He's credited with saving the Buffalo Sabres and now billionaire businessman Tom Golisano wants to save New York State from itself. The Sabres owner is joining the fight to downsize local governments and he's starting with the town of West Seneca.
The push to downsize governments is gaining momentum in these tough economic times. The village of Lancaster is agreeing to eliminate a couple of trustee positions and West Seneca's town supervisor wants voters to decide if they want a smaller government. The Amherst town board rejected a resolution on Monday night that would have given their voters the right to weigh in on whether they want to reduce their board from seven to five members.
Consolidating governments.and fewer elected officials equals savings for taxpayers -- that's the message local activist and attorney Kevin Gaughan's been preaching for years and it's mostly fallen on deaf ears, but now there are signs the tide is shifting.
"Sometimes I felt like and I feel like Sisyphus and his rock, you know the guy who pushes his rock up the hill and and all of a sudden it goes back down," says Gaughan.
Golisano is joining the fight by pledging the support of his "Responsible New York" campaign to get behind West Seneca town supervisor Wallace Piotrowski's efforts to reduce their town board from five members to three.
"If West Seneca is successful it could start a snowball rolling down the hill," says Golisano.
All the various layers of government may have worked well in centuries past. "We didn't have cars, trucks, telephones, computers and people needed a sense of identity and so we formed a lot of these localized governments," explains Golisano. But, the Rochester-based entrepreneur says the idea of so many governments is now not only outdated it's killing New York State with ballooning property taxes to support all the governments.
"People (are) leaving the state because they can't afford to stay in their homes," says Golisano, "During 2007 1.2 million people left our state to move on to other greener pastures."
Cutting two board members would save West Seneca around $40,000 annually. That may not sound like much, but Golisano wants people to think of the combined savings if more governments do the same. "How many West Seneca's are there in New York State?" asks Golisano rhetorically, "Let's assume for a moment a tenth of them did it or half. Can you imagine the hundreds of millions of dollars that can be saved? And that would be saving taxpayers."
The savings are appealing to taxpayers. "Downsizing is perfectly fine with me," says West Seneca resident Mark Kumpf, "The less money they spend on government and still get the job done -- perfect."
Others worry three council members would be too few to provide checks and balances. "I think that's leaving a majority decision in the hands of one person," says West Seneca Resident Jerry Chudy, "I don't think democracy is served."
Golisano says he may provide financial support if the petitions in West Seneca run into legal challenges although he's not revealing how much money he's willing to commit.
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