Representative democracy

On his blog, Balgar laments the fact that, as a Williamsville resident, the first elected official who reflects his views (is a democrat) is Clinton/Schumer. He also criticizes Kevin Gaughan's city-county consolidation plan because it reduces the legislature to 11 members. Balgar argues that fewer legislators equals worse representation; or at least more diluted representation. Perhaps, but it's impossible for us to expect our elected reps to always agree with every constituent. I don't think a smaller, consolidated legislature of 11 people is automatically better or automatically worse than what we have now. Let's face it, for the most part it'll be populated by the same old faces. Balgar says that efficiency is not government's purpose; representation is. I disagree. The legislature's only purpose is to make laws. The executive's only purpose is to carry out those laws. The laws that the legislature makes should be for the public good. But ultimately, every legislature's major power is to levy taxes. The President can't raise or lower your taxes; only Congress can. Ditto the Governor/State Legislature. Ditto Giambra/County legislature. Ditto Masiello/City Council. At this point, streamlined government is something that this area desperately needs. New York has too many governments, each layer of which is all to happy to tax you. New York is woefully uncompetitive versus the other 49 states. This place isn't going to improve until that changes. That sort of fundamental change has to happen not only locally, but also in Albany. Will an 11-member Greater Buffalo legislature be any better than the current City Council/County Legislature we have? Who knows. But I think it's more expensive and worse for the region to keep things the way they are than it is to try something new.