Niagara presses for aid to boost power plant

County Legislature Minority Leader Dennis F. Virtuoso, D-Niagara Falls, has placed a resolution espousing that view on the agenda.

His measure, which is expected to receive wide support, calls on Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, a Buffalo-based regional organization that promotes new businesses, "to assist Niagara County and Choose Niagara Now in using all their expertise to bring this clean coal plant and all of its jobs to Niagara County."

AES Corp. is bidding in a statewide competition to win the $1 billion plant for its property in Somerset. Choose Niagara Now, a special lobbying group boosting AES' bid, is headed by State Sen. George D. Maziarz, R-Newfane.

AES' leading competitor in the contest appears to be NRG Energy, which wants the clean coal plant for its Huntley Station in the Town of Tonawanda. The State Power Authority is to select the site this month.

"Certainly, we've got to reach out and do whatever we can to secure that power plant," said County Legislature Chairman William L. Ross, C-Wheatfield.

This summer, in a decision dogged by controversy, the Legislature voted to spend $50,000 to obtain a seat for a year on the board of directors of Buffalo Niagara Enterprise. Opponents said the group is too Erie County-centered and wouldn't do much for Niagara County.

Virtuoso said the time has come for the organization to show its interest in Niagara County by helping the AES bid.

"If they don't do this for us, I'm going to ask for a refund of our $50,000," Virtuoso said. "This would be the biggest private investment ever in Niagara County. They should be stumbling over themselves to help us."

Therese Hickok, spokeswoman for Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, said last week she hadn't seen Virtuoso's resolution and declined to comment.

In a letter Nov. 16 to Thomas Kucharski, the organization's president, County Economic Development Commissioner Samuel M. Ferraro urged an endorsement of the AES bid.

In his own letter the next day, Kucharski said, "We do not take a position on competing sites within our region."

The Buffalo Niagara Partnership, the equivalent of a Chamber of Commerce for Erie County, was not so reticent. On Nov. 14, it publicly endorsed NRG's bid for the Town of Tonawanda site.

Recently, Kevin R. Pierce, AES Somerset president, wrote to the Partnership, asking it to send Gov. George E. Pataki a letter supporting his company's bid. Pierce said he has been told no such letter will be forthcoming.

"I was disappointed they came out (for NRG). I thought they should have been neutral," Pierce said.

The two Buffalo Niagara region groups have many board members in common, but Kucharski's Nov. 17 letter to Ferraro took pains to emphasize they are not the same. "BNE sells the product (Western New York), and the Partnership works to improve the product," Kucharski wrote.

His letter also said some business prospects, which it considers clients, haven't zeroed in on a particular site in the region.

"Our charge is to represent our client's best interest at all times, without bias to any one select location," Kucharski wrote.