THE BASIS OF UNDERCHIEVEMENT

Lackadaisical students have always existed, but never in such volume since America became an industrialized nation and never with such vigor as we see today. For those my age and older, think back to the worst students in your class: Back then, even the biggest of slackers still made it a point to do work and strive for some achievement because they had a greater sense of pride and a greater fear of repercussions from their teachers and, more importantly, their parents. Today’s classrooms (and the homes that breed their occupants) are so different.

Talk to a teacher and you’ll hear horror stories of huge numbers of kids who are completely incapable of – or more accurately “disinterested in” - meeting deadlines or completing assignments or preparing for exams, despite the modern students being spoon-fed their expectations through their syllabus, regular updates, and the internet (the latter of which allows teachers to post and rehash virtually everything of note, making it instantly accessible to students and parents alike 24/7). They’ll tell you that these same students relish just getting-by, and see a passing grade as some sort of reward akin to a good student earning a “90” on an exam.

Look at the statistics and you’ll see that approach to schooling. We discussed outcomes last week. What about those who don’t contribute to the outcome?

You would think that my school district (Royalton-Hartland) which -- thanks to the short commuting distance to Lockport, Amherst, and the like -- sees an income level atypically high for a truly rural district, would have a higher graduation rate (commensurate with the socioeconomic make-up of the community) than the pitiful 82% it sports. It’s not much more than the state’s overall graduation rate of 74%, which is driven down by the high dropout rates associated with dirt-poor urban areas like those in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. A 26% dropout rate is not the fault of the schools and in this era it is unacceptable, especially when every American knows how competitive the job market is and that its future remains cloudy. It’s so different from when we had agrarian and simple production economies in which one could get by comfortably in life following an uneducated adolescence.

While that 74% is bad enough, consider another number that contributes to the educational malaise: attendance. In Buffalo City Schools over 42% of all students miss 18 or more days per year, a month of school. Wow.

Those numbers point one type of parent, those who don’t love their children enough to ensure that they, one, attend school and, two, graduate from school. In today’s world it’s neglectful, outright abusive, to allow a minor to skip out on the system that prepares them for the Real World. By deemphasizing the value of an education and allowing a teen to be free-willed to that end, they destine the child to failure in adulthood and a lifetime of low-income wages and/or public assistance.

But for every parent who doesn’t love a kid enough, there’s another one who loves his child “too much”. The goals of parenting are to provide physical, emotional, and intellectual nourishment to your offspring while helping them become quasi-independent teens and, ultimately, truly independent adults. Many modern parents don’t foster an environment that creates those building blocks of dependence. You’ve heard of these helicopter parents who shield their youth from the harsh realities of the world and the life lessons that are necessary to overcome them. They protect their children from everything, from losses on the ball diamond to failure in the classroom, where they aggressively blame every teacher for every bad grade and totally take student accountability out of the equation, never addressing the pupils’ weaknesses and/or lack of drive, let alone the motivation and ability to succeed that was robbed from them by the overprotection.

Helicoptering has become such a sickness that numerous college professors have shared with me concerns over such parents continuing this behavior well into their kids’ college years. This practice has actually been legitimized and recognized by federal policy that forces health insurance companies to cover the insured’s sons and daughters until 26 years of age. Didn’t adulthood once begin 8 years earlier? How is it suddenly acceptable to baby someone into her 20s? By doing so, there’s no need to strive for achievement!

The discussion will continue in next week’s column when we look at the traits of the underachieving students who come from the ranks of the unloved and overloved.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 02 July 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

A GENERATION OF UNDERACHIEVERS: PART ONE

According to the recently-released Business First rankings, my school district (Royalton-Hartland) hasn’t performed very well. In the latest study Roy-Hart ranked 62 out of 97 districts in Western New York, putting it in the 37th percentile. It was 9 out of 10 in Niagara County with only Niagara Falls seeing lower performance. In specific subjects it placed 47th (science), 50th (English), 56th (math) and 80th (social studies). The District also rated 80th in the number of graduates receiving advanced designations.

A lot of parents and community stakeholders will be right in saying some of the teachers and the education system itself (diluted by the morass of local, state and federal controls) are to blame, but they’d only be kidding themselves if they didn’t accept some of the blame as well. That’s because the most damning statistic in the report was Business First’s Achievement Index, which looks at a school’s performance as related to socioeconomic factors within that district (like income).

Despite having the 31st best quality of life in all of WNY, Roy-Hart students performed so poorly in the classroom that they ranked 93rd in achievement, 4 from the bottom. It’s an unexpected outcome because it’s always been assumed that the better the socioeconomic make-up of a community, the better the grades (highly-regarded Williamsville is the old stand-by when making such a claim). That simple – yet telling - statistic would lead one to label Roy-Hart’s students as major underachievers, a statement about households as much as classrooms.

Looking at Big Picture, though, it’s not so much that Roy-Hart is an anomaly, rather it’s a reflection of the norm: We have a nation of underachieving students.

If the theory that quality of life yielded better classroom performance, the United States would absolutely crush the rest of the world in public education. We aren’t. The United States sports the second largest economy in the world with a gross domestic product at $15.04 trillion (the European Union, in the first spot, sports a collective $15.4 trillion). The US remains $4 trillion ahead of the third-best (China) and $11 trillion ahead of the countries in fourth and fifth (India and Japan). Despite such a stellar quality of life, American students are lagging behind. In a 2010 study the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranked our students 14th overall. Some of the countries ahead of us are South Korea (1), Canada (3), Japan (5), Australia (6) and Poland (12). This is despite the United States spending more per pupil (just over $11,000) than anyone else but Switzerland (which spends just a hair more than we). It should be noted that we spend a third more on education than first-ranked South Korea does.

I’ve written at length before at the collapse of the once-vaunted American education system under the weight of federal oversight (for something best left to local control with only minimal state input) and standardized testing (which begat teaching to the test and not to mastery of the subject). But, when you look at how the outputs just don’t match the inputs -- both here in our neighborhood and throughout our collective nation -- and the label of “underachiever” gets thrown around, the discussion needs to be expanded to include parental expectations of a kid’s learning and that child’s participation within the process.

Today’s parents – which include the second half of the Baby Boomers and my generation (X) – are, shall we say, a little “different.” The standards that their parents once set for their children (and their parents’ had set before them) seem to have been cast aside and replaced with a kinder, gentler approach to parenting which has yielded a generation of mentally, emotionally and intellectually weaker children all of whom contribute to America’s mediocre success in education and will, more than likely once these kids have aged, have the same effect on our economy, public policy and society.

In next week’s column we’ll look at some real world examples of the modern parents’ indifference to education and how that has contributed to what looks like a generation of underachievers.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.


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This column originally ran in the 25 June 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

A DECLARATION OF DEPENDENCE

In a couple of weeks we will be observing the quintessential American holiday — our Independence Day. From coast to coast, people will celebrate with their usual vigor the greatness that are these United States. Sadly, much of that patriotism will not be based on true Americanism. Instead, for a majority of our citizens, the vision of what America has been, is, and will be is but a mutation of what our nation is supposed to represent.

In its simplest terms July 4 celebrates the independence that our Founding Fathers achieved from the British in 1776. But it’s much deeper than that. When they cut ties with the motherland, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the other signers of the Declaration of Independence were also cutting ties with — then and for the future — onerous forms of government. They were founding a nation, perchance a heaven on Earth, based on the basic yet so magnificent premise that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Founding Fathers believed that we as individuals were just as independent from control and oversight as our embryonic nation was from the grip of Great Britain. Our singular destinies were based in self-determination and we — not the government — were to decide how we lived our lives. That new form of self-rule that they devised at the time (which was so eloquently defined by the Constitution 11 years later) ensured that the federal government was an object of and by the people (not the other way around) and was there only to provide for an environment that guaranteed the protection of our natural rights and ensured that no one, not even the government itself, could infringe upon those rights and prevent anyone from pursuing his life’s dreams.

The times have changed, however. Many of the same Americans who will celebrate our formative document and its philosophies have willingly decided to abandon those tenets. They clamor for a form of government that our nation won its freedom from. Slowly but surely, even subconsciously, they have declared their dependence.

They want a ruling body that will do more than create and execute the rule of law. They want and need a ruling body that will provide for their everyday comforts — from income to food to housing to health care to retirement. They want a federal government that, in defiance of the Declaration of Independence, will not allow the pursuit of Happiness but will instead outright issue Happiness, or at least a sickeningly limited version of it, while snuffing out the Happiness of those souls from whom it pilfers its resources.

Looking at what our citizens have come to expect over the years -- and what they are now demanding amidst the throes of the economy’s struggle to regain its footing -- it’s obvious that the majority don’t value independence anymore. On July 4 they should lock their doors and stay away from any and all of the festivities. Celebrating as they would otherwise would be but a display of total hypocrisy.

If they truly believed in what the day stands for, they should demand that the government get out of the business of providing a cradle-to-grave existence and, instead, put an end to the taxes and freedoms it extracts from productive sectors of the economy and the free nature of good people in an effort to make functional its corrupt – and, yes, totally un-American -- system of social and corporate entitlements, alleged security and the resultant bastardization of freedom. Ending the federal government’s destructive actions and getting back to our roots would allow every one of us to pursue our own version of Happiness….the very thing that America and independence are all about.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 18 June 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

LEGALIZE FIREWORKS IN NEW YORK

With the piece de resistance of pyromania – Independence Day – nearly upon us, it’s that time of the year when thousands of New Yorkers make their annual pilgrimage to Pennsylvania where they can legally purchase recreational explosives that will illegally be used to supplement their July Fourth festivities back home. It’s ironic that New Yorkers have to tiptoe around the law – which prohibits the sale, possession or use of fireworks – before and during a holiday that celebrates personal freedom.

It’s time that we changed the 103 year-old law and allowed people to have some fun.

Last year that nearly happened – albeit it in limited fashion – when the state legislature approved a bill that would have allowed the sale and use of handheld or ground-based party explosives (aerial displays would have remained a no-no). Governor Cuomo vetoed the bill. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the end for future legislative attempts; over the years numerous bills have been resubmitted annually before finally receiving executive approval and - as we’ve seen with his recent about face on marijuana - the Governor’s mind can change. But, going forward, it would be nice to see rockets and Roman candles added to the list of permissible items.

The economic benefit would be astounding. The abbreviated list that would have been allowed under last year’s bill would have resulted in $50 million in sales per year. $2 million would have gone to state coffers in the form of sales taxes. If larger and more exciting displays were allowed as well, both of those numbers could double. Instead, dollars are being spent in neighboring states before the fireworks are brought home.

More important than that, though, is the fact that we would glean social benefit. If someone wants to celebrate a holiday or special event and, in the process harms no one, let him do it. Why should we take away something that’s joyous and entertaining to people? Those New Yorkers who now break the law are subjected to harassment by neighbors and police and they could face a potential penalty that is 15 days in jail and/or $250 in fines.

If the state allowed the sale of fireworks, there would still need to be some limits. This goes back to my interpretation of personal liberty -- also briefly mentioned above -- that one can do as he chooses as long as the rights of others aren’t affected. The first such right would be property rights. As we saw last July in Buffalo, a family lost their home and a second, vacant home went up in flames when illegal fireworks struck them. The second right is the right to peaceful existence. You wouldn’t want someone blowing off explosives in a populous neighborhood on a week night when people are trying to sleep for work or school.

To mitigate such concerns we should rely on the most primal form of rule: local governments. It is best left to the towns, villages and cities to best determine when and where fireworks can be used. Aerial displays should be outright banned within all densely-populated areas -- hamlets, suburbs, mobile home parks, cities, etc -- due to the proximity of homes and the risk of unintended fires occurring as they did in Buffalo. But, the people living in those areas shouldn’t be excluded from using the safer ground displays and noisemakers on the holidays. Likewise, those who live in rural areas should be allowed to launch the most-impressive rockets since there is no risk of igniting another’s’ home. Locally-determined limits could also be imposed on when fireworks could be used. Most towns have noise ordinances, so the control of such boisterous activity is not something new. Common sense exceptions could be granted for use of fireworks on specific holidays (Memorial Day weekend, July 4, Labor Day weekend, New Years Eve, and maybe even most Saturdays).

We can certainly make Independence Day much more festive and colorful in New York by eliminating Big Government – and empowering Small Government – recognizing that in 46 other states people can pursue the right to ignite small scale explosives on their property…and their parties are better for it!

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.




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This column originally ran in the 11 June 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

THE EPA AND THE CONSTITUTION

Of all the agencies maintained by the Executive Branch, few have proven to be as detrimental to the United States as the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has touched everything from the food we eat (from over-the-top dust regulations to clean water rules that strip property rights) to the energy we use (telling oil and gas companies where, how and when to extract much-needed resources, creating a dependency on foreign sources) to the air we breathe (instituting utterly insane emissions standards for things as simple as portable fuel tanks). All of those rules and thousands more add to the cost of doing business and therefore the cost of living. The actual negative impact on the American consumer is in the hundreds of billions per year as we end up paying for these regulations at the market, fuel pump, and department store.

The EPA’s modus operandi is unconstitutional. The federal government is not authorized to legislate environmental issues within the states. Truthfully, there is no agency that better understands the uniqueness of, say New York, and its various habitats and the creatures that inhabit them than the state’s environmental arm, the Department of Conservation. It is that agency and New York’s state and local lawmakers (along with citizen participation) that should decide what are permissible levels of development and non-standard inputs into the environment as well as what may be taken from it. The federal government doesn’t have the ability or jurisdiction to understand the intricacies and interrelatedness of the natural world, the businesses, and the people within a given state.

The preamble to the Constitution describes the limited purposes of our federal government and among them is the provision of common defense. Under that, the EPA would actually have constitutional justification if it didn’t focus on the internal and instead focused on the external, like invasive species at the point of entry. These animals and plants don’t belong in our country but, through global trade, end up taking root, destroying our resources to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in perpetuity. Among them is the emerald ash borer, a beetle that came from Asia in the 1990s and has so far killed 100 million ash trees. 7.5 billion more are threatened by this unstoppable beast. The ash is incredibly important to our economy and were it to be erased from our forests (which looks likely), the lumber industry would lose $25 billion in output per year, setting off a domino effect across other industries. And then there’s the matter of the Asian carp, a large bottom-feeding fish currently making its way to the Great Lakes where it will be certain to disrupt the system’s $7 billion fishery. These invaders represent only the tip of the iceberg. Many more are here. More are coming.

With the vast amount of exports we bring in annually, it’s no wonder that we’ve opened our borders to such a pestilence. More than 4 million shipping containers come to America every year, filled with unchecked product of questionable integrity from questionable sources. If the products themselves are suspect, imagine the skids upon which they are shipped (what insects do they carry?) or the craft that carry them (what do their ballasts hold?).

If the EPA were serious about living out its mission, it would set strict rules and conduct numerous inspections to protect our nation from these outside factors that will compromise our environment and health more than any domestic factors will. So, rather than harassing a locally-owned gas station that hopes to upgrade its pumping station, the EPA should instead hold accountable the foreign firms and governments that don’t care the least about America’s wild lands and natural resources; after all, corrupt trading partners — like China — would prefer to see our resources expunged because it means more exporting business for them. Our losses are their gains. Invasive species represent a sort of economic warfare.

The EPA’s negligible approach to securing of our borders from alien creatures is eerily similar to Washington’s efforts when it comes to another invader: the human aliens who come to our nation unabated from Mexico. It’s obvious that protecting our borders and ensuring our common defense are an afterthought by design. That’s a major point of frustration, for it is one of the very few things for which our federal government is actually obligated and empowered to do.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 04 June 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

WHY STOP AT MEDICAL MARIJUANA?

On May 16th it was announced that a bill legalizing medical marijuana in New York State made it through the Assembly’s Health Committee and that it would come to a vote in that chamber this year. That, along with what seems to be an impending about-face by Governor Cuomo (he’s studying the merits of the plant after previously having sworn it off) and a Sienna Research poll that shows 57% of New Yorkers support medical marijuana, there is a slight chance – especially with the anti-pot Republicans having such a thin lead in the Senate – that the bill might become law.

That news made me wonder: Why stop there? Why not decriminalize marijuana in New York or, better yet, legalize it at the federal level, allowing not only the terminally ill, but the healthy as well, to enjoy its properties?

Some readers might now be asking, “what is Confer smoking?” The answer is “nothing”. I have never had alcohol, tobacco products or drugs in my life, not even a sample in the smallest of quantities. My almost Mormon-like abstinence from toxins and mood enhancers is of my own choice and for my own personal reasons and benefit. Likewise, those who choose to have a drink or smoke do so for their own personal reasons and benefit. I find no fault in them doing that. We’re supposed to live by a simple concept in this country called “personal liberty”; you should be able to do with your body what you want as long as you don’t infringe upon the rights of others (or demand that they shoulder some of the burden for the consequences of your actions).

If someone wants to take a drag off a joint, more power to him. As a matter of fact he and the people around him would be better off than had he consumed alcohol or tobacco products. The merits of reefer versus those substances are numerous:

Marijuana is not addictive. Alcohol and cigarettes can be. Once someone becomes an alcoholic he is always an alcoholic, even if he has maintained sobriety for a period of time. He’s always one sip away from relapse. Even the most pedestrian of cigarette smokers have a hard time stopping their habit. Someone who starts in high school might carry that habit to his early deathbed, even while knowing the dangers. A marijuana smoker, on the other hand, can begin and end consumption of pot with absolutely no side effects.

Marijuana does not ruin families. Booze can. The destructive nature of alcohol dependency and the ugly monster that drunkenness can unleash through domestic violence and child abuse cannot be found in pot smoke. If anything, pot makes people friendlier and less violent. It should be noted that the only time marijuana ruins families is when government intervenes: There are 850,000 weed-related arrests annually and many of those unlucky souls get more jail time than they would have had they killed somebody.

Marijuana does not hurt or kill the user. 50,000 people suffer from dangerous alcohol poisoning annually, with 5,000 of them dying. Worse yet, each year 400,000 suffer slow, agonizing deaths from tobacco-related illnesses. No one dies from the non-toxic cannabis plant which various studies have shown does not cause lung cancer.

Similarly, marijuana does not kill or maim innocent bystanders. Second-hand cigarette smoke does. It can adversely affect friends and families (including small children who have no say in the matter), socking them with cancer and debilitating respiratory and coronary diseases through no fault of their own.

Marijuana can help those who are sick. It can help the afflicted deal with pain, glaucoma and more. It can also help the demented and HIV-stricken develop an appetite, crucial in preventing wasting. Alcohol and tobacco? They help people become sick.

So, just why do we crucify this plant -- that is far safer than what law allows to be consumed -- and let government waste $10 billion annually on its prohibition, when the 1920s showed that prohibition of recreational substances (alcohol at that time) is a complete failure? It comes down to control.

Even the most morally-rigid must realize that by relentlessly denying people the liberty to ingest the mellowest of drugs, our government continues to set precedent for further intrusion into our most personal of behaviors. Before you know it, they’ll be concocting laws telling us how much salt, trans fat, unpasteurized milk, or sugar we can have in our diets. Oh, wait, we’re already there!

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 28 May 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

THE REALITY OF RATIONED HEALTH CARE

The ongoing debate over Obamacare has brought to light the concept of rationed healthcare. Opponents of health care reform keenly point out that while the bill never explicitly calls out rationing, it features certain provisions that will lead the markets to adjust to strict federal demands and, therefore, dispense certain procedures in smaller amounts or not at all. Because of it being the first time that the subject has really come up in public circles, most people, especially on the right, believe that rationing is something new. It’s not. The free markets have been practicing that for quite some time. I should know; with a 4-inch long, 1-inch wide scar running south of my belly button – and a couple of related scars around my groin – I could be the poster child for rationed health care.

In 1997 I went to the emergency room after suffering with incredible pain near my stomach. The old-fashioned tests and the white blood cell count told the doctor it was appendicitis. He said that in the old days he would have taken out the offending body part, but he couldn’t now as he was hamstrung by the insurance companies which indicated the WBC count was in “the grey area.” So, he let me go and said the appendix would flare up again and, at that time, they would operate.

He was right. Nearly 2 years later it acted up on a Friday night. But, I let it go for the whole weekend thinking it was food poisoning. By Sunday afternoon the useless organ exploded and only painful urination (the result of the infectious poison surging through my body) sent me to the ER. After 18 hours of waiting and testing in the hospital, it was determined that I had peritonitis. I was rushed into emergency surgery and spent a week in the hospital. I lost 30 pounds and nearly my life.

That begs the question: What did the health insurance provider lose? In 1997, had the appendix been attended to as it would have been traditionally, It would have been a simple, relatively inexpensive procedure. Instead, they had to blow tens of thousands of dollars on elaborate surgery and post-operative care -- while putting me at risk -- because of the initial attempt at rationing.

I’m not the only one who has suffered at the hands of the HMOs in regard to the strict, often ridiculous, dispersal of care. Various other maladies fall under similar limitation clauses, while some insurance companies have caps on payments for specific services or participate in dumping of the insured. It’s a system that threatens the well-being of millions of Americans.

Things won’t get any better with Obamacare, which offers the public sector bedfellow for the private sector’s devious practice. It’s nowhere near as hideous as the overblown “Death Panel” hysteria once driven by Sarah Palin, but it’s dirty nonetheless through 3 entities it has empowered. The advent of Affordable Care Organizations will reward doctors for keeping costs under control. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute will create templates for what constitutes worthwhile investments in health by private and public providers. The Independent Payment Advisory Board will limit payments to doctors, hospitals, and health care providers, forcing their hand in deciding what to offer.

There’s no doubt that health insurance and Medicare are too expensive and will become even more so (the cost of insurance to my company and coworkers grew by 112% over the past 9 years). But, hare-brained rationing schemes aren’t fully effective in tempering costs, and hot tempers caused by one side blaming the other for doing something its side is guilty of is not good for advancing an appropriate discussion of health care in America. Rather than rationing care by policy alone (and not the situation that presents itself), we’re better off finding significant savings elsewhere through self responsibility, the elimination of state borders in health shopping, the creation of true (risk-based) health insurance and the destruction of the HMO system as we know it. But, those are issues for another day…and another column.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 21 May 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

PROPERTY TAXES: PAYING THE UNFAIR SHARE

A debate that has dominated the American political scene for months has been this premise that everyone should “pay their fair share”. So much attention has been trained on this matter at the national level (in the form of federal income tax) that most people have almost totally ignored the concept at the local level (in the form of property taxes) where it would carry even greater weight.

Think about these disconnects in fairness concerning local taxation:

In comparing properties of equal size, why should a childless couple pay as much as a family of four, when the family of four consumes far more in public services (especially public schooling)?

How is it just that municipalities and schools in Allegany County and the Adirondacks can reap revenues from what are basically absentee landowners living elsewhere (like camp owners) who come to town just a few weekends and weeks a year and acquire almost no benefit from the taxes they’ve paid? Why should those non-resident property owners be excluded from having say in how their taxes are being used in the places where they are paying them?

In rural locales like Niagara County, why should farmers carry the highest portion of the revenue burden just because they happen to own vast tracks of land? It’s not as if they are receiving a proportionate amount of services.

Why should property owners pay so much for Medicaid (in most New York counties it’s at least 50 percent of the county tax) when it should be the obligation of the population as a whole to fund this forced benevolence deemed to be so necessary?

Why should senior citizens on fixed incomes who have been paying into the system their whole adult lives continue to pay high taxes for things they won’t use anymore, but once did and once paid for accordingly through taxation at that time?

Why should someone who loves his home and wants to make it better with a swimming pool or addition have to suffer the consequences at reassessment and end up paying more in taxes than someone who left their land idle?

Beyond those glaring displays of wrong, consider the very act of property taxation itself. You are led to believe – and even possess legal documents that show as much – that you own your property. You really don’t; ownership is only theoretical in modern America. It’s more accurately stated that you are renting the property from your local governments and school districts at a premium, because, if you didn’t pay your taxes it wouldn’t take long for that governing body to take that property from you --- even if the mortgage was fully paid-for!

This travesty carries special meaning in New York State, where property taxes are 70% above the national average. In Niagara County the average home of $95,800 has a property tax of $2,800, meaning that local homeowners pay over $1,200 more than their peers in other states with equally-assessed properties. New York’s cure for the problem was not to cut property taxes, but rather to still allow them to grow, but only at a supposedly-stunted rate (2% tax cap). That’s still a princely sum: After just 5 years of capped increases, the average homeowner will find herself paying $3,091, nearly $300 more than she had.

If you really want to make a change for the better and guarantee that everyone “pays their fair share”, then follow the lead of North Dakota. On June 12th voters there will have the chance to determine whether or not the state will abolish property taxes (Measure #2). If approved, North Dakota would find other means to fund state mandates and local governments, be it through higher income taxes or higher state or local sales taxes, ensuring everyone assumes equal responsibility for the government they want.

It will be interesting to see how that vote pans out. It will help show if the national rhetoric of taxable equality is genuine or just talk. Hopefully fairness does reign, and their property taxes are eliminated. If so, North Dakota would make a great model for the rest of the United States – including New York.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.




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This column originally ran in the 14 May 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

THE DANGERS OF FERAL CATS

The town of Newfane – more specifically the lakeshore hamlet of Olcott - has a feral cat problem. The community is inundated with dozens of free-roaming, essentially-wild felines which have created health and safety issues galore as well as major inconveniences to property owners, businesses and tourists. Town officials considered trapping and eradicating the cats but animal advocates, citing inhumane practices, recently raised a stink and would rather that the town allows volunteers to trap and transplant or trap and spay/neuter and release.

The approaches proposed by the cat lovers beg two questions: What is so humane about reintroducing feral cats to the environment and where – and for what animals – does “animal advocacy” begin and end? I ask those questions because I wonder why, if they are so concerned about animal welfare, the advocates seem not to care about the wildlife of the region, which is arguably far more important than this invasive specie.

Yes, the feral cat is an invasive specie. They are a scourge on the natural world that demolishes the integrity of our environment, no different than two other threats bearing down on Newfane that were also introduced to the area by Man – the emerald ash borer (the beetle set to destroy every ash tree in the area) and the Asian carp (the monstrous fish that will upset the Great Lakes). Those two creatures will have measurable and considerable impact on our economy so they are perceived as major dangers by the populace at large; feral cats, on the other hand, are not popularly reviled, because their economic impact is nil (although it can be argued their presence has prevented many tourists from returning to Olcott).

Alas, no dollar value can be placed on the dangers cats pose to local wildlife. According to a 2010 study by the University of Nebraska Extension, there are 60 million stray and feral cats in the United States and another 88 million domestic cats (which may spend time outside), all of which kill 1 billion of our feathered friends every year. Low-nesting and ground-nesting birds are most likely to fall victim to the unnatural predator and that carries special meaning in Newfane where there are miles of shoreline on Lake Ontario, 18-Mile Creek and Keg Creek that rare and endangered sandpipers, plovers and other shorebirds call home. More familiar woodland and lawn birds like catbirds, thrushes, cardinals and ovenbirds are also easy prey for the cats.

The dangers of feral cats don’t end there. They are sponges for and transmitters of disease. Over the years I’ve seen the bodies - or witnessed the death – of diseased feral cats that come from local colonies of barn cats. It can be a little disturbing. One feral cat I observed in its death throes would alternate between long periods of unconsciousness and sickening seizures where its whole body would flop before finally succumbing to whatever ailment it had. Now, imagine your domestic cat coming in contact with one of those animals and your beloved family friend taking ill and suffering before your very eyes.

Even more horrifying than that, imagine you or a family member being stricken with rabies acquired from a feral cat. If left unattended, a painful, ugly death is guaranteed. It can happen and nearly did in Newfane on quite a few occasions in recent years when unsuspecting souls thought they were handling tame, clean cats. In 2006 a calico cat frequented Burt Dam and many fishermen befriended the cat. That spring the cat contracted rabies. Because of that, a health alert went out to the public and at least 3 men received rabies shots because of their association with the cat. Then, in 2010, a Himalayan/Siamese cat was dropped off on Gow Road. That young cat, and no doubt the mother and litter it came from, had rabies, creating a huge scare that was reported by local print and broadcast news outlets.

It’s patently obvious that feral cats aren’t cute and cuddly like their housebound brothers and sisters. They are a danger to Man, pet and nature alike. In a case like this, emotion needs to be cast aside and replaced with logic. “Fixing” the cats won’t fix the problem. The town of Newfane has an obligation to protect its citizens and the environment and to best do so it needs to take the unpopular path and completely eradicate the feral cat population that has overtaken Olcott.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 07 May 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

YAHOO! LAYOFF NEWS IS NOT GOOD NEWS FOR NIAGARA COUNTY

Last month, Yahoo! announced layoffs of 2,000 jobs. That’s their sixth layoff - and largest – since 2008. The other 5 ranged from 150 to 1,000 job cuts each and totaled 3,950 jobs lost. In the aggregate the internet giant has cut 5,950 jobs (or 30% of its workforce) in 4 years.

As bad as the layoff news was, local officials were quick to proclaim a silver lining. Senator George Maziarz told this paper that the Lockport site was spared any layoffs. “Not only are all of the jobs safe in this area, but they have chosen the Town of Lockport as one of the facilities to expand their services and bring more jobs to Niagara County,” he said.

The latter was not news, but previously announced, dating back to March and April of 2011 when Yahoo! indicated it would be investing $500 million in 5 existing datacenters (including Lockport) and new sites yet to be determined. At the time, Yahoo! was granted 1 more megawatt of low-cost hydropower in advance of the final decision, contingent on the company adding 20 more jobs to the local venue, which, if all goes as promised, would bring total employment at Lockport to 145. It should be noted that the 145 is a far cry from the current job rolls of 75. The 75 also fall short of the 125 jobs that were committed to in the initial $268 million incentives package offered by local, state, and federal officials.

Taking the above into consideration, we need to be less parochial and adopt a world view when it comes to economic development. Isn’t the point of corporate welfare to inspire growth of the corporation and achieve a return on investment that, in the terms of the public dollars donated or not realized, equates to more jobs? Sure, Yahoo! is maintaining employment here and (hopefully) adding more, but, looking at the Big Picture, does it really matter? They’ve cut 5,950 jobs throughout the corporation!

At the very same time all of those job cuts occurred, Lockport, New York and the federal government gave Yahoo! the world to come here. Simply put: We were used. Round after round of layoffs occurred while the corporation was negotiating with officials, yet their demands were catered to. What makes it especially frustrating is that Yahoo! is a very profitable company ($1.05 billion in net income from $4.98 billion in revenues in 2011, even with the excess of employment). It’s not like they needed the hefty package to stay economically vibrant, especially with so few jobs created locally and so many jobs destroyed globally.

Also, consider the following aspects of the incentives afforded them…

16 megawatts of low-cost power: When you look at the hoops that small businesses must go through to get electricity from NYPA (and then, it’s only crumbs), it’s disheartening that the State bent over backwards to give them 16 MW. That’s enough to power all the homes in 16 villages the size of Middleport. As I’ve written before, cheap power is best shared with the masses (including homeowners). Likewise, I’ve had numerous utilities executives tell me through the years that local economies lose when so few companies possess so much power. If many more companies had easy access to cheap power, many more jobs would be created – and by a multiple no less!

10-year property tax exemption: A PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) would make perfect sense in the case of Yahoo! Unlike other IDA projects in Western New York which support hotels, restaurants, and doctors offices, this PILOT would support an facility that without a doubt could be elsewhere. But, there’s something missing here: the payment. Yahoo! is exempted from taxes (even a PILOT) for the first 10 years. A true PILOT would have seen local jurisdictions receive some money. But, here, they get none, despite a revenue crisis and unprecedented cuts.

A $9.9 million sustainability grant from Washington: This was the largest grant (free cash) ever provided through the Department of Energy’s Green IT program. It’s just another in a long line of green gimmicks that have absolutely no payback to society (Solyndra, anyone?). Basically, $10 million was given away to a very profitable corporation in an era when the Buffet Rule, the Ryan Budget, Social Security insolvency, and Medicare cuts dominate Washington conversations because things are so bad in terms of over-spending.

This mess – when looked at in toto - should serve as a lesson-learned for Niagara County and other development-starved locales. When next a gigantic firm comes to town promising the world, don’t do the same. There’s a good chance there won’t be any measurable benefit locally, nationally or abroad.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 30 April 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers