Thursday, July 03, 2008

Rearranging Deck Chairs in Syracuse . . .

The engineering firm O'Brien and Gere, with its 300 employees, is going to be moving from suburban to downtown Syracuse thanks to a $6.5 million gift from the NYS taxpayers that will be applied toward construction of a 6-story, multi-tenant, $25 million office building.
"This isn't about O'Brien and Gere, it's about the community, public private partnerships, to do something to restore the vitality of the city of Syracuse," said O'Brien and Gere CEO Terry Brown.
Meanwhile, across town, following the loss of 330 jobs at New Process Gear in March, 250 are immediately out of a job at Magna International, and another 42 are laid off at CXtec. To the north in Jefferson County another 75 will be out of work Friday when Brownville Specialty Paper closes.

Down the Mohawk Valley, another State subsidized move is having some negative repercussions in Canajoharie whose water and sewer rates are expected to skyrocket 250% after Beach-Nut moves 20 miles to suburban Amsterdam.

While it's nice to see the State encouraging redevelopment of a city in the Syracuse project as opposed to sprawl in the suburbs, spending money to move employees from one place to another while plants close or make layoffs is like . . .

Rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We desperately need campaign reform my friends.

The rearrangement of deck chairs is all we have left. Syracuse is taking a page out of our book. Utica did the same thing with Utica National Insurance. New Hartford is doing the same shuffle with The Hartford Insurance. Whenever we get a shot at attracting a new employer, the Albany Legislative leadership seizes it from us. (i.e. American Micro Device [AMD] and Luther Forest). To appease our local elected officials, the State Legislative Ilk throws them a bone in the form of campaign funding (a.k.a. hush money) at reelection time. Heck . . . we’re lucky the State Leadership thieves haven’t managed to figure how rob our present employers (rather; our “deck chairs”).

Anonymous said...

If you recall, the Titanic didn't have enough lifeboats for all those remaining on the boat! Funny, I have the feeling the captain won't go down with the ship for this one...

Anonymous said...

Brilliant points!!