Whether the Niagara Communities Comprehensive Plan is too messy, too expensive or simply a way of legitimating a “comprehensive plan” whose recommendations have already been reached in some hidden agenda, the process should continue. Despite the naysayers who may obstruct, exploit or attempt to enervate the project, something quite good can come from this democratic process. Possibly the Republican juggernaut of Niagara County finds it potentially just a little too threatening to its local hegemony to allow such a potentially authentic democratic process to succeed. For the same reason it chooses to conjure up reasons to gag or eliminate Tom Christy on LCTV’s Legislative Journal, and prevent him from giving voice to others such as Louis Ricciuti who has tried to inform us about the extent of nuclear pollution in our backyards. (cf. “The Bomb that Fell on Niagara” in the Buffalo publication, ArtVoice.)
The Tonawanda News editors also jumped on the naysayers bandwagon regarding the county communities planning process, complaining that such a process should already have taken place. But it hasn’t. They want the citizens to hold their legislators feet to the fire if they voted for this project. But this seems to imply that they don’t get that this is more than a project for the legislators. This is about the people entering into the process. In fact is it not the case that it is so often the citizen seeing the problem and bringing it to the legislators, the courts or the press that can lead to real change. Witness Lois Gibbs, Erin Brockovich, Karen Silkwood and so many more citizens who must plead and fight for change while our local pusillanimous parliamentarism fails to produce.
Duvalle & Co at Tonawanda News conclude their editorial rallying the people to “take back control of their county” but fail to see that this project and process has the great potential to enable that to happen. Why quibble over the cost when the benefits could be so great. The Republican business crowd seems not to wince a bit when they throw money at our problems through the IDA’s PILOTs. Isn’t this just another form of ‘throwing money at the problem?’ The only solution some people seem to know is the mantra of cutting taxes. It seems this tax break theory should have long since been discredited. William Greider in Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of Democracy in America maintains that since the 1920’s, of all the tax breaks given the rich at the Federal level only one time did there result any appreciable increase in investment in American business and industry. I wonder where the money went? Switzerland, Monaco? Or, maybe instead wherever the desperate and starving will work for slave wages?
Despite the various voices who believe we shouldn’t need to spend thousands of dollars to get the municipalities to talk to one another, the fact is I don’t think we have yet proven ourselves really capable of it in a creative way. We need to use this process to educate us in democracy and do so by using the planning project’s real problems as the training ground. But simultaneously it will be the staging ground to demonstrate that democracy can solve real problems. And if networking does in fact begin and a dialogue is established, then possibly we can begin creating a communion of communities out of the municipalities. We might actually engender a participatory democracy. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the towns and villages may retain their identities or traditions, if you will, yet still find a way to cooperate to integrate and streamline administration, infrastructure and services. The by-product may be an education in democracy for us all not to mention potentially reducing costs. That is, the internal unity and relatedness may be the greatest outcome in the long run even if no recommendations are acted on immediately.
If the process of the project is sufficiently publicized and thus involves the communities in a shared narrative, it may well loosen up the power structure which seems to have a stranglehold on Niagara County. Why would one want to stop a process with such potential? Probably only to protect one’s power and network of patronage. If in fact the Republican power structure here is, as I’ve read in the Tonawanda News article recently by Jill Tierreri, so influential if not domineering, then it may itself be interested in this process given that it has gotten so little done for the county. Yes, a fair number of lucky followers are rewarded and some few others benefit but the county as a whole continues to sink, losing population and languishing in despair. Such power as we suffer here has not necessarily translated into creative productivity.
Given that we still suffer from water pollution, chemical pollution, the threat from the nuclear waste sites, a city at the falls that is largely an embarrassment and a highway that scars the rim of the gorge preventing us moving forward with consequential restoration of the natural ecology – the five 800 lb gorillas – one would think that the leadership might benevolently want to loosen the reins on power and empower the process in which creative thought and action can begin in good faith. Given that all we’ve really got is the natural aesthetic power of the Falls and Gorge to revive the area as the class act it could be, why should we not stop allowing ourselves to be the doormat for America while, contradictorily enough, presuming to be a world class tourist destination equally worth visiting? Is it that if we started making the kind of noise that might lead to a serious clean-up and restoration that the world would find out that Niagara is a hazard zone. Visit beautiful Niagara Falls and, oh by the way, bring your gas mask and Geiger counter with you. And don’t eat the fish you’ve caught in the river. Let’s leave the denial behind and finally pay the piper.
It seems that we should seriously now consider the recommendations of Niagara Heritage Partnership et.al. Their plan offers a coherent strategy consistent with a vision that is concrete and positive. It offers relatively immediate productive possibilities while generating open-ended future projects and possibilities. This plan renders visible the jewel in the crown that is Niagara. It could be the unifying moment of the County’s Comprehensive Communities Plan. It integrates business, ecology and education. What are we waiting for? Check out the proposal at www.nfwhc.org and sign the petition at www.niagaraheritage.org.
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