Collins Accused of Investor "Rip Off"

A website that recently appeared online accuses former Erie County Executive and current NY-27 Republican congressional candidate Chris Collins of “ripping off” a group of local Buffalo investors for his own gain. More shockingly, it alleges that, when the investors asked to meet with Collins about the matter, he insisted on doing so only in his then-office on the 16th floor of the Rath Building; discussing a private business matter on public property. No one has taken responsibility for the website. 

CollinsRipoff” explains that a former neighbor of Collins’, Richard Conway, invented the “Balance Buddy”, a device that helps parents teach their kids to ride a bike without training wheels. Conway sought investment from several prominent businessmen in WNY, but when orders increased he needed a quick infusion of cash to pay the Chinese factories to ramp up production. Conway’s company was called Jiri, Inc., and state records reveal it was dissolved in early 2010. 

The “ripoff” website alleges that, when the investors balked at ponying up more cash, Conway turned to Collins for help. But instead of joining Jiri as a new investor, Collins chose instead chose to buy the “Balance Buddy” patent outright, and wrap it into a company he already owned called “Ingenious Products” (warning: obnoxious music). In so doing, Collins paid off a secured lien Jiri owed to former Buffalo Bill Kurt Schulz, and pay the needed advance to the factory in China. As a result of the way in which the 2008 deal was made, Jiri lost its only asset, and the remaining investors were stiffed completely out of an estimated $1 million. Why

Chris Collins never speaks of Ingenious Products on the campaign trail, never holds it out as a shining example of his corporate acumen. That’s probably because the company isn’t doing well. According to court filings, today it is worthless. 

In fact, Ingenious Products was in dire need of at least one ingenious product. More important, Ingenious Products was pining for huge big box retailers to sell their mélange of middling geegaws. So, instead of simply joining the group of investors already in for $1 million, Collins had a better idea: he would buy Balance Buddy outright and fold it into Ingenious Products. Why not? Balance Buddy had supplier numbers at Dick’s, Sears and the Mecca for Chinese products, Walmart. Collins hadn’t been able to get the time of day at these mega-retailers for his ingenious hair bands. But with Balance Buddy’s previous relationship he might be able to fold in an order or two of yoga mats with the bike bolt on.

Ingenious Products then hired Conway for $5,500 per month, but he declared personal bankruptcy in 2009, listing just under $3,000 in assets and close to $950,000 in liabilities, including his Spaulding Lake association fees and all the money owed to the remaining investors in the Balance Buddy. 

Collins-JIRI Closing Statement

We’ve heard countless times about what a savvy businessman Collins is, but if the allegations in that website are true (and they appear to be backed up by authentic court filings and other documents), he seems also to be a somewhat ruthless one, as well. None of that, of course, is criminal or anything. However, if the story about Collins insisting on meeting with the Jiri investors at the Rath Building is true (naturally, no one would comment on this or confirm it), that poses some serious questions about Collins’ use of the Rath Building to handle personal business and blatantly intimidate them. It may be illegal, to boot. 

Running government like a business – does that mean cheating people, underhanded dealings, intimidation through power and privilege, and hawking Chinese-built tchotchkes? 

Collins ought to give some answers about Ingenious Products and the Balance Buddy while on the campaign trail throughout NY-27. If Collins will treat prominent Buffalo families – who invested in an invention in good faith – with dismissiveness and intimidation, how is he going to represent constituents and average people?

Incidentally, the Collins campaign has been busy trying to please various subsets of the NY-27 population (farmers, small businessmen), but nary a word about service and the reasons why he wants to representan economically diverse population in a multigenerationally depressed area. 

Collins Accused of Investor “Rip Off”

A website that recently appeared online accuses former Erie County Executive and current NY-27 Republican congressional candidate Chris Collins of “ripping off” a group of local Buffalo investors for his own gain. More shockingly, it alleges that, when the investors asked to meet with Collins about the matter, he insisted on doing so only in his then-office on the 16th floor of the Rath Building; discussing a private business matter on public property. No one has taken responsibility for the website. 

CollinsRipoff” explains that a former neighbor of Collins’, Richard Conway, invented the “Balance Buddy”, a device that helps parents teach their kids to ride a bike without training wheels. Conway sought investment from several prominent businessmen in WNY, but when orders increased he needed a quick infusion of cash to pay the Chinese factories to ramp up production. Conway’s company was called Jiri, Inc., and state records reveal it was dissolved in early 2010. 

The “ripoff” website alleges that, when the investors balked at ponying up more cash, Conway turned to Collins for help. But instead of joining Jiri as a new investor, Collins chose instead chose to buy the “Balance Buddy” patent outright, and wrap it into a company he already owned called “Ingenious Products” (warning: obnoxious music). In so doing, Collins paid off a secured lien Jiri owed to former Buffalo Bill Kurt Schulz, and pay the needed advance to the factory in China. As a result of the way in which the 2008 deal was made, Jiri lost its only asset, and the remaining investors were stiffed completely out of an estimated $1 million. Why

Chris Collins never speaks of Ingenious Products on the campaign trail, never holds it out as a shining example of his corporate acumen. That’s probably because the company isn’t doing well. According to court filings, today it is worthless. 

In fact, Ingenious Products was in dire need of at least one ingenious product. More important, Ingenious Products was pining for huge big box retailers to sell their mélange of middling geegaws. So, instead of simply joining the group of investors already in for $1 million, Collins had a better idea: he would buy Balance Buddy outright and fold it into Ingenious Products. Why not? Balance Buddy had supplier numbers at Dick’s, Sears and the Mecca for Chinese products, Walmart. Collins hadn’t been able to get the time of day at these mega-retailers for his ingenious hair bands. But with Balance Buddy’s previous relationship he might be able to fold in an order or two of yoga mats with the bike bolt on.

Ingenious Products then hired Conway for $5,500 per month, but he declared personal bankruptcy in 2009, listing just under $3,000 in assets and close to $950,000 in liabilities, including his Spaulding Lake association fees and all the money owed to the remaining investors in the Balance Buddy. 

Collins-JIRI Closing Statementhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/95206138/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-2me7es470tzv952mqcwr

We’ve heard countless times about what a savvy businessman Collins is, but if the allegations in that website are true (and they appear to be backed up by authentic court filings and other documents), he seems also to be a somewhat ruthless one, as well. None of that, of course, is criminal or anything. However, if the story about Collins insisting on meeting with the Jiri investors at the Rath Building is true (naturally, no one would comment on this or confirm it), that poses some serious questions about Collins’ use of the Rath Building to handle personal business and blatantly intimidate them. It may be illegal, to boot. 

Running government like a business – does that mean cheating people, underhanded dealings, intimidation through power and privilege, and hawking Chinese-built tchotchkes? 

Collins ought to give some answers about Ingenious Products and the Balance Buddy while on the campaign trail throughout NY-27. If Collins will treat prominent Buffalo families – who invested in an invention in good faith – with dismissiveness and intimidation, how is he going to represent constituents and average people?

Incidentally, the Collins campaign has been busy trying to please various subsets of the NY-27 population (farmers, small businessmen), but nary a word about service and the reasons why he wants to representan economically diverse population in a multigenerationally depressed area. 

Chris Collins: Excellence

1. Good luck finding Collins’ campaign website. Searches on Google for “Collins for Congress“, “Collins for Congress 2012“, or “Chris Collins for Congress” reveal no relevant hits on the first page of results. 

2. Collins released a “Small Business Bill of Rights”, a set of talking points masquerading as policy proposals, wrapped up in a faux parchment wrapper.  He released it on Wednesday, and a glaring error – uncaught through Eagle eyes or Six Sigma process review – remains evident there today. 

Click to Enlarge

3. David Bellavia, who is running in a Republican primary against Collins, called this out as blatant plagiarism.  He noted that former NY-26 Congressman Chris Lee was a co-sponsor of a “Small Business Bill of Rights” in 2010, which also included provisions for tax and regulatory relief, limiting union influence, health care costs, and intellectual property protection.  Lee also released a “Manufacturing for Tomorrow” plan with the aim of strengthening manufacturing in the Buffalo area. It also called for tax relief, tort reform, and IP protections. Collins’ calls for China to not be an authoritarian pseudo-Maoist brute crony capitalist bad actor in international trade is cribbed – at least in part – from former Congressman Tom Reynolds, who co-sponsored a bill to address China’s currency manipulation. As Bellavia points out, it’s ironic to call for IP protections while cribbing others’ work without attribution, and the rest of the “Bill of Rights” is just a generic Republican recitation of typical platform positions, with a smidge of Obamaphobia mixed in. 

4. Collins’ media geniuses at Greener and Hook posted this to Twitter yesterday: 

5. Collins’ people don’t know how to spell. Not only is there the error on the Bill of Rights, which has been out since Wednesday, but even silly “forget the market – the government must manipulate gas prices” pieces have glaring errors. Of course, that’s before you get to the fact that Collins (a) doesn’t rebut the fact that domestic oil production is at an all-time high; (b) merely calls for more drilling on federal lands; (c) demands that an oil pipeline be built; (d) and otherwise completely ignores the fact that the world has been jerking from oil crisis to oil crisis since 1973, with no end in sight, and that it might be time to switch to renewable sources of energy, or more efficient engines such as biodiesel. It couldn’t be a stupider piece of writing, directed at a fundamentally ignorant audience. He thinks you’re just stupid. Must be why he won’t go meet with or listen to your genuine concerns as a middle-class suburban or rural New Yorker, and instead just regurgitates what he reads in the memos he gets from his handlers and pollsters.

6. Collins refuses to debate Bellavia; refuses to negotiate for any debates. 

7. Collins refuses to release his tax information. He figures he can wait it out until after the primary, during which he can simply out-spend Bellavia on direct mail and TV ads, and deal with it in the Fall. The problem is that, like Mitt Romney, it’s quite likely that there’s some juicy stuff in Collins’ returns that he doesn’t want to reveal. Does he pay less than 20% on his multi-million dollar income? Has he taken advantage of federal amnesty provisions for offshore tax avoidance accounts? No one knows. Bellavia made his returns available several weeks ago, but Collins directly refuses to do the same. I thought wealth wasn’t something to be ashamed of?  

Collins appeared before a Niagara County audience, and directly told them that he’ll never reveal his tax returns because, “his business partners’ income would be exposed and his competitors would pounce on the information to somehow kill jobs in western New York.” This ignores the fact that any such confidential material not relevant to the tax Collins pays is easily redacted, but Collins claimed that, for tax year 2011, he paid 44% of his income in taxes, including “my state income tax, my property tax and my federal tax last year.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsLqlMd3CGQ]

 So, math geniuses, how much is that? Collins’ property and school taxes are close to a whopping $24,000 per year. What is he hiding or ashamed of? 

8.  Collins got caught backtracking and blaming aides (never his fault) for his membership in a Bloomberg-sponsored anti-illegal-gun group. Being for gun control is acceptable for New York City Republicans, but not for Republicans here in WNY. 

On the bright side, so far, Collins has refrained from making any sexist or vaguely anti-Semitic remarks about donors or other political figures, so he’s got that going for him, which is nice. 

 

Electoral Fusion And Terribleness

If you ever wanted to know how political staffers get their jobs, it’s by doing a lot of boring, annoying, time-consuming grunt work that no one else wants to do. They have to be loyal and trustworthy, and they have to be able to accomplish with a straight face the tasks required of their job. 

That’s not rocket science, that’s not automatically “bad”, it’s how it’s been done since time immemorial, everywhere, and isn’t going to change anytime soon. 

But New York State is unique the way in which it permits its politics to be manipulated, and it’s unique in how corrupt and pervasive it’s become. We are one of a very small handful of states that permit electoral fusion, which enables minor parties to endorse candidates who aren’t party members. We have a “Conservative Party” that has a conservative platform to which it adheres when convenient, and we have the Tom Golisano-founded “Independence Party”, which is never independent and exists largely to confuse people who want to register as small-i independents, and don’t realize that New York calls them “unenrolled”.  We also have the Working Families Party, which is very tight with both public and private sector unions, and is candid about its activist role. Only the Green Party eschews the fusion game. 

I have written about fusion for many years, and advocated for its abolition. It most recently came up during the State Senate’s debate of the same sex marriage law, when Conservative Party “leaders” were openly threatening Senator Mark Grisanti not to vote in favor of it. It’s notable that this horrible “party” is now endorsing anti-same-sex-marriage, nominal Democrat and former County Legislator Chuck Swanick to run against Grisanti. 

After the County budget crisis of the last decade, I thought it’d be impossible for Swanick to ever dare to re-gain elected office again. Or any job that didn’t end with the suffix “the clown”. At the time, Swanick had switched to the Republican Party in order to be elected legislature chairman, and even after that, he was at the forefront of a fiscal disaster, and had a hand in assisting Butch Holt to give a county contract to his brother’s Texas-based basketball camp, and a $3 million no-bid contract to a glorified answering service called “community corrections” – a huge attempted scam.

The Republican primary race in the newly constructed NY-27 district has revealed some dramatic cleaves in the WNY Republican firmament.  You have rich, country-club Republican against middle-class, war vet Republican. You have suburban vs. rural. You have conservative vs. crony capitalism. Above all, you have the story of David Bellavia and the Erie County GOP. In 2008, Bellavia agreed to step aside in favor of Chris Lee in the NY-26 race in a deal struck with current ECGOP chairman Nick Langworthy.  The deal was, Bellavia lets Lee have the seat, and when Lee vacates the seat, it would be Bellavia’s turn.

But it didn’t turn out that way, and Bellavia was not just snubbed in 2010 when Lee resigned in a Craigslist sex scandal – he was cajoled and threatened. In early 2011, Bellavia was cornered in a back room of an Elmwood Avenue cafe by Chris Collins, Carl Paladino, and Paladino’s lieutenant, Rus Thompson.  The trio played good cop/bad cop, attempting to clear the way for Collins’ neighbor, Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, to get the NY-26 nod. They alternately threatened to reveal embarrassing information about Bellavia’s finances, then offering him an endorsement for an Assembly seat of his own.  Corwin went on to lose dramatically to Kathy Hochul in what turned out to be almost a frame-by-frame foreshadowing of the November 2011 County Executive race. 

To this day, the Erie County Republican Committee has refused to endorse Bellavia for any office, and has reneged completely on the deal it made to clear Chris Lee’s way to Washington. 

With redistricting, the lines have changed and Corwin isn’t trying again. Instead, in keeping with the apparent ECGOP policy that a chief qualification for Congress is that you reside on Cobblestone Drive in Clarence, the recently defeated hobbyist-politician Chris Collins has stepped out to yet again deny Bellavia a shot at a congressional race. Bellavia, however, is not bowing out. He has garnered the support of the xenophobic-but-wealthy Jack Davis, and the endorsement of the Republican committees of every one of the so-called “GLOW” (Genesee, Livingston, Orleans, Wyoming) counties. Bellavia’s campaign has been assisted by former Paladino campaign manager Michael Caputo, and while his fundraising gap vs. Collins is wide, so is the enthusiasm gap – Collins hasn’t made many friends, and is finding that he’s a tough sell outside of Erie and Niagara Counties, within the Buffalo media market that treated him with kid gloves. 

There is some overlap between NY-27 and the State Senate district occupied by Michael Ranzenhofer. Although Ranzenhofer claims to be neutral in the Collins – Bellavia battle, he is a product of the Erie County Republican machine, and close friends with Collins ally and Washington strategist Michael Hook. A few weeks ago, one of Ranzenhofer’s Wyoming County-based staffers, Michelle McCullough, was named to Bellavia’s campaign’s steering committee. After all, she is a Wyoming County committeewoman and at worst, she was going along with her committee’s endorsement. She was quickly fired. The Batavian has a story that confirms the political rationale and scheming that led to McCullough’s termination. Text messages confirm that Erie County GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy criticized McCullough for her endorsement of Bellavia, and one of her colleagues warned her that “Hook called Ranz” just days before her termination. 

Ranzenhofer continues to insist that he is neutral in the NY-27 primary race. 

Yet that doesn’t explain another point that the Batavian revealed. In New York, one of the easiest ways you can circulate nominating petitions for a political party with which you’re not registered is to become a Notary Public. The Batavian story reveals that at least six of Ranzenhofer’s staffers are licensed notaries, and not coincidentally went out and collected petition signatures for Chris Collins for the Conservative Party line; everybody including Michelle McCullough, the staffer fired for her support of David Bellavia. All of the signatures were collected in eastern Erie County, following an instruction to ignore GLOW counties. 

In addition to the apparent lack of supposed neutrality in the Ranzenhofer office regarding the NY-27 race, sources confirm that Erie County Republican elections commissioner Ralph Mohr delivered the Conservative Party petitions to the Ranzenhofer staffers. They didn’t collect signatures on state time, but were asked to use their own “comp” time to do so – time that was theirs and that they had earned as time off. 

It shows that the Erie County Republican Committee is not just not neutral in this race, but that it is actively assisting Chris Collins’ effort, and working in concert – in effect controlling – the concomitant effort to get Collins on the Conservative Party ballot. 

This is nothing new, and it’s not unique to the Republican or Conservative Parties. The Erie County Independence Party has lost its right and ability to endorse candidates to the state party apparatus. This is because ECDC Chairman Len Lenihan had in 2006 attempted an outright takeover of the IP by urging Democrats to become active IP members. This resulted in the local committee endorsing one candidate, and the state committee endorsing another – a conflict that was resolved in the state’s favor through recent litigation. State committee chair Frank MacKay has taken to endorsing Republicans in recent local races

You’ll note that not one piece of information written above has anything whatsoever to do with good policy, platform positions, or anything else commonly associated with what government and politics are supposed to be about.  This is all about influence and power, and in the case of the minor fusion parties, their sole mission in life is to offer and execute Wilson Pakulas in exchange for influence, power, and – above all – jobs

One of the oldest and most-repeated excuses for why we allow fusion voting in New York has to do with the mythological straight-line voter. Presumably, such a voter who is, e.g., a registered and loyal Democrat would never, ever color in a Republican ballot oval, even if the choice was for an objectively superior candidate. (Think Antoine Thompson vs. Mark Grisanti). So, the minor party lines give that type of voter the cover to vote for the right person and not fill in the “R” line. 

I’m sure these people exist, but I’m not convinced that the existence of the “C” and “I” or “WFP” lines somehow magically give them the moral cover to do something they’d otherwise never do. I’d love to see some polling on that; I think it’s utter speculation and, if it exists, affects a very small number of voters. 

It wasn’t too long ago that the Erie County Independence Party was run by a Springville-based barber who was quite brazenly transactional. The current Erie County Conservative Party leader is well-regarded in political circles, and enjoys wide, multi-partisan friendship and support due to his friendly weekend kaffeeklatsches at Daisie’s in  Lackawanna. But during at least one local supervisor’s race last year, it was revealed that the Conservative Party endorsement could be inextricably linked with Mr. Lorigo’s own business interests, as it was alleged that he had withheld an endorsement on pretextual moral grounds, but in reality because the town board had voted against a zoning change that would have directly benefited Lorigo’s business interests, and he was punishing the sitting supervisor for not asserting more influence over the process. 

State Conservative Party chair Mike Long and Ralph Lorigo are persuasive when they threaten Mark Grisanti, who defeated Antoine Thompson by only about 500 votes, and 4,300 of his votes came on the Conservative line. It comes down not to doing the right thing, but counting votes.  But really,  the Conservative Party has no business wielding the political power it does. In 2010, about 4.6 million New Yorkers voted – only about 232,000 of them on the Conservative line; that’s 5% of people who cast ballots. The enrollment in Erie County breaks down this way: Democrats: 286,112; Republicans: 153,179; Conservative Party; 11,811; Independence Party: 24,962; Working Families Party: 2,665; Green Party: 1,225; Libertarian Party: 242; unenrolled: 90,908.  So, we have 571,104 registered Erie County voters, only 2% of whom are members of the Conservative Party, and only 4% of whom are registered as “Independent”. Yet these two little nothing parties with a negligible number of members have practical control over who gets elected.

The minor parties’ political influence exponentially outweighs their membership or ballot results. I’m tired of progress and legislation being held up by little men with little minds whose political parties are only mildly more legitimate and popular than the “Rent is Too Damn High” Party. Why was Tony Orsini taken seriously as a political player? Who is Ralph Lorigo to demand fealty from candidates? How did a panoply of Independence Party hacks get jobs at the Erie County Legislature in 2010? Are Lorigo’s decisions on endorsements based on Conservative Party principles, or on unprincipled self-interest?

To put it bluntly, electoral fusion is one of the chief reasons why we in western New York can’t have nice things. It ensures that our politics are uniquely and overwhelmingly transactional, to the benefit of the connected and the detriment of the average citizen. Somewhat ironically, fusion is the reason why fusion won’t be abolished anytime soon. Too many pols have too intense a reliance on a process that theoretically relies on inflexible low-information voters to succeed. The elected who campaigns too strenuously to unsuccessfully end fusion will find himself returned to the dreaded private sector, with its crappy health insurance and absence of fat, tax-free pensions. 

End electoral fusion, and New York will have enacted a very significant reform that will, in turn, help to hasten other policies and reforms that will help move the state forward. Next time you ask why any local pol chooses not to show leadership on some matter of controversy, refer back to transactional politics and fusion. 

Nothing Comes Between Chris and his Calvins

On Saturday, the Buffalo News’ lighthearted “Off Main Street” column included an effort by multi-millionaire crony capitalist Congressional candidate Chris Collins to re-brand himself as “everyman”. 

Chris Collins, the former Erie County executive now running for Congress, decided he needed a couple of pairs of jeans to wear on the campaign trail in the district’s rural parts.

The wealthy businessman can afford to buy designer jeans at any high-end clothing store.

So where did he get them? BJ’s Wholesale Club.

“For me, BJ’s is the place to go,” Collins told us. He said he’s been buying his casual clothes there for years.

Collins owned only one pair of jeans, so he picked up two pairs of Calvin Klein jeans for $24.99 each.

We heard about this from Linda Soltis, who knows Collins and his wife, Mary, and thought the world should know about Collins’ frugal habits.

What this reveals is actually quite amusing. 

Firstly, it reveals that Chris Collins didn’t own a pair of jeans. He “decided he needed a couple of pairs” to wear while campaigning in the rural counties of NY-27. 

So, secondly, it reveals that Chris Collins thinks he needs to wear a costume in order to better mix and mingle with rural voters. 

Thirdly, even when buying his costume jeans to ingratiate himself with farmers, Collins doesn’t buy Lees or Wranglers or Levis. He buys Calvin Kleins

This man is the very embodiment of self-parody. 

Oh, My God

Buffalo City Hall

Photo by Flickr user W Alex Fisher

Consider this scenario: 

Antoine Thompson returns to Albany, replacing Tim Kennedy. 

Byron Brown goes to Washington, replacing Brian Higgins. 

Tim Kennedy moves into the 2nd floor of City Hall, replacing Byron Brown. 

All of these rumors are floating around town, gaining steam. So my question is, are we living a Stephen King novel? 

Six Sigma Collins on the Military

Chris Collins, who is casually running to represent the newly-constructed 27th Congressional District in Congress, hasn’t learned his lesson. He is still trying clumsily to foist his technocratic Six Sigma nonsense onto anything and everything. 

Astonishingly, on Saturday morning Collins told the monthly Erie County Republican Roundtable that he would close the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station and the Batavia VA Medical Center if they were not “efficient”. This calls into question what Collins considers to be efficient – the quality of care at the VA, or the military services provided by the air base versus their cost. 

Of course, things like the VA and the air base are examples of Keynesian economic stimuli, and their closure would affect the economy-at-large. But Republicans seldom acknowledge their inconsistencies on this point. 

But the measure of whether we need a VA center in Batavia shouldn’t be cold, bean-counting “efficiency”, but whether it serves a public need. Government services don’t exist to make money, and we should hardly take away critical health services from GLOW-area veterans. Likewise, the fate of the air base should be dependent not on economics, but on military need. 

In a press release, Bellavia said, 

“While efficiency is quite important, effectiveness is by far the paramount goal of our national defense,” Bellavia said. “Mr. Collins clearly does not understand this and cannot possibly represent a Congressional district which includes one of the most important United States Air Force bases in the world.”

“Likewise, the quality of service Veterans Administration hospitals provide for our wounded warriors and retired military is the most important metric in the system,” Bellavia said. “Thousands of retired military and many wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines reside in the 27th Congressional District. How would they get the medical care our nation pledged to them if Mr. Collins closes the Batavia VA hospital?”

“What will Mr. Collins do – wrap the air base and hospital in his vaunted Six Sigma values and close them if they don’t pass muster?” Bellavia asked. “Will he shutter Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station if the C-130’s don’t burn bio-fuel? Will the VA hospital have to meet the infamous standard of care of private HMO’s? While I agree we must always strive for cost efficient government operations, Mr. Collins’ slavish devotion to efficiency-above-all will surely destroy our military and veterans services.”

Chris Collins thinks that government serves the taxpayer – it was his mantra throughout his single term as County Executive. But that’s only partly true – while government owes a fiduciary duty to the taxpayer to not be wasteful, its real service is to those who are in need of services. We get worked up over a guy who allegedly defrauded $4,000 – but that’s less than a drop in a massive bucket of regional economic failure. Chris Collins’ IDA doled out millions in tax breaks, loans, and incentives to the connected – that we don’t examine or criticize, because we don’t understand it or bother to wrap our heads around the dollar figures or long-term success or failure of the process. 

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