Buffalo Niagara Partnership President and CEO Andrew Rudnick writes in a letter published by the Buffalo News that Delaware North Companies should run the Aqueduct horse track in Queens. Delaware North has a well-known interest in these kinds of operations.

The note stresses that the team (Aqueduct Gaming) involved in the deal are New York companies: Saratoga Gaming and Raceway, McKissack & McKissack (whose Web site says the company was founded in 1990 in Washington, DC before expanding into the Chicago market and now has offices in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta and Orlando), Shawmut (with offices in Boston, New York, Providence, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and New Haven), and Thalden Emery (with offices in Las Vegas, Phoenix, St. Louis, and Tulsa).

Finally, the letter states that the selection of Aqueduct Gaming would mean 100 new jobs in Buffalo. Says this is a “test of whether New York’s elected ‘leaders’ will support the state’s businesses.”

I put down the paper and called Andrew Rudnick to request a list of these local jobs. I was forwarded to the voice mail of Emily Alexandria Burns, Communications Manager for the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. I left a message on her office phone and her cell phone. I put in a follow-up call and was directed to Nadine Clancy, handling Business Intelligence at the Partnership. Nadine said she’d try to find someone who could answer my question.

It seemed like a simple question, seeing as the letter published today, but I guess not. I just put in another call, and was told that Emily was on a conference call and couldn’t talk to me. However, the receptionist sent her an email asking her to call me. She said Emily would be the one for me to talk to, since she’s the Communications Manager.

As soon as someone gets back to me with a list of the 100 new jobs that are hanging in the balance, I will publish it here.

From the “Snappy Answers to Stupid Claims” department…

On page A3 of today’s Buffalo News, you can read the full-color, full-page open letter to the community from The Buffalo Niagara Partnership Executive Committee, also known as “the usual suspects.”

Question: What kind of Chamber of Commerce is so jittery about its public image that it feels the need to buy such expensive ad space in an attempt to convince the community it allegedly serves that things are on the right track?

Here are the things the BNP is taking credit for:

UB 2020 established as the regional priority for Albany action

Unfortunately, it’s a plan rooted in the dream that public money should be spent with no oversight. This is a plan? Why not just propose robbing Fort Knox? Both plots are illegal. Only difference is when the UB plan fails, the perpetrators won’t go to jail, they’ll just blame “politics as usual” for foiling their dubious scheme.

Modernization of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport and bringing low-cost carriers to our region

Just how much more modernization needs to be done at the airport? Transporter machines? This place has been modernized so many times you’d think we’d be zipping around it like the Jetsons wearing jet packs.

Construction of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and creation of nearly 5,000 jobs in the life sciences

Sure. How are things progressing with the dissolution of ECMC as a public benefit corporation? Don’t mind me, just a taxpayer, just asking.

Federal Courthouse going up on Delaware Avenue

Really? Taking credit for this? I had no idea a group of local businessmen exerted such influence on the Federal Government. Should be a busy place.

Development of more than 1,000 lofts, apartments and condos in downtown Buffalo—a place very few people lived in just a decade ago

Over the past 16 years, Andrew Rudnick has made like $6 million dollars in salary as head of BNP. Buffalo is the third poorest city in the nation, and lots of people live downtown. They just don’t have much food, and little shelter.

Demolition of the Aud and significant work on the outer and inner harbors

Excellent. Destroy a monument to American War Veterans in the hope of luring a fishing store. Better throw a few more buckets of tax breaks into the water. Drives ‘em into a feeding frenzy.

Retention of the Niagara Air Reserve Station

“Retention” sounds so much better than “reduction.”

Creation of Charter Schools throughout the region

Why shouldn’t we be discovering more ways to siphon public education funding into private enterprises? Think about the kids.

Downsizing of the Buffalo Common Council
The benefits of this accomplishment are all around us, for everyone to see.

Introduction of an affordable Enhanced Drivers License as an alternative to passports at the border

I don’t know whether I should feel safer or more of a sucker. Maybe I should buy a Nexus card for good measure.

Business Backs the Bills effort, which kept the team here

Which, for nine days every fall, guarantees a surge in alcohol related arrests for local law enforcement.

“Some of our success, however, is largely invisible,” the ad crows. Yeah, we know all about it. Invisible like the Emperor’s New Clothes.

The Buffalo Ruse’s Ronn Chesmonde has dug up compromising photos of Buffalo Niagara Partnership president and CEO Andrew Rudnick:

A potentially embarrassing photograph of Buffalo-Niagara Partnership Chairman Andrew Rudnick has been printed in the Buffalo gossip and mercenary magazine “Whoops!”

The photo, deemed “original and unaltered” by a forensic photojournalist retained by The Buffalo Ruse,  appears to show the powerful Buffalo Niagara entrepreneurial leader in a compromising position with the Monroe County Business Region on the premises of a bar located in Rochester.

In the picture, Rudnick is shown trying to help an apparently tipsy and disheveled-appearing Monroe Region into the back seat of his tan Chevrolet Cracker.

Adding to the potential embarrassment and controversy surrounding the publication of the picture is the fact that Rudnick does not appear to be wearing his wedding ring in the photo.

Read the rest here.

Artvoice has obtained this email sent today from Buffalo Niagara Partnership President & CEO Andrew Rudnick, imploring the receiver to forward it to “colleagues, friends and family, especially those who are registered voters in the city of Buffalo – and ask them to forward it along to others.”

Even though it didn’t land in my email directly, we thought it would be a nice gesture to shine a light on it for all our readers.

This intimate appeal is in addition to the over $30,000 in assistance the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and/or their offshoot Buffalo Students First (which has yet to file a DBA, as we learned in court today) has spent promoting the incumbent school board candidates in tomorrow’s election. The incumbents did not authorize the support from Buffalo Students First, and the assistance they provided was over the $25 limit prescribed by law—by at least $30,000 as of April 30.

Tomorrow, May 5, elections for the Buffalo Public School Board will be held.

Please forward this email to colleagues, friends and family, especially those who are registered voters in the city of Buffalo – and ask them to forward it along to others. Buffalo School Board elections (given they are months from “general election day”) have dismal turnout, and races often have been decided by a few hundred votes. Thus, each vote can make a big difference.

The Partnership is supporting at-large candidates Dr. Catherine Collins, Florence Johnson and Christopher Jacobs. We believe these candidates are the best qualified to manage the schools’ $600+ million budget, will stand up in favor of reform in the system and are not beholden to the efforts of Buffalo Teacher Federation President Philip Rumore — which for too long have obstructed the change that is in the best interest of Buffalo’s school children.

Why should you care? Even if you don’t have children in the Buffalo Public Schools?

1). Buffalo is our region’s core  — and the success or failure of the Buffalo Public Schools is directly linked to how the city fares. Currently:

Buffalo is the nation’s third-poorest city, according to the U.S. Census.
The Buffalo metro area has the highest black male jobless rate (51.4 percent) among American’s 35 large cities, according to figures cited by Professor Marc V. Levine of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Nearly two-thirds of adults in Buffalo function at the two lowest levels of literacy, meaning they can’t function at the minimum level of literacy employers in our region require for any job higher than entry level.
Thirty-five percent of Buffalo Public School children don’t graduate high school.
2). At a time when many students are not graduating from high school prepared for postsecondary education and work, 60 percent of the new jobs being created require advanced training or a college education. If our region’s workforce can’t meet employer needs, we will lose existing companies, and will not be able to recruit new businesses to invest in our region.

3). The availability of high-quality human talent is a top issue facing businesses today. Nationwide, business leaders increasingly place improving public education at the top of their list of priorities because they believe the education system in the United States fails to produce graduates prepared to compete both locally and in a global economy.

Buffalo’s young people deserve a better future, and our employers need them to graduate from public school prepared to contribute to the local workforce – in order ensure their own businesses have future viability in our community. Public education in the city is one place to start, and the Buffalo Public School Board elections will play no minor part.

Please vote tomorrow for Dr. Catherine Collins, Florence Johnson and Christopher Jacobs. Thanks – a lot of our future depends on the outcome.
Andrew J. Rudnick
President & CEO
P:  (716) 852-7100
F:  (716) 852-1756

Jody Vohwinkel, Executive Assistant to the President & CEO
jvohwinkel@thepartnership.org

The Partnership extends its thanks to the member businesses in its Leadership Circle.
These companies represent the Partnership’s most significant financial supporters.

WIVB Channel 4 reporter Rich Newberg just reported on today’s lawsuit during the 5pm broadcast. Tune in WIVB at 6pm tonight for more details.

Buffalo school board elections are tomorrow, May 5. Don’t forget to vote.