What’s a “Forum”?
I was wrong. It was balanced.
You had a guy whom a competitor pays to advocate against Bass Pro, a guy who dislikes the Bass Pro at Canal Side project, and a guy who despises the Bass Pro at Canal Side project.
Last night’s event fundamentally misappropriated the word “forum”. In ancient Rome, the forum was where the citzenry would meet to conduct business and engage in an exchange of ideas. There was no exchange of ideas last night - only confirmation of one idea.
For many moons, Tielman and others have advocated for heritage-based tourism. The 2004 Master Plan they deify is, however, no more or less an Epcot attraction than the Canal Side project. Both plans work on the assumption that a pretty location and streetscape that re-creates what was (sort of) there historically will draw shoppers and tourists.
What a disappointment it must have been for them, then, when Ewald basically called both plans “a fast-fading myth”.
As you may also know, Jim Ostrowski’s Free NY has announced a “boycott” of Bass Pro stores nationwide until such time as they stop taking public incentives. That means two things locally - number one, it’s evidently ok to shop at the Bass Pro in Vaughan, ON since it’s not in the US; and number two, a group of people who never shopped at the Auburn, NY store pledge never to shop there again! Now that’s what I call powerful stuff!
Just to take it from the amusing to the absurd, Jim Ostrowski likened his boycott of an outdoor retailer to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s fight for equality and civil rights in the 50s and 60s. It’s an obvious logical step to compare centuries’ worth of discrimination and exploitation of a race of people with the business practices of a store. Right?
Well, I guess in the end it’s ok because the 50-60 people who attended this so-called “forum” at the federally and city subsidized Church on Delaware heard exactly what they wanted to hear.
Mr. Pink Says:July 18th, 2007 at 9:30 am
More so-called citizen-activists who do not represent popular opinion trying to force feed their narrow view of the world on everyone else. I’m so sick of these people I could scream.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the population is too busy trying to scrape a living together and raise their families to attend these moronic forums…but the news media with nothing better to cover shows up and purports this to be majority opinion.
TseTse Says:July 18th, 2007 at 10:32 am
And Esmonde had his column , prewritten and ready to go. How contrived is that. That is pathetic for a newspaper to permit that crap to go on. Unbiased source. Right. More like a propaganda tool. The only thing good about his current on-line column is they left his picture off.
Mike in WNY Says:July 18th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Last night’s forum met the definition of the word perfectly - A public meeting or presentation involving a discussion usually among experts and often including audience participation. No one was screened at the door for their viewpoints. Questions were not written down ahead of time and possibly screened. Everyone was welcome. If you had a question, all that was necessary was to raise your hand. It seems more than a bit disingenuous to disparage an event without having attended and hearing everything that was presented.
It is easy to cherry pick a few specific points in an attempt to discredit something. The goal isn’t a perfect plan, that doesn’t exist. The goal is the best plan for the City of Buffalo and that was intelligently and thoroughly presented last night.
TseTse, at the top of Esmonde’s column is the word COMMENTARY, the column itself was filled with factual information. Instead of just criticizing, why not identify which points you feel are wrong.
Mark Says:July 18th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Esmonde is a joke, and it is pathetic for the Buffalo News to permit him to give his biased opinion on all that is trying to be done. They should do more than just his picture, how about leaving him off the paper for good. He is oppose to all new development. He make me sick to even have to read about what he thinks should be done. When did become the voice for Buffalo and WNY. He is a pure bum!!
Oh please Says:July 18th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I’ll bet $100 that Bass Pro, at this moment, has no real intention of putting a store near the Buffalo waterfront.
TseTse Says:July 18th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Mike you did not address the point I made. The column was pre-written something which he has done before. He is a lacky. If you have been reading this site, my opinion of Esmonde is no secret. As far as what points I disagree with , Try all 9. He wants A little village by the water. How silly is that in the downtown of a major city. Put it this way Williamsburg has already been there and done that. Look at the historical renderings, there is no little village there, it was a major commercial hub.
TseTse Says:July 18th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Mike did anyone in the audience raise their hand and point out the fact that they were meeting in a building that recieved close to 6 million in tax credits. Federal Credits that were suppose to be used for job creation. Did you see any hands raised on that one? Shouldn’t you all be boycotting the Church too?
Andrew Kulyk Says:July 18th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
HSBC Arena opened in 1996… all the land and buildings and parcels around the arena have sat fallow and unused for ten years. And ten years from now, all this property will look virtually identical to how it looks now… the Aud, still boarded up… the Donovan building, comin down soon we promise… the low bridges to the Outer Harbor, announcement coming any day now… Canal Side, some dirt pushed around, replica bridge over the slip and some dusty old boulders, ooh! ahh!… and the preservationists, trying to preserve? nothing!
Meantime, sports venues around the country doing entire development districts surrounding their buildings… Ballpark Village next to Busch in St. Louis, the Arena District in Columbus, Bricktown in Oklahoma City (which includes a *gasp* Bass Pro). What’s going on here in Buffalo just breaks my heart.
Andrew Kulyk Says:July 18th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
And where is the ECHDC in all of this? The big presser in January and again in March, and since then… nothing! Weeks turning into months, all of us getting older and nothing happening. Shouldn’t mold and asbestos removal at the Aud be getting done NOW? Shouldn’t the Donovan building be a heap of scrap by now? Shouldn’t we be getting updates on the EIS process? And Higgins..where is that bridge funding and timetable. An entire construction season is slipping away, another year shot, and we are all jerking ourselves off!
Bridget Says:July 18th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
All very very good points Andrew Kulyk…
Except, I don’t really see the rush on the bridge. Numbers are down… the old bridge is still standing… and Higgins is off his rocker regarding the plaza.
Get Shared Border Management done; not destroy 60+ acres of a neighborhood for a truck stop….
…oh, and, um… just build bass pro. it’s one fricking piece to a puzzle. (it just happens to be the linchpin to all the rest).
Andrew Kulyk Says:July 18th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Oops… My “where’s the bridge” rant a bit midsirected, Bridget. Let me explain.
I meant where is the bridge connecting the foot of Main Street to the Outer Harbor? Designs show a low rise bridge with pedestrian access that would get people across the river in 30 seconds, and not 15 minutes via the Skyway. It’s only been talked about for what? 30 years now? Higgins said he’d get this funded and built. But like I said, another year slipping away an no action.
Denizen Says:July 18th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Hmm……all the mountains of public dough are still sitting somewhere in limbo. Without that money, nothing gets done on the waterfront whatsoever.
Denizen Says:July 18th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Oh and,
The whole “Canal Side” concept will remain nothing more than…..a concept….. until the skyway comes down.
Next…
Size Nine Says:July 18th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
With great deftness, BuffaloPundit regularly summarizes and dismisses entire columns in one sentence. It cracks me up. So let me try it.
“I’m shocked–shocked!–to discover that the word forum has been misused!”
Since BuffaloPundit didn’t attend, he can’t tell you what arguments anyone made, good or bad. But he still posted a snarky denunciation. Then he denounced Donn Esmonde for supposedly submitting in a supportive column before the event took place.
Pot, meet kettle.
Here’s the argument, good or bad, that BP missed:
http://wnym.wnymedia.net/blogs/2007/07/18/bass-pro-and-an-awful-lot-of-public-money/
TseTse Says:July 18th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Size Nine , obviously you don’t read period. Pundit said nothing about Esmonde. I did. So your analysis doesn’t appear to be worth much.
Dan Says:July 18th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I think a preliminary study should be made to determine the feasibility of conducting an impact study to determine the environmental and economic impacts of the paper consumed in any study that would be conducted for the Canal Side project.
Bullsh*t Detector (aka Keyboard Warrior & Buffalo Hater) Says:July 18th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Make sure there’s ample AFL-CIO “yooon-yon” representation too, or else there’ll be hell to pay! Lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit…
Pauldub Says:July 18th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Denizen is pretty rational until he gets into the “skyway” thing…..