County’s No. 2 job gets economic focus
By Robert J. McCarthy
December 12, 2011
Richard M. Tobe, a veteran of state and local government for three decades, will be Mark C. Poloncarz’s deputy county executive with the special responsibility of revamping Erie County’s economic-development efforts.
Poloncarz announced the first appointment of the new administration Monday afternoon in his office as county comptroller in the Rath County Office Building, labeling Tobe the “perfect choice” for a post he said will carry new significance.
“I could not think of a better person to fill this role,” the county executive-elect told reporters. “One of the names and one of the things that kept coming out was that ‘it’s going to be a Richard Tobe-type individual.'”
“It’s not just a Richard Tobe-type individual,” he added, “but Richard Tobe will be our next deputy county executive.”
Tobe, 62, is an attorney who has held key posts in and out of government for years, dating from an early position as top aide to the late Assemblyman William B. Hoyt, D-Buffalo.
At various times since then, he has served as commissioner of environment and planning to then-County Executive Dennis T. Gorski; head of Buffalo’s Department of Economic Development, Permits and Inspections under Mayor Byron W. Brown; a member of Buffalo’s state-appointed financial control board; vice president of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo; and an adjunct professor at the University at Buffalo.
Tobe will earn $107,810 in his new job.
Throughout his campaign against Republican incumbent Chris Collins, Poloncarz promised he would appoint a deputy to help streamline the industrial-development agency process and concentrate on expanding business opportunities with Canadian firms.
Poloncarz said Monday that he now expects Tobe to serve as a top adviser but believes that his main focus will include economic development and helping to negotiate a new lease for county-owned Ralph Wilson Stadium with the Buffalo Bills. Tobe served as point man for Gorski the last time the Bills and Erie County addressed the stadium lease.
Tobe declined to address a reporter’s question about his City Hall tenure and the fact that Brown forced him from his economic-development post in 2008.
“He told me he had a reorganization plan and that it would work better without me,” Tobe said at the time to explain his resignation.
Brown, meanwhile, declined to criticize Tobe’s performance after asking for his resignation, crediting him for doing “good work.”
“It’s not anything that he did that was wrong. It’s that I want to see more things done,” the mayor said then.
Monday, Poloncarz rushed to Tobe’s defense. And in another example of his strained relations with City Hall, the county executive-elect put the blame for Tobe’s departure on Brown. “It had less to do with Rich Tobe and more to do with the mayor, including his executive assistant deputy mayor,” Poloncarz said, referring to Deputy Mayor Steven M. Casey.
Tobe said he is more optimistic about potential economic development now because of New York State’s initiative for a unified plan presented by the community.
“We have a united community for the first time in memory,” he said, calling the state’s new regional approach to economic development “a good starting point for us.”
“It’s time for us to be no longer wandering in the wilderness,” he added. “We’ve spent enough time there.”
Poloncarz reiterated his desire to consolidate the county’s six industrial-development agencies so that economic development will not result in Erie County communities competing against one another.
“If in our first term we are able to merge one or two of those entities, it will be a big success,” he said. “But I have never been afraid to try something just because it’s tough.”
Michael L. Joseph, chairman of the transition team, said 600 to 700 resumes have been submitted for positions in the Poloncarz administration and that he expects most key positions to be filled within the next two weeks.
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/erie-county/article670134.ece