Published: August 18, 2008 12:18 am      

NIAGARA: Christian Peck is county's first public information officer.

Members of the Niagara County Legislature hired the county’s first public information officer last month. The man appointed to the job, Christian Peck, a former political consultant and associate of the polling outlet Zogby International, officially started work last week. The 31-year-old graduate of St. Bonaventure University recently sat down with the Niagara Gazette to discuss his new role with the county.

QUESTION: Let’s start out with what it is you are going to be doing for the county. Can you give people an idea of what it is you are hoping to accomplish?

ANSWER: My goal is to tell our story. There are a lot of great things happening in Niagara County. I want to make sure this county moves towards a real, serious economic growth plan. We need to make sure that people who want to locate businesses here and people who want to build businesses here — your entrepreneurs — understand our story and understand what’s going on here. We have a county government that, over the last five years or so, has really worked to streamline itself and to become more efficient in the delivery of services and to really be orientated towards customer service. That’s a story to tell because the big picture here is Niagara County is open for business.

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Q: What attracted you to do the job?

A: I believe that Niagara County is going to be the next big thing in New York state. I’ve watched other areas of the state as they’ve tried to generate economic development. I’ve seen what has worked and what hasn’t worked in places and I look at the places that were successful and what they had to offer and Niagara County is like the places that have been successful. The first thing you’ve got to have is a place where people want to stay long-term, where they want to raise a family, where they want to advance through the ranks of a company. They also want to have an environment that is nurturing for people who want to start a business. Niagara County offers that. Frankly, Niagara County is a place where I want to put down my roots, where I want to raise a family. My wife (Heather) grew up here.

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Q: As you may already know, there is a common perception that everything here is political and that in order to get a job with the county, it has to do with political reasons. Do you think that you will be influenced in any way by political parties, political leadership, that sort of thing, in what you are trying to do?

A: Well, I have my own political outlook, but this position was created in a matter that tried to be politicized as little as possible. The story here isn’t me. It’s that five legislators got together, from both parties. It was a bi-caucus effort. They got together and they looked at dozens of applicants. They narrowed it down to people they thought had something to offer. They went through and they tried to find the person that they felt best represented the people of Niagara County — 220,000 people’s best interests. I’m telling you right now, from the interview process, it really was a bi-partisan effort. In fact, you could almost call it a non-partisan effort because you had five legislators who were having frank conversations with the people who were coming in, being honest about the county and where it is going, what it’s challenges were. You didn’t see R’s and D’s next to people’s names.

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Q: Moving forward, do you expect that to be a concern?

A: No. Having talked with Chairman (Bill) Ross, the leader of the Legislature, I know his goal is for me to really help enunciate the programs that are implemented by the Legislature and help the public understand them, but not for me to engage in any kind of slugging out between the parties. We have 19 individuals who represent their districts well. Are they always going to see eye-to-eye? Not at all. What they want to do is represent their districts to the best of their ability, whether it’s downtown Niagara Falls or whether it is Hartland or Royalton. They want to make sure that their constituents are included in whatever direction the county is going. Now, does that mean there will be political considerations in the job? I don’t think so. I have to work with leaders from both parties. We happen to be in a county where we have a senator who has done a lot for us — Sen. George Maziarz. We also have an assemblywoman who controls a big chunk of the county in Assemblywoman (Francine) DelMonte. They are from opposite parties. I can tell you right now, I can’t not work with either one of them because of what letter is next to their name. Likewise, with our 19 legislators, there’s certainly no reason to say, ‘well, what letter is next to your name?,’ I’m sorry, I can’t help you. Each one of those people represents around 11,000 citizens in this county and those citizens have all kinds of letters next to their names.

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Q: Speaking of the citizens, what can they expect? What are county taxpayers going to get by having hired you to do this job?

A: Ultimately, my goal is to make sure that they understand, No. 1, what their government is doing and, No. 2, how it impacts their lives. No. 3, what potential is there for them. It comes back to one thing: Are we going to be creating jobs? Are we creating an environment where businesses can grow, where people can take risks and start businesses, where businesses want to locate. Part of this job is economic development-orientated. It was created under the economic development section of the budget. It was specifically done in a non-partisan, or bi-partisan manner as possible so that the people can understand this job is a serious effort to help the county move towards prosperity. This is a great county to live. More people need to know that.

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Q: What are your long-term goals for the position?

A: I’m still getting to know all of the leaders of our government. I’m trying to make sure I understand their accomplishments. I want to be out there talking about our accomplishments. Part of that is going to be working with each of our 19 legislators, both of our caucuses, Chairman Ross, (Majority) Leader (Richard) Updegrove, (Minority) Leader (Dennis) Virtuoso, and making sure we are doing our best engaging constituent contacts. I envision possibly having regular constituent newsletters from each legislator on the county’s Web site, for instance. That’s important because legislators need to be accountable to their voters. They need to be accountable to the people they represent. Part of accountability is telling people what’s going on, telling people what they can expect from their government, what their government is doing for them. That’s the first stage of things — making sure that we enunciate that. Also, being able to tell success stories about our government. People need to understand that this government is customer service-orientated. By customer, I mean the 220,000 people who live here.