13 September 2005
Bruce Jackson
Buffalo News to Buffalo: Screw you, one more time
Once again, the Buffalo News editorial page has told the citizens of Buffalo that getting screwed is inevitable, so roll over and make the best of it.If you need any evidence of the harm wrought in this town in 1982 when Warren Buffett destroyed the city's other daily newspaper, the Courier-Express, this is it. The Buffalo News regularly dances to tunes played by the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership and almost never stands up to power and says no, this is wrong. In this case, it is urging us to shut up and accept the Senecas' downtown casino, which is going to be a disaster for everyone except the developers who make a quick buck on the immediate construction work and the owners, who will suck the money out of town as fast as they can. The casino will produce a bunch of minimum-wage jobs and, in exchange, it will drain the life out of downtown Buffalo restaurants, bars, and theaters. It will have a negative impact on every business in town dependent on discretionary income, except bankruptcy lawyers. Every study everyone has done has indicated that the bulk of the money poured into a downtown Buffalo casino will come from local people, not distant vacationers (like Las Vegas and Niagara Falls, Ontario) or even senior citizens from fifty miles away (like Atlantic City).
But the Buffalo News editorial page says: it's a done deal; make nice.
No urban center on the rocks in the US has been revived by a gambling joint. It just hasn't happened. Calling gambling joints "gaming establishments" doesn't change that fact. Some people have gotten rich, but the cities themselves have festered. You can't walk a block off the boardwalk in Atlantic City without risking a mugging or worse—but you wouldn't walk that walk anyway because nothing's there to walk to. Off the boardwalk, Atlantic City is dead or ugly, that's it. The gambling joints in Atlantic City have done nothing for anyone but the gambling joints. Niagara Falls, New York, has still to show a modicum of improvement in anything but losers driving out of town.
So why would the Buffalo News, in a September 9, 2005, editorial, tell us:
A bitter pill, easier to swallow
Casino will cause major problems, but downtown site makes best sense
The Seneca Nation isn't ready to reveal its hole card, but it may be seeking the least disruptive and most beneficial hand yet considered for its state-negotiated Buffalo casino.
The record is clear: Gambling takes a human toll and a casino in Buffalo will do little to stimulate surrounding business. A casino without the international tourist market of Niagara Falls or the planned resort amenities at the Senecas' Salamanca site is far more likely to mostly churn local dollars.
Nonetheless, the former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad terminal at the foot of Main Street along the Buffalo River seems to be the Senecas' favorite for a casino the city must accept anyway, and it's a reasonable choice. A city casino is a done deal. Deadlines loom.
The city must now work with the Senecas to make sure their casino is as much of an economic stimulator as possible, especially if it will be part of an emerging riverfront entertainment zone. Buffalo's Common Council is right to push for a bigger city bite of the state's 25 percent share of slot machine revenues, which for Niagara Falls amounted to $11.2 million in 2004. Buffalo's leaders also must act to designate the city's share specifically for economic development. This money will likely flow for decades, and increase over time. The immediate need is to assure the least harmful site.
The DL&W terminal might be that site, for these reasons: The building offers open-space construction, soaring window views of the river and a large outdoor terrace; it adjoins HSBC Arena and a city-owned parking lot - a basis to drive a hard bargain on slot revenues - that could become a connected ramp; it would sandwich the planned Erie Canal Harbor entertainment district between the Bass Pro megastore and a casino/arena zone, while also finally giving the Cobblestone District appeal to developers; the NFTA light-rail trains run into the building, offering direct and traffic-easing links to downtown hotel and entertainment districts; the site poses less direct competition for the Chippewa and downtown nightlife scene, including the Theater District, than a casino within those districts; the trains run both ways, offering at least a chance for synergy; and Seneca takeover of publicly owned property wouldn't impact city tax rolls.
Not a bad list of possible positives against the certain cons.
...a casino the city must accept anyway, and it's a reasonable choice. A city casino is a done deal. The city must now work with the Senecas....The immediate need is to assure the least harmful site...Not a bad list of possible positives....
Why "must" we accept this? Why is it "reasonable?" Why is it a "done deal?" Why "must" we "now work with the Senecas?" Why is the "immediate need to assure the least harmful site" rather than doing what we might to keep the harm from being done at all?
And why is the Buffalo News taking this wimpy, loser position, why is it issuing this pusillanimous response? A newspaper's news columns should report the done deals; the editorial pages should stand for something. What, other than giving up early, does this stand for?This is just like seven years ago when the News's editorial page said that the anachronistic steel twin span planned by the Buffalo and Niagara Public Bridge Authority was an awful idea in all regards but it was a done deal, so we should all shut up and make the best of it.
But we didn't. We fought it, and we're going to get a far better bridge because we fought it, a bridge that is environmentally responsible, one that might actually do something for the city rather than just something to the city. The Buffalo News didn't get on that bandwagon until long after Judge Eugene Fahey said that the citizens of the city had been right about that lousy design all along.
Back then Gerry Goldberg was editor of the editorial page. Goldberg has now become the newspaper's managing editor and the newspaper's former managing editor, Stephen Bell, has taken his job. The chair-swap has changed nothing. Bell is famous for writing a well-paid puff-piece book for the state's chamber of commerce saying upstate New York's economy was just fine not long after Buffalo News reporters had written a prize-winning series documenting how awful upstate New York's economy in fact was. The book was published just in time to help Governor Pataki in his most recent re-election campaign. So Goldberg, who missed the point and was historically wrong about history, switched jobs with Bell, who missed the point about ethics (for which the Columbia Journalism Review awarded the Buffalo News one of its feared Darts for ethical and professional deficiency) and who now is missing the point about a downtown casino.
A newspaper with cojones, or that wasn't in somebody's pocket, or wasn't just lazy, would be screaming and yelling about this casino, about which the citizens of Buffalo were never consulted. It's here only because gambling industry lobbyists purchased the ear of Governor Pataki and he cut a deal with them, and because Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello never had a clue what a downtown casino was all about, other than what his developer cronies told him. What kind of newspaper says roll over and take it when its city is being screwed that way? Warren Buffett contributed $10,000 to the Nebraska anti-gambling group. If the Buffalo News were Nebraska do you think he'd stand for this foolishness?
Wouldn't it be nice if some billionaire came along to undo the damage done to us by Warren Buffett in 1982 and resurrected the Courier-Express so we could have an editorial page that represented the city and the people who live in it, an editorial page that did something more than say, "Be nice, you're going to get screwed anyway?" That lacking, wouldn't it be nice if the editorial page of the Buffalo News got up off the floor and just did its job?
Copyright 2005 by Buffalo Report, Inc.