Paladino Speaks Out on Bass Pro

To: Buffalo Media

From: Carl Paladino

Subject: The Bass Pro Debacle

After decades of frustration, our waterfront was finally set to come to life. Instead, once again, Buffalo's obstructionists piped up at the last minute and buried Canal Place.

Nine years ago, Bob and Mindy Rich encouraged Johnny Morris and Bass Pro to come to Buffalo. Five years ago, the successful national retailer gave up. Morris told Mindy that Buffalo's negotiators were incompetent and had no idea how to put a deal together.

Always determined, Mindy then asked Larry Quinn, an apolitical doer, to apply his laser beam focus and make the deal work. Larry spent four years putting the Bass Pro project back together. Then Buffalo's obstructionists killed it.

According to Buffalo News columnist Donn Esmond, "at least we are done getting jerked around...by Bass Pro honcho, Johnny Morris." Esmond, Mark Goldman, Bruce and Scott Fisher, Tim Theilman, Michael LoCurto and their other self-absorbed obstructionist friends - especially Rep. Brian Higgins - took control of and destroyed a project that, for Buffalonians, would have been a dream finally come true.

The misery Johnny Morris and Bass Pro have had to go through throughout the process was paralyzing.

First was the Project Labor Agreement (PLA), an illegal (agree or we picket the job) intrusion by trade union leaders into what elsewhere would be an open shop project. A PLA requires that all contractors be union, allowing them and their crony union leaders to increase project costs 35 percent.

Initially, the intent was to put Bass Pro in the Aud, then at the water edge, and finally on the north end of the Aud site. Tim Thielman and his merry band of preservationists complained about every site and caused multiple redesigns.

Then enter Mark Goldman and the Fishers. Bruce Fisher, who nearly destroyed Erie County as the father of the red and green budgets, now has a do-nothing job at Buffalo State College sucking more of our tax dollars into his Machiavellian world. His brother Scott is no slouch: he grabbed $10 Million from the city to build the Ani DiFranco "Babeville" cultural center, which is no more than a private banquet hall built with City funds.

Bass Pro would bring Buffalo $600,000 in annual rent and $3 million in additional annual sales tax revenues. Still, the omniscient Mark Goldman objects to using tax incremental financing to offset the onerous cost burdens of building anything in over-regulated and over-taxed New York State.

The three sued to stop the project. Let's see: Bruce Fisher promoted Bass Pro when he was at the county. Scott Fisher took millions from the City. Goldman is little more than a whiner. We are expected to trust these guys?

Finally came the Community Benefit Agreement. LoCurto and Higgins - our liberal, progressive, arrogant, and elitist congressman - want prospective tenants of Canal Place to pay their employees $3.00 more per hour as a so-called "living wage." Why would a business agree to be uncompetitive? Does competitor Gander Mountain pay $3.00 more hourly? I don't think so.

And then Higgins, who has never developed anything, with no consultation and for no logical reason other than political opportunity, blamed Bass Pro for time delays and gave them an ultimatum?

Bass Pro is building in Illinois and in Tennessee where they don't have PLAs, prevailing wages, Wick's Law, Community Benefit Agreements, or obstructionists. Earning profits is acceptable there. Our community has failed on the watch of the obstructionists, yet we continue to listen to them as though they preach gospel. It simply makes no sense.

The United States is in a terrible recession; Buffalo is far worse. Retail sales are down and retailers nationwide have shelved store expansion plans. There are no retailers knocking on the door to come to the second poorest city in America for all the reasons Bass Pro encountered.

The Richs and Larry Quinn have put their hearts and souls into winning Bass Pro, the perfect anchor for a mega project that will include multiple other retailers, a hotel and residential and office development. They know of a lot more potential than can be released to the public. Other food and soft goods merchants will not come to the waterfront without a destination anchor. Bass Pro can attract three million people a year and that's exciting to small businesses.

But why listen to the development people who have been doing this all their lives? The obstructionists, who are experts in everything, live in a fantasy world of ever changing planning. The images they conjure last for a while, some longer than others, and then they disappear.

Enough is enough. Johnny Morris deserves an apology from Higgins and the business community must organize and bring Bass Pro back to the table.