Redundancy at the Rath

See? I told you we don't need county government. Just last week, Bill Kindel echoed my call to abolish county government. The current county budget crisis has finally killed the Giambra-Greiner commission's regionalism idea. The county ain't gonna absorb the city, because we don't need the county. Now, Albany is saying that towns can go directly to the State DOT, and bypass Erie County, to arrange for plowing. See? Cut out the middleman.

State Senators Dale Volker and William Stachowski says towns may now be able to deal directly with the state when it comes to snow plowing contracts which were once arranged through Erie County. Normally the contracts flow down from the state to the county and then to the towns. Senator Stachowksi, who is a Buffalo Democrat, claims this is a safety issue and says there would be no labor issues involved when the contracts for the 2005 - 2006 winter season come up for renewal. "We'd just be taking the county out of the process and contracting directly with the towns and the towns seem to feel...at least the ones we've spoken to so far...they can more than manage with it."

I think I smell the end of Erie County as a separate taxing and governing entity.