Sunday’s Short Take from Niagara Express

(Editor’s note: Today’s Short Take takes a different form because it is important to say the hard parts out loud. If you are easily offended by speaking truth to power, read no further. If you are interested in Niagara Falls News, you can read my writings daily at www.niagaraexpress.town.news where you can subscribe for one daily email as well as choose to donate if you support community journalism as the newspapers around us die a slow, miserable death.)

Democrats gather in support of Nate McMurray, Alissa Ellman and Matthew ChavezThe Democratic cognoscenti gathered at One Niagara in the Falls Saturday for Nathan McMurray’s campaign kickoff.McMurray wants to be the first Democrat in the state assembly’s 145th District since Francine DelMonte.McMurray had a brief, memorable time as Grand Island supervisor and then ran for reelection and Congress twice, never winning again. He is back. On Grand Island, he brought that flat, white, Trumpy enclave the West River Parkway bike trail, the removal of toll barriers at the bridges and the Western New York Welcome Center, all in a single term. That Welcome Center along the 190 is 60 seconds off the highway, a monument to architectural largess and government incompetence but hey, it got built in a suspect location when Niagara Falls was getting bupkis. If McMurray could accomplish that much in 4 years as Grand Island supervisor it might be worth seeing if he could accomplish something in Albany where the 145th district receives the lowest revenue allocation of any in the State and Assemblyman Angelo Morinello retires with no history of legislative accomplishment. Morinello is a nice guy. Nice guys finish last. McMurray may have the ability to move mountains. His event Saturday brought current Restaino 4 Mayor Paul Dyster for an amicable chat. They might be oil and water but it was nice to see them standing together for the good of the city.Dyster, in introducing McMurray, even quoted me from Short Take this week. “McMurray in Albany might be a pain in the ass but he will be our pain in the ass.”McMurray tried twice to win election in the ruby red, gerrymandered Congressional district formerly known as NY27 and currently mostly represented by MAGAT Nick Langworthy. (Sorry not sorry for saying the quiet part out loud, but Langworthy rose from Tom Reynold’s bootlicking intern to Congress by being a rightwing jerk. He is neither a Conservative nor a Republican. Conservatives defend the Constitution. Republicans believe in Capitalismism. MAGATS worship oligarchs enriching themselves on the tit of the government. Langworthy stands for neither Republicans nor Conservatives. He is an insult to both.)The closest McMurray came to winning a seat was in 2018 when he lost to Chris Collins by 1,087 votes with 258,178 votes cast. That is an infinitismal margin.Now he is running for Assembly. For him to stand a chance, he needs to carry Niagara Falls, the long-forgotten stepchild of the State. He likely won’t win Grand Island or the rural areas of Niagara County unless there is a massive blue wave driven by anti-Trump sentiment.Consider how badly the city has been treated by the State over the last 70 years. Go back to 1956, when the city had more than 100,000 residents and the privately owned Schoellkopf power plant slid into the river taking 25% of the tax base with it.The state replaced it with the New York Power Authority’s massive plant in Lewiston, naming it after a horrible human being, Robert Moses. Moses cheated the Tuscarora out of land for a reservoir and confiscated more land to rim the city’s waterfront with an expressway so the white men in charge of the factories could bypass the city to get home to Lewiston more quickly.That power plant is one of the largest hydro operations in the state. Its host community, Lewiston, not only gets no property tax revenue from the public facility but neither does Niagara Falls for the intakes and tunnels.Meanwhile we pay among the highest electric rates in the country and only hear excuses from Albany. For example, in early January, a public service commission employee spoke to Niagara Community Information Group about all the state aid available to help poor people pay their utility bills. Asked how it is possible we live adjacent to one of the largest hydro plants in the country and yet pay among the highest bills he had a rote answer. First, he told us the facility is technically federal, not state, so that’s how the allocation is controlled. Then he told us our rates, as a percentage of household income, were below the national average. I think that’s like pissing on my leg and telling me it is raining.We have never had a representative in Albany call bullshit on that line of empty reasoning. McMurray will.Then look at the State Park, which likely gets about 2 million visitors a year (I know, the state lies and says 9 million, liars,damn liars and statistics as Twain said. They are pissing on my leg and telling me it is raining again.)Olmsted’s vision was for a reservation, his version of a nature preserve. The State Park existed mostly as such until the 1960s when it paved the lots and made it car friendly. The city gets no revenue from the parking lots, the Maid of the Mist or the Cave of the Winds. Think about that, 1.6 million boat rides a year at $30.25, $48.4 million in revenue. No sales tax. No revenue share to the host city. Profits go to Albany to support other state parks. The city gets bupkis.Consider as well the new visitor center that opened a few years ago at a cost of $48 million, conveniently two blocks into the park, making it easy for visitors to park, ride the boat and leave, while perhaps visiting the Delaware North concession stand selling a slice of authentic DiCamillo’s pizza for $12.50 when the real thing is a mile away at the actual bakery and ses you back $3.75 while supporting a family business not billionaires.Jim Shultz spoke at McMurray’s event, pointing out that Becky Wydysh will run as the Republican candidate with the support of Henry Wojtaszek the North Tonawanda based consigliere who controls the Niagara County GOP machine. Shultz, a political commentator from Lockport who was part of the voice that led County Sheriff Michael Filicetti to decide the jail will no longer host civil detainees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That is a big victory for human rights.Shultz was there not only to support McMurray but to speak on behalf of Alissa Ellman, a war veteran of running against Rep. Claudia Tenney, the MAGA representative in the 24th Congressional District who thinks a double double might be a tennis reference, not a Tim Horton's order.Ellman worked for the Veterans administration until being DOGEd last year – losing her job when the Trump administration cut veteran services for disable veterans like her.Also appearing Saturday was Matthew Chavez who is running for County Legislature in the Third District. There were little victories being celebrated Saturday. For example, North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec was there. He won reelection last year and flipped control of the city council from Republican to Democrat for the first time in decades. Along the way, his city gained $11 million in state aid in spite of being represented by Republicans Morinello and Bill Conrad.The opening speaker at the event was Lisa Moore, unknown to most but the Supervisor of the Town of South Bristol, an Ontario County community perched on a hillside over Canandaigua Lake. In 2018, she was a democratically affiliated political neophyte when McMurray showed up in her living room while campaigning for Congress. He came within ½ of 1% of winning Ontario County. He also inspired Moore to run for office, upsetting the applecart in her community by becoming the first Democrat elected as supervisor in 56 years by increasing voter turnout from 35 to 65%.There are no Hail Mary’s, McMurray said. Communities change by gaining first downs.If the Republican candidates host a similar campaign announcement for the Assembly and House of Representatives, the Express will give equal space.If you read this far, thank you. To paraphrase Twain again, sorry what I wrote was so long, I didn't have time to write anything good. Please support Niagara Express at https://niagaraexpress.town.news