Published: September 06, 2008 11:22 pm      

2008 ELECTION: Three vie for lines in state Senate’s 62nd District

There are piles of notes on state Sen. George Maziarz’s desk.

They include reminders from his staff on what he’s supposed to do, whom he’s supposed to meet and the topics he’s supposed to discuss.

On a nearby sofa in his office, there are more piles with more notes and more reminders.

It’s nearing dinner time and he still has a lot of notes to address.

“I just get up and go to work everyday,” said Maziarz during a recent interview at his Wheatfield office. “I like it. I enjoy it.”

And so it has been for Maziarz since 1995, the first year he went to Albany to represent voters in the 62nd state Senate District.

While critics charge Maziarz spends most of his time figuring out ways to control the local political landscape, the senator insists he’s more involved in working on problems in his district.

“They see me as being 95 percent politics and 5 percent policy,” he said. “Really, the reality is, it is just the opposite.”

Maziarz heads into the week facing a pair of primary challenges, one on the Republican line from endorsed Democrat and sheriff’s deputy Brian Grear and the other on the Conservative line from local taxpayer advocate Don Hobel. The challengers’ campaigns crossed paths earlier this year when Hobel, who secured enough petition signatures to have his name placed on the Democratic line, decided to drop his affiliation with the party, allowing Grear to move in and pick it up.

Maziarz, a registered Republican, received the endorsement from the committee representing Niagara County Conservatives which came as little surprise to Hobel, a 79-year-old retiree and registered Conservative knows full well the inner workings of local politics and the rather large role his opponent so often plays in them.

“I paid a call at their committee meeting and they said they were interested but I really didn’t expect much from them,” Hobel said. “I don’t call it the Conservative Party anymore. I call it the Maziarz party.”

As for Grear, he’s got his own issues with Maziarz, a man he believes contributed to his failed bid to become county sheriff back in 2005. Grear insists his decision to challenge Maziarz isn’t personal and has nothing to do with the remnants of his previous campaign. Instead, he says, he wants the job because he wants to get to work on the real issues — job creation, improving the community and trimming the fat in Albany.

“If you are responsible for doling out that money you stand up and be counted and say enough is enough,” Grear said. “We have to reduce spending. We have to tighten our belts. We have to get our budget in check.”

So, political sniping aside, where do each of the candidates stand when it comes to the work at hand in the district?

Maziarz is the only one of the three with any on-the-job experience. He said he’s proud of many of the economic development projects that he’s been involved in over the years, including his part in negotiations with Delphi Corp. in Lockport. At a time when the company closed 21 other plants, Maziarz said he worked hard to secure low-cost hydropower needed to maintain the company presence in Niagara County. Maziarz points to the continued redevelopment of the Niagara Falls International Airport as more evidence of his success. He believes the construction of a new terminal at the Falls airport, coupled with growth at the nearby Calspan facility off Niagara Falls Boulevard, point to brighter days ahead for what has long been a moribund facility. Maziarz said more users are visiting the airport today than they have in years and he expects more to come in the future.

“That’s the satisfaction I get out of my job — driving down Niagara Falls Boulevard and seeing that parking lot full everyday,” he said.

Looking ahead, Maziarz said he believes his position as co-chairman of the Senate’s powerful Energy Committee bodes well for his district. He intends to use his influence to pressure the New York Power Authority to require that at least one member to its Board of Trustees live in Niagara County. He said he also intends to ask NYPA officials to move their headquarters from White Plains to Niagara County, saying it would be like adding the type of jobs and salaries usually equated with a Fortune 500 company.

Maziarz recently supported Gov. David Paterson’s request for a cap on property taxes, which the senator believes is a good first step to providing taxpayers with the type of relief they need. He added that he enjoys a close relationship with the governor, having spent 12 years serving with him in the state Senate.

“I think I’ve done a very good job under very tough circumstances in New York state and in particular Western New York,” he said. “Clearly, there’s a lot more to be done.”

Grear believes Maziarz should have accomplished more by now and said the evidence is in the current state of his Senate district. While residents struggle to pay their bills and their children search for jobs elsewhere, Grear said state lawmakers like Maziarz are doling out millions of dollars in member-item spending for pet projects. Grear also believes it is time to put a stop to another time-honored state policy — handouts of public money for private companies who work with local economic development agencies.

“Something is wrong there,” he said. “Something is wrong in Albany when we are in the upper echelon of the highest taxed areas in the country.”

While Maziarz has raised questions about Grear’s character, including his lack of involvement in a departmental search for a missing girl several years ago, Grear stands by his record of public service. He has two medals of valor, five excellence awards and eight departmental citations for valuable accomplishments from the sheriff’s department’s Police Benevolent Association. He also has 11 personal accommodations from his old rival, former Thomas Beilein and once received WIVB Channel 4’s Bravest of Western New York award. For 19 years, Grear has been a volunteer firefighter, most recently with the Wright’s Corners Fire Department. The father of three also owns and operates a pair of local businesses.

“My opponents can say what they want about me,” Grear said. “You look at my record as a police officer, you look at my years of service in the volunteer fire service, you look at the business experience that I bring and you look at my family values.”

Hobel is a regular at meetings of the Niagara County Legislature and Niagara County Industrial Development Agency. While often critical of operations in both county offices, Hobel is known for doing his homework and is not afraid to file the occasional request for public information. His political background includes several other election bids, including a 1994 race against the late state Sen. John Daly, a 1997 run for Town of Wheatfield supervisor and a primary loss last year to Niagara County Legislator Dan Sklarski.

Hobel said local Democrats approached him about throwing his hat into the ring against Maziarz this year, offering to help him pass petitions to secure a spot on the ballot. Hobel said he agreed, but as the election drew near, it became obvious to him the party wasn’t all that interested in truly backing his campaign. At that point, he said, he decided to reject the party’s endorsement.

“I didn’t feel I was getting any support from the party,” he said. “I just feel more comfortable about the Conservative line.”

Like Grear, Hobel’s priorities lie in opening up governmental operations and allowing the public greater access to information and more involvement in the process. He believes the area in need of the most reform is economic development where various authorities and industrial development agencies routinely provide incentives to private entities at the public’s expense with little to no regard for the taxpayers.

“It’s called representative government and we’ve gotten away from that,” he said. “This is the stuff we received from the Founding Fathers years ago.”

Hobel would also like to see greater light shed on campaign financing where he believes many of the publicly financed projects originate as a result of donations made by companies to influential politicians.

“I would go there with a taxpayer’s mindset,” he said. “I don’t think anybody who is there now has that in their minds. Their reason for being there is to perpetuate their future in office.”

Contact reporter Mark Scheer at 282-2311, ext. 2250.