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State visit: Coming to senses on borders

We hope leaders across our region were listening when New York state Secretary of State Cesar Perales, along with Director of Local Government Services Mark Pattison, made a stop at the incubator location in Dunkirk last week.

Both officials were touting Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $150 million restructuring fund to assist municipalities and school districts to implement more consolidations, cooperations and sharing of services. “The governor expects some real progress and some real change. … I’ve decided at (Pattison’s) urging to go around the state and talk to folks like yourselves and see what kind of ideas you may have to help us figure out how we’re going to distribute this money.”

Officials from Fredonia – who are in a world of their own – were not there, but Dunkirk Mayor Anthony J. Dolce, county Legislator George Borrello and Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi were some of those who found the opportunity worth attending.

Cuomo’s goal in this initiative is to cut taxes, something area entities have a history of not being very good at. “(Today) we wouldn’t create our municipalities around … how far you can get in a day on a horse, which is really how many of us were formed in the beginning,” Pattison said. “It’s the 21st century. We have telephones, the Internet, we don’t need to figure how far you are … by horse, but we’re bound by our current status quos. Status quos are difficult to change.”

And status quos are why Western New York has failed, losing population – while it continues to hike taxes and fees – as neighboring states and those in the South have flourished.

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