While our elected officials continue to trade barbs and tout how great they are, their constituents continue to struggle and the county they reside in continues to fall deeper and deeper into a black hole of despair. Last weekend, there was an article in the Lockport Union Sun & Journal about the Social Services department directly paying landlords rent for people on welfare. Senator George Maziarz said he would advance the bill in the State Senate but that in checking with his colleagues this isn't an issue anywhere in the state. Moreover, Maziarz indicated that the mayors of Lockport and North Tonawanda have not heard any problems for landlords with welfare clients paying their rent.
Well, maybe Mr. Senator the reason why none of your colleagues have to deal with this issue is because your County and particularly Niagara Falls have never seen any boost in the economy. In Governor Cuomo's incessant commercials, the narrator brags that there have been 220,000 new jobs created in New York State. My guess is that not many of those have been created here in Niagara County.
With respect to the mayors of Lockport and North Tonawanda not having this problem, isn't it funny that both of them are Republicans and the mayor of Niagara Falls is a Democrat. The fact of the matter is that if there were job opportunities you wouldn't be talking about welfare clients paying rents. In fact, you would probably have less people on welfare. When was the last time we have had a business come in and create hundreds of good paying jobs. I'm not talking about cleaning hotels and working at a restaurant. I'm talking about jobs that people can raise a family, buy a home and be a productive member of the community.
On Saturday, people came to Main Street in Niagara Falls to talk about revitalizing this once busy business area. While I applaud the enthusiasm, the fact is that unless the neighborhoods around Main Street become rejuvenated any attempt to bring business to Main Street will fail. Neighborhoods will be re-born when people are working.
Until our politicians stop touting useless things like bringing MMA to New York State, sponsoring robo calls to bring down political opponents and refusing to work together to bring good paying jobs to Niagara County then we will continue to be stuck in the malaise that grips this community. If our elected officials spent as much time and effort in creating jobs here in Niagara County as they do in getting themselves re-elected maybe we could once again be a vibrant growing community. It hasn't happened in 40 years and with the current cast of characters I don't see it changing anytime soon.
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