documents, but on Oct. 17 State Supreme Court Tracey Bannister rejected the lawsuit and essentially told the Board to work out its problems and stop wasting the court’s time.

Many commentators have claimed that this lawsuit was emblematic of the Authority’s broken governance. Panelists at the summit, however, insisted that the bridge is in fact functioning rather well and that the media has overblown the conflict.

“The one time people disagree with something, that’s what gets in the press,” said Dyster.

At the same time, the mayors agreed that the pace of allowing truck traffic to cross the bridge has been too slow, especially in the wake of 9/11. “At one time, I owned a bakery distribution company. We imported, exported,

distributed to all the major retailers in Western New York and Ontario,” Diodati said. “And I know first-hand. I would drive those trucks. … And I have to tell you, what an impediment to business [it is] when you get held up at the border.

You say, ‘It’s not worth the time.’ So, yes, you have to open up that border. That is the key to getting both markets.”

Another point of concurrence was that trade via shipping has serious environment consequences. Warren worried that trade on Lake Erie could seriously impact her city’s water supply.

Dyster claimed the potential harm was so bad that he has begun discussions with the mayors of Toledo and Chicago about convening a much larger regional summit about pollution and the environmental consequences of shipping on the Great Lakes.

Nonetheless, these were minor concerns in a conversation in which there was largely accord around the notion that it was time to think of Buffalo, Western New York and Toronto as a single market.

To give one example, Niagara Falls is poised for even greater economic growth, Diodati said, if only the Canadian and American sides could work more closely to attract tourists and gamblers.

“If they’re coming to Niagara Falls, you’ve already won,” he said. “It’s the Kleenex of tissues. It’s Coca-Cola.” cit yandstateny.com

ERIE

ERIE COUNTY AIMING TO RECRUIT MORE CANADIAN SUBSIDIARIES

Nancy J. Parisi

BY JON LENTZ

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz announced a major new initiative at the summit to recruit Canadian companies to open U.S. brances in Western New York.

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anada is already the No. 1 international trade partner for New York, but officials say there is plenty more that can be done to strengthen the relationship between the two countries.

That’s why Erie County is embarking on a joint initiative with the state to recruit companies to open U.S. branches in Western New York.

The $250,000 project will rely on PSD Global, a Canadian economic development consulting firm, to identify cit yandstateny.com

Canadian companies that could locate U.S.-based subsidiaries in Western New York, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz announced in October at City & State’s New York-Canada Summit in Buffalo. $150,000 of the price tag will be assumed by the state, while the remaining $100,000 will be contributed

by Erie County. The contract would last for one year initially, and could be renewed.

The county, working with local partners, has already had some initial

success on this front with companies like TLC Pet Food, Green Tower Industries and Welded Tube, a steel manufacturer.

But Poloncarz said that having an operation on the ground in Canada would help efforts to reach a relatively untapped market.

“When I went up to Toronto last year to visit the consul general’s office, I asked, ‘How many public officials have been in your office in the last couple of years to actually sell their communities to the economic market juggernaut that Ontario is?’ ” Poloncarz said. “And they said there were three: Rick Snyder of Michigan, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts—and there was Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.”

Poloncarz said that major business activity in Toronto and southern Ontario is a natural target for growth, given the geographic proximity and the economic and cultural bonds already in place. But instead of trying to poach Canadian companies to move to Erie County, the aim is to persuade them to open or relocate U.S.-based subsidiaries in Western New York, just a short trip away.

“In some ways we in Western New York have more in common with our friends in southern Ontario and Toronto than we sometimes do with our friends in New York City,” Poloncarz said. “What we’ve been doing lately is to figure out how we can grow both sides of the border by capitalizing on what is truly one of the largest metropolitan regions in North America.”

Following Poloncarz’s announcement at the summit, the Erie County Legislature voted unanimously to approve the initiative.

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RESUR GENCE

ERIE COUNTY’S ECONOMIC RESURGENCE UNDER WAY

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BY MARK C. POLONCARZ Mark C. Poloncarz is Erie County Executive.

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n economic renaissance is happening here at the western end of New York State, a rebirth that builds literally on our rich industrial heritage while transforming our economy into a contemporary engine powered by the jobs of the future. In Erie County, new industries and a new attitude are reshaping our region, bringing fresh life to longdormant industrial areas and presenting cutting-edge career opportunities to the next generation of workers.

Importantly, since I took office in 2012, unemployment is down from 8.9 percent to 5.7 percent in Erie County, while for the first time in decades, we are seeing increases in population. These two positive trends are adding to the sense of renewal in our community, and my administration is acting to build on this momentum.

This rebirth is not happening in a

haphazard or uncoordinated way but rather as the result of careful planning, cooperation and commitment from partners in the public and private sectors. In 2013 I released my economic plan, known as “Initiatives for a Smart Economy.” The plan identified 64 separate initiatives in 12 sectors of our economy that we could implement in a short time period. The plan leverages the County of Erie’s assets and abilities, combines them with the resources of our Industrial Development Agency and incorporates them as key supporting elements of the Regional Economic Development Council’s priorities for our region. This coordination acts as a “force multiplier” in creating change and revitalizing our economy. The results are already beyond encouraging, with more than 40 of the initiatives started and roughly half of those completed.

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RCE

For example, one of our initiatives has been to increase the number of Canadian companies opening up American subsidiaries in Erie County. We had a big win when Canadian steel manufacturer Welded Tube, recognizing the advantages of locating a U.S. subsidiary here in Erie County, invested $40 million in a modern pipe-making facility located on the former Bethlehem Steel site, bringing with them nearly 100 new jobs. Other Canadian companies have also seen the benefits that an Erie County location has to offer, such as direct access to rail, port and truck transport, and are locating operations here rather than in the southern climes they had sought in the past.

Clean and green technology is also

springing up on the former Republic Steel site in Buffalo, as the Solar City project is gaining steam and international attention. Seeded by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion” initiative, this project brings a $3 billion investment in solar technologies to Erie County, creating the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the western hemisphere on the same site that cast the American steel that built our economy. Along with supporting industries and accompanying subsidiaries, this will bring thousands of good-paying jobs to the shores of Lake Erie.

A new wave, a new era and an exciting new Erie County are at the epicenter of forward-leaning economic development in Western New York.

Poloncarz: Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion” initiative has helped bring about a clean and green technology boom in Erie County.

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December 19, 2014

17

BOOME FLIGH AVOIDING THE ECONOMIC DRAIN OF BAOOMER FLIGHT

W

BILL ARMBRUSTER

Bill Armbruster is the associate state director for Western New York for the AARP.

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N eocv ee mm bb ee rr 11 97 , 2 0 1 4 D

orking baby boomers stand to pump an astounding $22 billion a year into Erie County’s economy in their retirement— that is, if they stick around.

Nearly half those baby boomers currently working and confident they will be able to retire are at least somewhat likely to leave New York when they exit the workforce, AARP New York found in a recent survey of Erie County voters age 50 and above.

If those boomers go, they will take more than $10 billion a year with them.

That is an economic warning shot if ever there was one. And it is real: More boomers left New York, proportionately, than any other state in 2012.

Baby boomers are no ordinary generation. There are more of them, with more money, than any generation to come before. In New York, over 500 boomers will turn 65 every day in the coming years, based on an AARP analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Erie County will go from one in seven people

65 or over in 2010 to more than one in five by 2035.

So as boomers age into retirement, the impact their decisions have on their communities is magnified.

That is one of the reasons AARP New York is trying to confront potential boomer flight.

Western New Yorkers are looking for more than the Buffalo Bills, the world’s best wings and a good “beef on weck” to keep them here—though those are some strong incentives.

AARP’s survey showed plenty of Erie County’s 50+ voters are concerned about the cost of utilities, their retirement savings and their caregiving needs: • 62 percent are at least somewhat concerned about affording utilities, 86 percent do not believe the interests of residential utility customers are represented and taken into consideration when utility rate increases are proposed, and 75 percent do not believe their elected officials are doing enough to help

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year alone, Texas added over 19,000 private sector jobs related to oil and natural gas production. Additionally, a Purdue University study noted that fracking-related energy production has the potential to contribute an additional $473 billion a year to the U.S. economy.

Fracking has already transformed places like Williston, N.D., Cumberland Township, Pa., and Port Arthur, Texas, from dusty towns to booming economic powerhouses. Unfortunately, no New York towns can say the same. New York has similar energy resources, as it sits atop two large shale formations. However, for reasons varying from overregulation to political calculations, we have yet to tap in to our energy potential. Gov. Andrew Cuomo continues to uphold a moratorium on fracking that has been in place in New York since 2008.

The time has come for Gov. Cuomo to open New York to fracking.

As with any practice that harnesses our natural resources, environmental concerns need to be evaluated. But so far, Gov. Cuomo has refused to discuss the future of the moratorium as he hides behind flawed evidence and the continuous and politically motivated delays of his health department tasked with issuing a safety review. Numerous scientific studies have shown that fracking is safe when done correctly and with the proper oversight.

While Gov. Cuomo and downstate New York bureaucrats delay, New York residents, especially Western New Yorkers, lose out on job opportunities, lower energy prices, and lucrative revenue streams. I will continue to pressure Gov. Cuomo to lift the fracking moratorium in New York, and look forward to New York becoming the next state to lead America’s energy resurgence.

BOOM

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19

PEACE BR D THE INVALUABLE PEACE BRIDGE

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DOTTIE GALLAGHER-COHEN Dottie Gallagher-Cohen is the president and CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.

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he Peace Bridge is the thirdbusiest commercial crossing in North America. With approximately $750 million in goods crossing the bridge weekly, the utilization of the Peace Bridge creates jobs, drives revenue and spurs our local, regional and state economies.

According to statistics gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau and Statistics Canada, there is approximately $34 billion in bilateral trade between Canada and New York State each year. This equates to 557,500 New York jobs that depend solely on trade and investment with Canada.

Regionally our manufacturing sector produces more than $6.5 billion in commodities that are shipped across the Peace Bridge annually, supporting more than 31,000 manufacturing jobs.

In many of our employee outreach

meetings we hear about companies strategically locating to Buffalo Niagara based on access to the Peace Bridge for their supply chain needs.

In today’s economy, supply chain management and just-in-time deliveries are important business models for a company’s success. The more freight that crosses our bridges, the better off our regional economy is.

There are some who argue that many trucks drive across our bridges and keep going south, never stopping in Buffalo. This is true. However, it is false to argue that they have no impact on our economy. Customs regulations require a great deal of paperwork to cross the border, and Buffalo Niagara has thousands of customs brokers whose jobs rely on the movement of goods across the Canada–U.S. border. Additionally, companies that practice cross-border trade need assistance from banks, law firms, accounting firms, distribution centers and freight forwarders, all of which play prominent roles in employing Western New Yorkers.

The removal of trucks from the Peace Bridge would have a detrimental impact on cross-border trade and the

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Buffalo Niagara economy. The Grand Island Bridges, which already create a bottleneck, are not equipped to handle the additional trucks. Additionally, the removal of trucks from the Peace Bridge would also mean the loss of vehicle traffic from the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge.

This would have a huge impact on various businesses, such as the Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls. More than 80 percent of the sales at the Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls come from Canadians, and 50 percent of all sales tax revenue in Niagara County comes from the outlet mall. Removing vehicle traffic would therefore put thousands of workers out of jobs, and reduce the sales tax revenue of Niagara County significantly.

Furthermore, the Peace Bridge is necessary for passenger traffic.

Passenger traffic combined with commercial traffic makes the Peace Bridge the second busiest crossing between Canada and the United States.

In recent years, as the Canadian and U.S. dollars moved closer in the exchange rate, the influx of Canadians was an economic boom for our region.

A 2011 Visit Buffalo Niagara study determined that the economic impact on Buffalo Niagara was just under a billion dollars. This could not have happened without the passenger utilization of the Peace Bridge.

Canadians boosted—perhaps even saved—our economy during the U.S.

RI DGE

recession, by shopping at our stores, eating at our restaurants, staying at our hotels, flying out of our airport, attending our entertainment and sporting events, and more.

The Buffalo Niagara Partnership supports the projects currently under way at the Peace Bridge as well as the New York State Gateway project.

Moreover, we will be working with our elected leaders for a permanent status for the cargo pre-inspection pilot program at the Peace Bridge.

The greatest thing we can do for our economy and our region is advance plaza projects at our international bridges and create a more efficient operation at the border.

The Peace Bridge is the second busiest border crossing between the United States and Canada.

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December 19, 2014

21

THE PAST IS BUFFALO’S FUTURE

PAST FUT

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JACK O’DONNELL Jack O’Donnell is a senior vice president and communications director for Bolton–St. Johns, and the author of Bitten By The Tiger, a biography of New York Gov. William Sulzer.

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he economic troubles of the industrial Midwest are quite well-known: the decline of heavy industry causing rapid migration of citizens to more economically dynamic (and often more clement) communities, while those who remain struggle to sustain government services and deteriorating infrastructure with a declining tax base.

Truth be told, that is only a part of the story of both Buffalo’s past . . . and the city’s future.

Buffalo’s greatness has always been inherent in her geography—and in her people. Buffalo’s future—a quite promising future—remains equally grounded in this place, and this immigrant culture of hard work and innovation.

Founded around 1790, the original community owed its creation to this location, founded on the eastern edge of Lake Erie, the head of the mighty Niagara River and the edge of Buffalo Creek. The central location is why the British attacked Western New York during the War of 1812, even burning Buffalo in 1813. It is also why the New York State Legislature designated Buffalo as the terminus of the Erie Canal. The canal opened in 1825. Rapid growth ensued, and the City of Buffalo was officially incorporated in 1832.

Positioning Buffalo securely between the Great Lakes and Europe via New York Harbor, the canal set the stage for Buffalo’s prosperity—but it was its geography that truly made it possible.

Buffalo soon became a world leader in processing commercial goods, especially agricultural goods and chiefly grain, from the Midwest. (Agricultural exports measured anywhere between 50 and 85 percent of American exports throughout the 19th century, rivaled only by cotton, whose fortunes rose and fell with the Civil War and Reconstruction.)

This economic activity made fortunes. By 1900 Buffalo was the eighth-largest city in the United States. Prosperity attracted the best America had to offer: Architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Hobson Richardson and Louis Sullivan built magnificent skyscrapers. Frederick Law Olmsted designed a remarkable parks system. The city saw innovation and encouraged invention through groups such as the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company and Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. Buffalo was home to the Niagara Movement. Geography made Buffalo the penultimate stop of the Underground Railroad. The world came to the Pan-American Exposition.

Unfortunately for him, that included President William McKinley.

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north. Roughly 30 percent of total Canada–U.S. trade crosses in the Buffalo/Niagara Region, amounting to an estimated $70 billion in annual trade.

There are close to 600,000 jobs in New York State sustained by the $34 billion in trade between Canada and New York.

More specifically, Canadians have embraced Western New York, coming daily for higher education and healthcare, for concerts and dining, attending Bills and Sabres games and so much more, especially shopping. More than 60 percent of the shoppers at the Walden Galleria come from Canada, while that number reaches nearly 80 percent at the Niagara Falls outlets.

At the Buffalo Niagara International Airport approximately one in three passengers comes from Canada, providing the travel numbers that attracted low-cost carriers JetBlue and Southwest and helping fill the hotels and restaurants surrounding the airport.

These transactions provide vital sales tax revenue for both Erie and Niagara counties, going a long way toward balancing the budgets.

A longer prospectus would detail the opportunities that Lake Erie offers Western New York to create green collar jobs, opportunities we are just beginning to realize.

Finally, Buffalo’s past is realized in the people and the culture they created.

The work ethic of waves of Irish, Italian, German, Polish and Eastern European immigrants still thrives—and is being matched and reawakened by new groups.

Transplants from Yemen and Liberia, as well as young people returning from Brooklyn and North Carolina and San Francisco and many other places, are helping to renew Buffalo.

T TURE Buffalo’s prime location as the terminus of the Erie Canal once made it an economic powerhouse. O’Donnell argues that Buffalo’s location can once again bring it prosperity.

In the wake of his assassination, Theodore Roosevelt became president in Buffalo.

This same geography sustained Buffalo through the railroad age, with major rail lines such as the Erie Railroad and the Albany & New York Central maintaining Buffalo’s position as a central hub in American commerce. In 1927 private investors even built the Peace Bridge over the Niagara River, connecting Buffalo to Ft. Erie, Ontario.

Nothing lasts forever, and neither did Buffalo’s success. The reasons for its decline are too many and too detailed to discuss here, but every explanation centers on the 1957 opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which created trade routes that bypassed Buffalo.

However, that same geography has set the stage for Buffalo’s long-term revival.

In one day of travel, more than 55 percent of the U.S. population can be reached from Buffalo, and about 65 percent of Canada’s population.

Buffalo is uniquely situated to transport goods by all means, including air, water, rail and road. cit yandstateny.com

The City of Buffalo is located about 25 miles south of Niagara Falls, one of the world’s premier tourist attractions, drawing more than 10 million visitors annually. Less than two hours away from Buffalo is Toronto, Ontario, which recently surpassed Chicago to become the fourth-largest city in North America.

And business is taking advantage of this proximity.

FedEx Trade, the international trade division of shipping giant FedEx Corporation, recently opened a major distribution facility in the Town of Tonawanda. FedEx itself is planning a major distribution center on the former Bethlehem Steel complex in Hamburg.

These are just two examples of why Western New York’s location is becoming a center for logistics in the global economy.

The opportunity of Buffalo’s geography is much greater, however.

The international border makes the city a bi-national gateway for commerce, facilitating $80 billion in annual trade between Canada and the United States.

Buffalo has long been considered a gateway city to our neighbors to the

December 19, 2014

23

TORBUFF CHEST

TOR-BUFF-CHESTER NEEDS A NORTH AMERICAN SCHENGEN

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ALAN J. BEDENKO Alan Bedenko is a partner at Feldman Kieffer, LLP, and since 2003 has written a political blog under the name Buffalopundit.

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niversity of Toronto professor and Creative Class guru Richard Florida co-authored an October 2007 report that concluded that megaregions have become “the real economic engines of the global economy.”

Stretching from Quebec City to London, Ontario, to Utica, Florida’s group identified “Tor-Buff-Chester” as the fifth largest mega-region in North America. This bi-national Great Lakes economy boasts over 22 million residents, and its annual economic activity exceeds a half-trillion dollars.

The U.S. border with Canada is the weak link in the Tor-Buff-Chester chain.

This economic juggernaut is awkwardly connected by four bridges in the BuffaloNiagara region, only two of which accommodate commercial traffic. Post9/11, an amalgam of nationalism, political stasis and complicated legal concerns put the brakes on efforts to speed border clearance for passenger and commercial traffic. NEXUS, the bi-national trusted traveler program, has shown that security needs can be balanced with a desire for speedy crossings.

Until recently, Western New York’s outreach to Canadian governments and businesses had been inconsistent. For

almost a decade the federal government rejected the notion of U.S. inspection on the Canadian side of the Peace Bridge due to concerns about jurisdiction and sovereignty. This seemed ridiculous, considering that air travelers to the U.S. are now pre-screened by American agents at Caribbean and Irish airports.

How can Dublin accomplish what Fort Erie cannot?

New York’s connections to Ontario need to be improved physically as well as legally. As part of a new pilot program, American agents will pre-screen commercial traffic crossing the Peace Bridge to Buffalo, but Europe’s Schengen treaty provides an outline for the discussion that Americans and Canadians should be having.

While we focus negative attention on our southern border, Americans ignore ways to improve and better manage the frontier we share with our largest trading partner. Often-contradictory security, immigration and commercial needs should be tackled head-on, and new thinking is needed.

For the movement of people, high-speed rail is an idea whose time has come. Modern trains and new infrastructure would shrink travel times cit yandstateny.com

between Toronto, Buffalo and Rochester from hours to minutes. It would be perfectly reasonable for a person to live in one metropolitan region and commute daily to another—live in Amherst, work in Mississauga.

A customs union with Canada eliminating all duties and tariffs on goods crossing our northern border would

of possibilities. It would enable companies to tap labor markets on either side of the Niagara River, helping employers, employees and entrepreneurs alike.

Under a North American Schengen, there would be no more formal passport controls between the U.S. and Canada; however, external borders would be harmonized and tightened.

FTER

Harmonization of American and Canadian customs and immigration rules and enforcement is politically unlikely due to concerns about security and sovereignty. However, it shouldn’t be a taboo subject if the goal is commercial liberalization and economic growth.

Unfettering workers, employers, manufacturers and entrepreneurs to

Professor Richard Florida identified Toronto (pictured) along with Buffalo and Rochester as part of the fifth largest mega-region in North America.

allow both countries to focus instead solely on immigration and security matters. In order to better facilitate economic integration and the crossborder movement of people, a new visa category would need to be created. A non-resident work visa category would open up Tor-Buff-Chester to a new world cit yandstateny.com

Law enforcement on either side of the border would be temporarily free to re-establish individual border controls when necessary, and their police powers would be geographically expanded. All points of entry to the treaty nations would be jointly operated by American and Canadian law enforcement.

live, work and sell freely on either side of the border would truly integrate the Tor-Buff-Chester mega-region, and lead to an unprecedented cross-border economic and intellectual boom. Greater integration of these two economies shouldn’t be hamstrung by four bridges and 20th century border procedures.

December 19, 2014

25

COMMUNIT

REVIVING A BORDER COMMUNITY

ALAN OBERST

Alan Oberst is a Buffalo-based blogger.

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wo centuries ago, the border settlement of Black Rock, like its southern neighbor Buffalo, was neither a safe nor a happy place to be. Settlers living on the narrow strait between New York State and Canada endured cannonades across the river and found themselves on the shifting, bleeding edge of a once-distant conflict.

Fleeing repeated raids, inhabitants put as much distance as they could between themselves and the borderlands.

Those who returned found little more than chimneys and cellar holes.

But it was enough on which to rebuild.

The settlement of Black Rock, named for an ancient geologic feature that had sheltered a Niagara River ferry for as long as anyone could remember, not only rebuilt but thrived on peacetime crossborder commerce. Intrepid Black Rock even carved a still-water port from the

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raging currents of the river, and made a bid to be the western terminus of the Erie Canal.

When Black Rock lost that bid to rival Buffalo, its backers moved away, but others came in and built a thriving port village, taking advantage of the commerce of a nation passing by their doors. A young Grover Cleveland, on his way to make a name for himself out west, visited his uncle there, saw all that was happening and decided to stay.

In time, canal commerce moved on, and the village of Black Rock’s fate was to become just one neighborhood of dozens in a restless, expanding city of Buffalo. While some left to seek their fortunes elsewhere, others found new opportunity with the arrival of the industrial Belt Line railroad and the nation’s first long-distance transmitted electric power. The canal port became a

REV cit yandstateny.com

thriving industrial district that incubated nascent engine, automobile and even aircraft manufacture. Industry was joined by a revived cross-border commerce as the Peace Bridge was built to the south and the International Railroad Bridge to the north. So vital had this industrial and commercial district become that the Navy built a wartime ordinance factory there.

But postwar, in a nation ever seeking new frontiers and greener pastures, industry and residents alike departed for the suburbs and the sunbelt. Factories were shuttered, houses demolished, churches closed and drivers on the new Niagara Thruway bypassed oncevibrant storefronts en route to happier

destinations. The graffiti-covered backsides of the mothballed factories signaled blight to our Canadian neighbors and everyone crossing the border.

The community once founded, so to speak, on the rock—the original Black Rock—even lost the Black Rock name to another Buffalo neighborhood. Those who still (with affection) call the old neighborhood Upper Rock are today all but gone.

Happily, now as several times in the past, Upper Rock is in the midst of a comeback. And all was never lost: International processed foods giant Rich Products, incubated on Niagara Street at Ferry, remained, and thrived. Rich recently invested several million dollars

in a Food Innovation Center that will attract top industry visitors from around the world to this border neighborhood.

As in previous renewals, there is always enough left from the past to build on for the future.

Building on the past includes refurbishing housing, a mission of the award-winning organization PUSH Buffalo. In partnership with PUSH, the New York Main Street Program and a local business owner have co-funded a feasibility study for mixed-use reoccupation of several surviving storefront buildings. The City of Buffalo has invested millions reviving once-neglected Broderick Park, an Underground Railroad heritage site at the old ferry dock. Transportation funds are allocated to reconstruct Niagara Street, where transit service is also slated for a major upgrade. And the Better Buffalo Fund, the community revitalization piece of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion, is eying the district as well. Vision Niagara, a roundtable bringing together artists, businesses, community groups, and engaged citizens, is working to advance the neighborhood. The hottest brewery in Buffalo, aptly named Resurgence, opened there this year.

Buffalo’s border neighborhood proved to be a plucky survivor of the postwar devastation of two centuries ago, the postwar blight of the 20th century, and the ebb and flow of commercial and industrial cycles. On the upturn again, some of Upper Rock’s best days may be just ahead. Stop by and check out the resurgence.

Brady Carlson

A VIVING Grover Cleveland visited Black Rock as a young man and decided to stay.

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27

SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP A Q&A WITH BYRON BROWN

A

t City & State’s New YorkCanada Summit on Oct. 16, C&S Editor Morgan Pehme sat down with Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown before a live audience to get his take on this special relationship.

The following is an edited transcript.

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BYR BR City & State: What is your take on the New York-Canada relationship?

Byron Brown: Obviously, Canada is our country’s largest trading partner. In Buffalo, we are in very close proximity to Canada. It is a relationship we value.

It produces significant economic impact for this community and also is a source of great friendship. There are very close bonds cit yandstateny.com

and relationships between Buffalo and communities in Canada. In fact, many people in this community might have summer homes in Canada, and there are people in Ontario that have places here in Buffalo. We benefit from a number of different things, whether it’s people from Canada coming to support our sporting teams, or to shop at our stores, or to visit our arts and cultural organizations.

That is a very, very significant number.

So we have really worked hard to make sure, not only in Buffalo, but Niagara Falls and other communities on this side of the border, that we are working closely with business development, business investment organizations in Canada. We’ve worked with the BuffaloNiagara Enterprise very closely to track and to promote business opportunity here in Buffalo. The Buffalo-Niagara Partnership, we have worked with to focus on cross-border relationships between businesses that are members of the partnership and businesses that are members of corresponding business organizations in Canada. Also, the regular meeting that we have with Canadian mayors is critically important to being able to update them on projects, issues, and initiatives on this side of the border, and also being able to hear from them about projects, issues, and initiatives in our neighboring Canadian cities.

York Mets game. And that has really helped to increase the amount of cross border traffic that we’re seeing from both communities. Also, the relationship that we have between the Buffalo Bills, playing games in Toronto. While that relationship has now ended, I think it helped to expand the marketplace for the Buffalo Bills into Ontario, into Toronto. And I think as a result, there are more Canadian season ticket holders, Canadians coming to games. We’ve always had a lot of Canadians that come to watch the Bills, [but] I think that that’s increased. And obviously, we have a great arts and culture scene here. … And finally, with the Canadian and U.S. dollar being just about at par now, we’re seeing a real robust increase in the number of Canadians that are coming here and shopping in U.S. stores, particularly [in] Buffalo, Niagara Falls, [and] the suburbs of Buffalo. The retail shopping in our communities is up significantly, and a lot of that is being driven by the Canadian shopper.

YRON ROWN C&S: What are areas where we could improve that relationship? And how closely do you talk with the mayors in Ontario?

BB: There is a constant dialogue between mayors and other elected officials on both sides of the border. … One of the things that we are all looking at in terms of an important area to focus on improving is the ease of transportation across the border crossings. It’s something that we have talked to our Western New York Congressional delegation about. The delegation has been very active in these issues.

Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, Congressman Higgins, Congressman Collins, all recognize the importance of a smooth ability to get back and forth across the border, even in this area where homeland security issues are such a paramount concern.

C&S: What are you trying to do on a city level, as the mayor, to grow this relationship?

BB: We have worked on a business-tobusiness relationship, which is critically important. Reaching out to inform Canadian businesses of opportunities to invest here. … In 2013-2014, the numbers reflect that about 38 percent of the new investment in the city of Buffalo was from Canadian business. cit yandstateny.com

C&S: What have you done to try to promote tourism from Canada into Buffalo?

BB: One of the partnerships that exists in Buffalo that I think is a critical tourism driver is the fact that the Buffalo Bisons Triple-A baseball team is the farm team for the Toronto Blue Jays. There are a lot of people from Toronto and Canada that come into Buffalo to attend Bison games, a lot of people from Buffalo that go up to Toronto to attend Blue Jays games. That is an important exchange. Now, there might be some Mets fans here in the audience … but many in the community felt that it was much better for Buffalo to have that relationship with Toronto than it was [with] New York [teams]. It’s much easier to drive from Buffalo to Toronto than it is to go from Buffalo to see a New

C&S: What do you think about a joint Buffalo-Toronto bid for the Winter Olympics?

BB: That’s been talked about before.

Someone I think from Toronto had floated that. It didn’t materialize in terms of us actually working to do that. I’m interested in it. I supported it at the time that it was floated previously. I think it would be interesting to have a bi-national bid for an Olympics. I think collectively we would have the facilities that would be needed. A concern would be the distance that one would have to travel to access the facilities. But it is something that I think is interesting, and I certainly would be supportive of putting in that joint bid.

December 19, 2014

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