Collins has answers, wants solutions

"Grow as a community, or we die."

These were the few, simple, powerful words offered by Erie County Executive Christopher Collins Thursday when answering the question, "What will Western New York look like in 2012?"

Collins answered the question while addressing a packed room at the Creekside Banquet Facility in Cheektowaga for the Niagara Frontier Industry Education Council's spring forum breakfast. After sharing his vision, a panel of business leaders offered their personal experience and comments.

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The community, Collins said, has gotten so desperate that a rate of decline at a rate slower than the previous year is viewed as success.

"That's part of the reason to let infrastructure go into decay," he said, forecasting reform and efficiency to be hallmarks of county government by 2012, with an eye toward better serving taxpayers.

Of the combining of Erie County Medical Center and Kaleida Health, he said: "Hopefully we now can call it a complete asset merger. By 2012, we'll have a combined health care/hospital system in Western New York that people will point to as a best practice."

He also talked about the region not getting much help from the state.

"How bad is Albany treating us?" he asked, then referencing the $350 million in Governor David Paterson's budget for education. "Erie Community College is one of only seven community colleges in the state not getting one dollar (from it). That's a failure of leadership where we don't speak as one voice (as a community). In four years, we'll be speaking with one voice.

"We're going to demand more of our elected officials in Albany."

Collins also touched on brownfield development, the economy, jobs, and negotiating new contracts for county employees, of which he said he's not optimistic.

"The average county worker gets 16 weeks vacation and the best health care, funded for life," he said. "I won't sign a new contract that doesn't serve the taxpayers."

Elements of the current deal, which includes employees retiring at age 55, and not paying for any portion of their health coverage, he said, will need to change.

"I hope 2012 brings us a regional high school," said New York State Regents Chancellor Robert Bennett, joined on the dais by Orchard Park Town Supervisor Mary Travers Murphy, Ellicott Development Co. President Carl Paladino and Kaleida Health President and CEO James Kaskie.

Added Bennett: "Twenty-nine school districts in Erie County is way too inefficient."

"Chris Collins knows what he can do, and he knows his limitations," said Paladino. "What an inspiration to have a man (leading the county) who knows what he's talking about."

Paladino also built upon Collins' comment to demand more from elected officials in Albany.

"Every November, we keep electing and sending the same dumbbells to Albany, " he said. "And they're not bringing home the bacon to Western New York."