If there’s one bread-and-butter issue that matters to a cross section of families across Erie County these days, it’s surely this:
Jobs. Both candidates for county executive said they understand that fact.
But they differ on how government can best further the goal of job growth.
One candidate, Chris Collins, says government should keep its house in order and get out of the way of business.
The other, Mark C. Poloncarz, said county government needs to proactively work on job creation.
Election Day is Tuesday. Read on for the views of Republican incumbent Collins and Democratic challenger Poloncarz on the subject.
Chris Collins
It’s the county’s role to have its fiscal house in order so that businesses can have confidence that they won’t see skyrocketing tax rates.
That’s the view Collins takes on jobs.
“Government doesn’t create the jobs,” said Collins, a business owner and Clarence resident. “Government jobs are paid for by taxpayers. The jobs that count are private-sector jobs, and it’s my role as county executive to have an environment in Erie County that’s conducive to that — starting with confidence that we have our budgeting and fiscal house in order.”
Collins said he has done that during his first four years in office, and points to 18 months of private-sector job growth in the region and the county’s 7.3 percent unemployment rate in September. “My opponent keeps blaming me for the worldwide recession, and I think people laugh whenever I bring that up,” Collins said. “We have a government that business now has confidence in. If you have confidence in government, you’re more likely to invest than if you don’t.”
Collins also points to new tax incentives and loan programs that the county’s Industrial Development Agency has put in place during the last four years. Collins, as county executive, sits on the agency’s board.
Those, he said, include a low-interest loan program for minority-owned businesses, tax incentives for adaptive reuse projects and a program that allows the IDA to make loans to small businesses that are unable to secure bank loans. “This is no free ride here. These are not start-up companies,” Collins said. “These are existing businesses with a track record, with collateral, with personal guarantees.”
•••
Mark C. Poloncarz
Poloncarz, county comptroller for the last six years, said he has tried to build his campaign for county executive this year around one central message: Jobs matter.
“The No. 1 priority is job growth,” the North Buffalo resident said.
Poloncarz said he has been talking about a job-creation effort that has three main components:
• Cultivating Canadian companies, especially those in Ontario that might be looking to open subsidiary branches on this side of the border.
“We shouldn’t be ceding that to the South, which is what we have been doing,” said Poloncarz, an attorney who previously worked in the private sector. “You start going up there. You start holding seminars, holding workshops, about why you need to start locating your subsidiary businesses in Western New York. A lot of times, these businesses aren’t really certain about what to do. We need to sell ourselves.”
• Giving his deputy county executive the task of job creation and growth.
“My deputy county executive will be my jobs czar, to make sure we are doing everything in our power to court jobs,” Poloncarz said. “I want that person to be out in the public eye, working on job growth.”
• Streamlining and reducing the local IDA process.
“There are too many IDAs in this community,” Poloncarz said. “We need to have a one-stop shop that works on behalf of this community.”