Published: January 23, 2007 08:42 pm      

NIAGARA COUNTY: County banking on financial rebound

Burmaster optimistic about business prospects in State of the County address

The promise of more jobs is welcome in any community.

But in a region such as Niagara County, where unemployment is at 5 percent, more jobs are a necessity.

The creation of new jobs was the focal point of the State of the County address delivered by Niagara County Legislature Chairman Clyde Burmaster on Tuesday morning in Niagara Falls.

While work of the recent past has been to retain jobs, such as those at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, the goal now is to broaden employment offerings, he said. With several projects in the pipeline, he said the time for a financial rebound is finally here.

Central to the county’s goal is the new HSBC data center being built in Cambria, he said. The 275,000-square-foot facility will require a $943.6 million investment from HSBC Technology & Services over the next 15 years and is expected to generate an annual payroll of $4.3 million, on top of 350 construction jobs and other off-shoot jobs that will come about.

Other projects cited by Burmaster, R-Ransomville, include a ferry between Youngstown and Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario; an 18-hole, Robert Trent Jones II-designed golf course being built in Lewiston by the Seneca Nation; and the expansion of services offered by Niagara Falls International Airport.

“We have waited patiently for too long,” he said. “It is time to reap the benefits of our hard work.”

The benefits could not come too soon, he said. Niagara County’s unemployment rate stands at 5 percent for December, according to the state Department of Labor, above the 4.5 percent registered by the Buffalo-Niagara region and 3.8 percent for New York state.

Niagara County property owners are also the most-taxed in the nation in terms of percentage of a home’s value, according to the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C.; each homeowner paid 2.81 percent of their house’s value in taxes in 2005. Nine out of the top 10 counties on the list are in New York, including Erie County (No. 7, 2.55 percent).

“Every county in New York state is without question financially challenged,” Burmaster said, citing unfunded state mandates such as Medicaid as a main cause. “Medicaid reform is the answer ... we must lower taxes.”

Tuesday’s speech was delivered before members of the Niagara USA Chamber, to which Greater Niagara Newspapers belongs.

When asked to comment on the speech, Minority Leader Dennis Virtuoso, D-Niagara Falls, could not do so — he had to work and missed the event. Seeing as most similar speeches are given in front of full legislative bodies, he did question the logic of debuting it before local business leaders.

“The State of the County address should be done at a Legislature meeting first,” said Virtuoso, who said he asked for an advance copy of the speech several weeks ago. “I shouldn’t have to read about it in the newspaper ... He slighted the Legislature by having it in front of the businesses.”

Some legislators may not have a rosy feeling about the circumstances around the speech, but Burmaster conveyed a rosy feeling about the county’s state of affairs. While much work remains, the legislator, in his 13th year in office, thinks the time has arrived for recovery.

“I have never been more optimistic about the future of Niagara County than I am right now,” he said.