You are a part of the local tourism industry

Every summer my family and I spend a week in the Adirondacks. Every time we go I am impressed by how every business and resident goes out of their way to treat visitors like gold. I guess we are gold to them…a precious commodity because the entire economy within the Adirondacks is based on some form of tourism. They do this because, of course, they love our money but also because they truly love where they live.

Now, compare that to what takes place in Niagara County.

I often get the sense that tourists get the short shrift here from too many of our residents. Despite more than three-quarters of billion dollars spent annually on tourism activities in the county, some locals look at tourists with disdain -- they are using “our” parks and roads or there are “too many” Canadian license plates at our malls.

That’s silly and self-defeating. Every person living and working here should follow the lead of our fellow New Yorkers and show exuberance not only for our visitors but also for the incredible assets we have here.

Without them, our economy would tank. 16,000 workers are employed in tourism and hospitality in Niagara County. Maybe your neighbor is one of them. Maybe you are. Their/our livelihoods are dependent on people visiting Niagara Falls, the Gorge, the Erie Canal, the Wine Trail, and our world-class fisheries.

Our governments – and, in turn our pocketbooks -- are also in need of tourism dollars. Niagara County tourism generates more than $50 million in local sales tax, helping to reduce the tax burden of local property owners by nearly $800 per household. I don’t know about you, but I pay enough in property taxes (inarguably too much) and I wouldn’t want to dish out another $800.

It’s up to every one of us to make sure local tourism flourishes. When it does, so do we.

There are any number of ways that Niagara County residents can further improve the Niagara brand. For the sake of column space, here are three simple ways to start:

Spread the word: Why do you live here? Why do you love it here? There has to be reasons; share them with those visiting and those who could visit. As an example, when I court potential clients they receive not only my company brochure but they also get a visitor’s guide that I created encouraging them to enjoy Niagara County when they pay me a visit. Similarly, it seems like every single business in Inlet and Old Forge in the Adirondacks has a rack of tourism brochures in their doorway. When is the last time you saw that in Niagara County outside of the Falls? Those racks should be just as ubiquitous here.

Sell the area: In the Adirondacks, a lot of cross-selling takes place. Retailers and restaurants heavily use and re-market local products and services. That doesn’t happen here. As an example, look at wines. It’s a rare Niagara County restaurant that has a good selection of wines from our great wine trail. Most don’t carry any and, if they do, it might be one or two wines. If they carried more they’d support local farms and wineries…and themselves. They’d encourage non-resident diners to visit the trail and, in turn, create repeat business for that restaurant when the travelers return.

Treat everyone like a new and welcome visitor: In the Adirondacks service sector employees treat every customer (tourists or locals alike) like it’s their first of many visits to the establishment or the Park in general. In doing so there’s a palpable positive energy that’s infectious and makes outsiders feel welcome and loved. Happy people spend money! I don’t really see that here. A waitress in Lewiston might treat someone like a Lewistonian, not knowing the person hails from across the country. By doing so she fails to properly market the experience at her restaurant and in her community. In a tourism mecca like this, you never know who your customers might be. Consider one fine summer day in Olcott when I counted six different languages being spoken. That’s who we want visiting us again and again and being encouraged to do things – that’s economic development at the grassroots level.

I could go on and on about this subject, but I hope you get the gist. By living here, in a world-renowned area, we all have a vested interest in the utilization of those resources and the betterment of our economy. It’s time Niagara County residents realized we are all in the tourism industry together.  

From the 13 January 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Local forests are losing their stories

The Erie Canal towpath was once the interstate for itinerant workers — hoboes, if you will — who traveled from town to town in search of their next farming or handyman gig. While doing so, they frequently stopped over on my family’s farm, which butts up to the canal. It was an attractive spot to set up camp because of the fresh water they could drink from a brook that runs through our woods, the same brook from which they ignited gas for cooking (there is a good reason it’s called “Gas”port).

While there, they often killed time by carving their names and other things in the bark of the beech trees that are common in our woods. The smooth gray bark, so easy to cut with a pocketknife, has always been quite inviting to amateur artisans, not to mention young lovers who wanted their names forever inscribed in Mother Nature for all the world to see. The hoboes, the lovers, and anyone else interested in making a statement left their calling cards on the beeches — old-fashioned graffiti that remains to this day.

Those trees tell stories.

On the trees that were cut when they were mature and thus slower to grow, I can still make out dates from the early 1930s. Some of the handiwork, less legible as the tree grew, obviously came from much earlier times. There are names; some of them belonged to the hoboes, while others I recognize as locals who probably carved the tree when they were in their teens and 20s. Now, they are in their senior years and their arboreal artwork has aged less dramatically than they.

Two beeches show the efforts of my family. One has neatly cut into its bark two words: “Ray Confer.” My grandfather did that when he purchased the farm in 1955 at 33 years of age. He has since passed, so that tree has always offered a comforting portal to a time gone by. The other tree in question displays my dad’s boast of having hunted his first squirrel. He likely carved that when he was just 12 years old. That tree is like a trophy, one as impressive as the deer heads on his wall.

Sadly, all of these trees will, quite soon, no longer be able to tell their stories. About a dozen years ago, beech bark disease reared its ugly head on the Niagara Frontier in volume, bringing with it its deadly one-two punch. First, an insect attacks the bark. Then, the wounds left by the insects are infiltrated by a fungus. It doesn’t take long for the once-beautiful bark to crack then fracture completely, falling off the tree. The malnourished beech topples over within a couple of years of its first symptoms.

It won’t take long for the disease to take its toll on local forests, wiping out one of our most abundant trees and our best storytellers. Every year, more and more of them topple within our woodlots.

It’s disheartening to think that the trees that should have outlived me won’t, taking with them the interesting connection I have to my family and the dozens of hardworking men who made their way across the region in hopes of overcoming the economic realities of their time.

Not one to let memories — better yet, history — die so pitifully, over the past few years I’ve taken photographs of the various trees and their carvings that remain. If you have a stand of beeches, especially one along the towpath or the rail line, you should take the time to do so, too, to familiarize yourself with the people who once called your fair community “home,” be it for years or just a few nights.

By capturing the images on film we can maintain the carvings for the ages, just as their artists had intended.

From the 06 January 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

High speed rail: The fast train to nowhere

Last week, Governor Cuomo took to Twitter to announce yet another proposal for his 2020 State of the State Address. This time, he said, “I propose we convene outside experts to reexamine strategies to bring high-speed rail to NY. We've been told that bringing this technology to our state is too expensive, too difficult and would take too long—that's not an acceptable attitude.”

I may not be one of those experts and maybe I’m chock full of unacceptable attitude, but high speed rail will not be the cure for what ails our economy. Not even close. As a matter of fact, it might turn into one of the symptoms: If the system became a reality, say 10 years after its launch, when its mostly-empty cars pass by your home, the train will be but a recurring reminder of how stale the upstate economy is.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of railroads and a supporter of their future development. But, I know that when keeping our economy on track two things are first and foremost for rail development: One, moving freight great distances efficiently and affordably and, two, transporting people short distances for the purposes of commuting to their employment or nearby destinations in culture, tourism and education (much like the NFTA’s MetroRail does).

High speed rail fails to address either of those.

There are 140,000 miles of track in the US, over which freight with annual values of $175 billion are moved. This accounts for approximately 15 of all freight tonnage transported across the States. Rail is expected to grow in importance over the coming decades because of road congestion brought on by our nation’s rapidly-growing population (it will have grown by 15% by 2040) and considerable – and growing – shortage of tractor trailer drivers (which is why manufacturers are all-in with developing self-driving transport trucks). The expectations for rail freight are expected to increase by a whopping 37% by 2040.

With such an explosion, logjams and delays will be the norm. In some places, like Chicago, they already are. So, by making freight an afterthought, our government fails to focus on what matters most to the greater good. To stimulate the economy, and thusly employ people, moving goods not people must take precedence. That said, Cuomo’s interest in high-speed rail has me shaking my head, especially since our state eschews pipelines which in turn creates greater need for rail delivery.

Plus, we need reasons to move people and those reasons aren’t there.

There is no way that everything will work out just right so that tens of thousands of workers will commute from Buffalo to Rochester or Albany daily and have easy access to their jobs, if even those jobs exist.  

Do high speed rail fans really think that employers will be located near the train station or is accessible by other forms of public transportation? That thinking may have worked back in the 1800’s or early 1900’s when development was centralized in the heart of the big cities. But, now it won’t work because the jobs are more widespread. For most of the Upstate region the best and most numerous employment opportunities for the average person are no longer to be had in the hearts of metropolises. The city limits and the suburbs are where it’s at. Centralization is a thing of the past in Upstate.

And, so is explosive economic development.

You have to give entrepreneurs a reason to invest in New York. High speed rail won’t be it.

We’ve heard before from previous state officials that high-speed train will incite economic growth by facilitating business travel. We can see the fallacy of that claim already in this region. The Buffalo Niagara airport has become home to a bevy of affordable airlines that all service popular destinations. The world is accessible to Western New York and vice versa. So, if cheap and easy transportation is the magic elixir for a sick economy, why hasn’t the air situation, which meets those standards, done anything to jumpstart the local economy?

That said, it’s a no-brainer that what would be tens of billions of dollars is better spent on other forms of infrastructure (we want high-speed rail but we can’t even deliver high-speed internet) or mitigating New York’s considerable budget deficit or, better yet, not being spent at all, limiting tax burdens and improving the ability of the state and municipalities to compete for jobs and people.

But, Cuomo and his peers won’t see it that way because they prefer to be salesmen instead of statesmen. They don’t think in the long term or in reality. That’s because high-expense, low-reward ideas that sound sexy - like high-speed rail - win elections and the confidence of those who don’t see the big picture for what it is…an economy that has been derailed and can’t be saved by a fancy people mover.

If anything, high speed rail will only help New Yorkers leave the state more quickly.

From the 30 December 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News