The Wrong Approach

Joel Giambra is the County Executive in Erie County. For many years he watched the once great city of Buffalo decline, eventually taking its entire region down with it. To Giambra, who studied what other regions had done, consolidation of local governments appeared to be key to his region's renaissance. The City of Greater Buffalo would be the result.

Unfortunately he achieved little success. Now both Buffalo and Erie County are run by State Control Boards, their financial houses in disarray.

Per last Friday's Buffalo News, lame duck Giambra has called upon Governor Spitzer to use the state control boards to act “as tools to achieve a firm new state policy on consolidation and government efficiency.”

To be sure, changes in state policy are needed. And Mr. Giambra is on the right track. But ramming consolidation down people's throats doesn't seem right -- not that we're not used to government ramming junk down our throats anyway. But government, particularly New York State government, has shown an uncanny ability to do the wrong thing, especially where Upstate interests are concerned.

No, Albany government ramming consolidation down our throats is not the answer, because whatever Albany does, it does not work. That is the wrong approach.

The right approach is for consolidation to come from the people themselves. Consolidation will come, and come in the proper form, when people see that it gives them more, not less, control over their government . . . and when people have a hand in designing it.

But this will not occur until after the impediments to consolidation are removed.

The biggest impediment to consolidation are our politicians and the denizens of local governments, many of whom would be out of their jobs if it were to take place. They will refuse to make the hard decisions needed for consolidation. The same can be said for any other government reform because people learn to live off the current system, what ever that may be.

People must be given the power to make change more directly.

Initiative, referendum and recall maybe the only way New York will be able to reform itself because it gets around the vested interests. But people in New York have been denied these tools, though we've been promised them by various politicians at various times.

We're sick of ineffective government. Albany, at least give us these tools so we can make needed changes ourselves.