CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

By declaring that there is a necessity for NYPA to send even more Niagara Power Project electricity to New York City and downstate, candidate Andrew Cuomo was sending Niagara County and Western New York a message, and that message was, "If you think I won't marginalize and punish you for supporting that idiot running against me, you have another think coming."

As an informed reader of the Reporter with an attention span exceeding 24 hours, you will recall that Niagara County settled for between one-third and one-half of the relicensing compensation that outside consultants determined we were entitled to. You are aware that Congressman Higgins unilaterally obtained $2 million more a year for the Buffalo waterfront before the ink on the relicensing pact had even dried. You know that NYPA sends most of the electricity generated at Lewiston to New York City and eight other states, and that Albany magnanimously returns to us a pittance through something called Power for Jobs.

Hundreds of NYPA bureaucrats, headquartered downstate at White Plains (which Money magazine rated as "One of the Best Places to Live," as opposed to the city of Niagara Falls, which has one of the highest rates of poverty in the Northeast), make salaries in excess of $100,000 annually.

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