OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Fiore Conti, left, speaks with Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas Wednesday at a hearing over a water park planned for Conti’s former property.

It is understandable that not everyone would back a plan for a water park at the current location of the Clarion Hotel. With the proximity to Lake Erie, the criticism is understandable.

But living in a snowbelt puts a limit to just how much the Great Lakes can be used. Usually, the timetable is five months if we’re lucky.

A bigger issue with the project came to light earlier this month when Fredonia residents Fiore Conti and his wife, Cindy, showed up at City Hall to complain about their treatment by city officials ever since the mid 1980s. Fiore Conti, at right, owned most of the land that where the water park is slated and was taken away through eminent domain.

For their part, the couple has every right to be disappointed. During the time of urban development in the 1970s, properties were being demolished to make way for new housing projects.

Dunkirk, during that time, looked like a disaster zone. To be honest, many still blame the effort as the reason for the city’s major downturn.

Some of that sentiment may be correct. “The city … was to maintain ownership as any property acquired through eminent domain was to be for public use, not a private business,” Fiore Conti wrote. “Now the Clarion sits on a parcel no longer owned by the city. The Clarion is not a public use. It is a private business.

Several businesses were put ‘out of business’ so that a hotel and other buildings could be constructed for new businesses. The other parcels sit vacant 30-plus years later, as the city has not been able to secure a developer.”

There’s plenty of truth to what the Contis believe. The problem, of course, is what happened to them is a conundrum at present.

As much as residents complain about subsidies in projects today, they have allowed government power to become even greater.

Much of our economy relies on the public-sector work that surrounds this county. That’s where some of the highest-paying jobs — and excellent benefits — come from.

A stronger economy would not be relying as much on that sector. But through high taxes that support 60 schools, cities, towns and villages in this county, we are quietly and consistently giving our approval.