Legislature pushing for Power Authority headquarters to move to Niagara

by Terry Duffy
Niagara Wheatfield Tribune, June 21, 2007

Efforts to strengthen the Niagara Frontier economic picture took a new turn in recent days with the Tuesday announcement that the Niagara County Legislature is now preparing to submit a formal request to state officials in Albany, including Gov. Eliot Spitzer, to relocate the headquarters of the New York Power Authority from White Plains to Niagara County.

Legislature Clerk James B. Sobczyk reported the measure passed unanimously at Tuesday’s session in Lockport. It now goes to state officials, including Gov. Spitzer, Assembly and Senate majority leaders, and to Roger Kelly, new president and CEO of the Power Authority, for their responses.

County Legislator John Ceretto, 12th District, Lewiston, who sponsored the measure, said that a resolution in support of a Power Authority relocation to Niagara County makes a lot of sense. “Gov. Spitzer and elected leaders are looking at Western New York in a good way,” says Ceretto, noting recent actions to remove the Buffalo area tolls on the I-190 and the state’s interest in sparking an economic resurgence in the area.

He cited such factors as the strategic location of the Niagara Power Project in Lewiston – the largest power generator of any NYPA facility; current endeavors by the Spitzer administration and the state Senate to revitalize the area, including locating the upstate headquarters of the Empire State Development Corporation in Buffalo, and the recent naming of Kelley, an Amherst resident, as president and CEO of the Power Authority. “It’s the perfect opportunity to bring the Power Authority here,” he says.

Pointing to the economic impact of relocating Power Authority headquarter operations, their employees and families to the area, Ceretto said that over the years the Niagara Frontier has lost significant corporate clout, and that remaining headquartered corporate entities – citing Modern Corporations in Lewiston as an example – bring many pluses, in the form of increased spending power and enhanced economic activity to the region. “The area has lost a number of corporate leaders,” says Ceretto. “Relocating the Power Authority will also bring increased spending power to the area.

“People need to jump on and support this,” Ceretto says. “This is big.”