Seriously?

Bud i was just reading those results also..GCEDC likes to make things up to make them selfs look good.How many jobs did they say they created in the last ten years....I was surprized to see the city of Batavia lost 5% population while the town grew 15%..Most towns lost population around us..I wonder if having a zero tax rate has anything to do with this..If The city thinks raising taxes we'll create growth they need to just look at the town...Consolidation will never happen..The town has to much to lose...

I missed this when Bud posted it. Time stamp changed as part of moving it to the home page.

Whatever happened to that first tenant that was supposed to go into that new ag park on east side of town? I see they have a roadway,they built the brick sign out front last week.I thought it was supposed to be a mushroom growing operation????

"I thought it was supposed to be a mushroom growing operation."
I sure hope so Bob, but like a Magical Mushroom you are being kept in the dark and fed Bullshit. Yeah, I know, old and hackneyed just like me. Keep your chin up, the pendulum is starting to swing back like it always does.
"Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share. When my woman left home for another man, you know I didn't care." Who said that?

1. Charlie Sheen
2. Robert Plant
3. Todd Palin

Bud:
I guess the 153 jobs left at the places you mentioned might have been lost completely without the GCEDC.

So it was probably counted as +153 jobs.

The answer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTnEFAqS5eM

They should try to get tenants in their EXISTING,EMPTY parks before wanting to develop more(like in Alabama).They have that nice one w/ overgrown weeds in Pembroke and Leroy,the one on the east side of 98 in Batavia,and now the ag-park.Get people's hopes up of new business,then info is slow or non-existent on the progress.....

Same old same old - nobody can figure out exactly what GCEDC does - other than pay themselves extremely well. It's OUR fault by continuing to re-elect the county legislators that refuse to hold GCEDC accountable.

415 jobs for a city of 20,000 wow. Batavia, New York, it looks as though your going to implode, under your own weight.

Maybe Mr. hyde can create a job in getting rid of the sea gulls over batavia.

"I tried to apply logic to this, but failed miserably."

Bud I'm considering using that as a quote to put at the bottom of my emails.

There are political remedies. I hope that people interested in serving in an attempt to render those remedies understand the political calendar. Petitioning with any party for any district begins in early June with a deadline of returning signatures in early July. Interested potential candidates should reach out now.

Just as the GCEDC has ignored the ABO report, the current legislature is not listening to any of the concerns being expressed here or across Genesee County. In fact to the contrary, their attitude is one of arrogance. That's a bi- product of entrenched incumbency. Therefore the only solution is at the ballot box in November.

This issue crosses all party lines. A solution must be based on a coalition. The Democratic Committee is interested in talking to anyone that wishes to run on this issue.

samo samo politicians lie . NYS dying fast, we need politicians that serve us the people , not the partys or them selfs.we need smaller goverment , less over paided people runing things.right now NYS sucks

lapp insulators problems started with free trade.....and will continue with unfair free trade.......free trade does not take into account goverment mandates.....i am talking health insuance,comp,unimployment,d.e.c,ohsa....i am sure i missed a few.......
if the democrats get their wish. lapp could also have to pay a value added tax , plus gas and cap tax.....these programs will put our manufacturing at a ever more disadvantage.......
what we dont need is free trade ....what we need is fair trade......give me a politian who's for fair trade and they got my vote......dem , rep, ir independent.....

lori .....i wonder where the dems stand on these issues

William,
Are you running?

Bud, I always enjoy reading your opinions and facts on the different subject matters that are usually "hot button" issues in our local area. They are usually thought provoking, honest and for the most part, on the money as is the case concerning the GCEDC. Mr. Prevost, I have a suggestion for you, you're a pretty bright guy and maybe you should use your talents' as an editor or maybe an advocate. More people need to see your writings/opinions to be better educated.......

The regulatory indifference toward IDAs extends beyond the County Legislature and into the State Assembly and Senate. As Bud mentioned at the end of his piece, Assemblyman Hawley seems perfectly satisfied and content with how IDAs (and specifically the GCEDC) operate; so much so that he has worked with them to benefit his private business interests. Perhaps he is too busy introducing useless, symbolic bills to look into the matter of IDA oversight.

Steve Hawley called me about this and wanted to clarify --

He received an abatement from GCEDC well before he was an assemblyman and "just a private business owner."

He said he paid $80,000 for his current office location, buying it from a person who bought it in a tax lien auction from the city (for about $5,000 or $10,000) , "effectively putting it back on the tax rolls."

He said, "I'm proud of it." He said it helped improve downtown by taking an a hulk of a building -- it had been stripped of all electrical and plumbing -- and invested $250,000 in its renovation.

The move into the new building allowed him to increase staffing by 2.5 employees, he said.

I recall the former Insurance Center. It was conveniently located across the street from the Allstate office. When I complained about my Allstate agent failing to act as an 'agent,' neglecting to inform me of NYS's plan to charge me for uninsured motorists until I was billed for it- I walked across the street and saved over a hundred dollars buying identical policy from TIC.

...to sum up the conversation, I refer to Mark Twain when he observed "...there are 3 types of lies: Lies, damn lies and statistics..." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics).

Collaborativly speaking, the power to bring business into an economically unfavorable environment lies with its citizens. We are the unwilling salespeople of this area. And it is WE that are doing the yoeman's work in poor salesmenship.

We complain about our taxes, but few of us understand the mandates placed that take a huge chunk of our money. It is awfully hard to offer incentives to industrial based operations when that tax base is absorbed somewhere else. Usually on home owners or legacy stakeholders.

It is the new industry that generates "new" cash into a community. The tax base of an operations physical footprint, the resulting taxes of the workers at that facility, the homes they build, and the lives that are transplanted into that region, then generationalized.

Just because Sylvania, and Trojan moved out (several lifetimes ago), we need to move on.

It is wonderful that we have multiple small service based and small industrial based operations.

But they are limited into a few physical plants which is killing the tax base. Service based operations tend not to generate "new" money, but rather spread out the money in a certain area (think of a bakers table, and some flour is put in the middle of the table, now take your hand and spread that flour over the working space. Same amount of material, covering a larger space.)

There are young families in our region, right now, that are making decisions where they want to work, develop their careers and raise their families.

We as citizens of the GLOW region are rightly proud of our agricultural heritage, but it feels like we harbor a ton of guilt for bad decisions made by our fore-fathers.

This guilt needs to end.

We need to forgive.

We need to collaborate on a vision.

This vision needs to include that the GLOW region is evolving.

We can bring in industry, we can bring in new money to the area. We can MAXIMIZE our barganing positions by reclaiming our talent that was born, educated, raised and left the GLOW region for the lifestyle and opportunity offered elsewhere.

You can talk about "entrenched incumbents" all you want. The work that needs to be done is large, and the help needed to do it is minisucle (variation of a text from somewhere...)

The true "entrenched incumbents" are us. The common folks. The folks that have stayed on.

However, most folks are working multiple jobs and have no time to get involved to evolve the process or issues.

The time commitments to attend meetings, do research and perform accurate due dilegance needs to be done by folks with a calling to public service.

These folks need to be rewarded for their efforts.

These folks also need to be accountable for their misfires. This is what representational democracy (nee republic) is all about.

Given opportunity and a properly delivered vision, and buy in by the citizens (who in turn talk up this area), and legacy stakeholders (who fund this talked up area), folks would return, and this area would prosper just as we are set up to be.

I travel for my job and I cover just about every part of New York State from this area East. I have to say-the GLOW region and City of Batavia is in a darn good place. The physical look of downtown photographs well, always looks good on TV and with the filling of the physical structures of the old plants, shows vitality.

I do have several suggestions to offer that may help. But I need to learn more about what our IDA is and what it is doing, and who approved the business plan of the IDA and its strategic vision.

Ultimately, it was me, the entrenched incumbent at the ballot box who decided who decided this. Someone had to approve these things.

This blog is read everywhere around the world. What is said here is a type of guerilla marketing on the wonders and pitfalls of the GLOW area, the breadbasket of WNY.

I want the world to know that while times are tough, we can and will show the way to the best place to come build a business, raise a family, and prosper in the New York that keeps me just enough interested to stay.

Or we can just keep on with the lies, damn lies and statisics.

For transparency: I told me child years ago, to do the right thing and move out to another state when she got older, just like my parents told me.

But I stayed on.

And she wants to stay too.

Lets get to work.

Mr. Guiste, I follow your insight into local economics until it reaches a dead-end; that being the reality of a world beyond the corner on the ever-upward school of economics. In this new era of declining resources and expanding demand, the more practical model is one of sustainability. Your overview implies that local economy is hindered by a lack of "new industry." I'm not quite sure what is meant by that, though you allude to the likes of Sylvania and Trojan Industries. If they are the ideal, then by comparison so-called cottage industries, business incubators and micro-businesses are less desirable.

The flour on a breadboard analogy is incomplete. You neglected to mention where the flour comes from and how much the baker has to invest in obtaining it. If the flour is produced from wheat grown locally and milled locally, then a local farmer and miller profit from the baker's purchase, who in turn profits when the farmer and miller buy the bread. The transaction is contained within the local economy. If the flour is produced in Minneapolis, some of the profits from the bread go to a farmer in Minnesota, a miller in Minnesota, the chain of transportation that delivers the flour to and from a distributor, the distributor who repackages and sells the flour to the baker... Ultimately the individual who buys the bread has to pay for a slew of handlers- most of them unnecessary if the flour was produced locally.

Why should a loaf of bread sold in Batavia infer a profit in Minneapolis?

http://www.harc.edu/ProgramAreasProjects/LandWaterPeople/EconomicsofSus…