When Erie County Executive Chris Collins called Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver an anti-Christ last Saturday night at a Republican dinner, it wasn’t the first time he’d pulled the line out of his bag.

He recently made the exact same comparison to a group of Buffalo State political science students, who were visiting the Rath Building. Two Buffalo State faculty member were present.

Yesterday I asked Grant Loomis, the county executive’s director of communications, if Collins had ever made a similar reference to Silver before. He assured me that Collins had had not, that the remark was “unscripted” and “off the cuff.”

He then paused a moment and backed off a little, adding, “…to the best of my knowledge.”

I told Loomis about the Buffalo State students, and the two members of the faculty, and Loomis said, “Oh.”

He told me he’d look into it and get back to me. He did not, until this morning, when I wrote to him that I would take his failure to reply as a refusal to comment. He replied to that email immediately: “The CE has said everything there is to say in the statement,” referring to the apology Collins issued on Monday:

“Saturday night, I made a poor joke regarding the Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver.  I want to extend my sincerest apologies to him for my comments.  I have placed a call to the Speaker’s office to offer my apologies directly.

While we may disagree strongly on policy matters, my statement had no place in our political discourse and I am truly sorry to both the Speaker and to anyone else who I may have offended.”

I’m not going to take issue with the apology—it’s too easy to undermine the sincerity of a public apology, and it’s not fair: I can’t see into the heart of Chris Collins.

But it’s clear to me that his remark comparing an orthodox Jew to Hitler and the anti-Christ was not “off the cuff” or “unscripted”; it was not a momentary lapse in judgment. The joke is part of Collins’s repertoire. He has used it more than once, who knows how many times. Perhaps he wasn’t even aware that it was offensive until the uncomfortable silence he met at the Adam’s Mark on Saturday night. Maybe he didn’t know it was offensive until Elizabeth Benjamin exposed the remarks in the New York Daily News on Sunday. Maybe he still doesn’t believe what he said was offensive.  He certainly did not recognize it to be offensive between the time he made the remark to that group of college students and the time he made the remark on Saturday. Or he did and didn’t care. The former makes him an idiot, the latter makes him arrogant and heedless.

And, as Bruce Fisher writes in this week’s cover story, giving him a pass on this makes us all look bad.

UPDATE: Grant Loomis sent out a second statement this morning, after our email exchange. Here it is:

“The County Executive, at times, uses very harsh language in taking on what he believes are opponents of the taxpayers.  As the descendant of a Jewish grandfather, the County Executive recognizes that this characterization of the Speaker is wrong.  He has apologized for that characterization publicly, and personally apologized to the Speaker.  The County Executive will not let this mistake, however, distract him from his focus on protecting taxpayers and challenging the status quo locally and in Albany.”

Still no denial. So he’s called Silver hateful things before, and now that he’s been caught out, he recognizes what he said was wrong. Call it adult education, on Erie County’s dime.

Archeologists believe they may have found a long-lost quatrain penned by the famous renaissance seer Nostradamus, in the remains of a room once used as a salon by Catherine de Medici. The four-line verse is thought to be one of the fifty-eight quatrains missing from the his collection of predictions known as the seventh “Century.” He composed ten in all. Believers around the world point to the uncanny accuracy of his forecasts—including envisioning the rise of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler.

Alas, the discovery comes a few days late for Erie County Executive Chris Collins, who might’ve benefited from the soothsayers words:

The great suit will stumble at the mark

Among a crowd of his followers

From his lake, clad in silver, on horseback, he will cross the state

Seeking the letter sigma, whose number shall be six

County Executive Chris Collins’s proposal to build a new lockup at 120-134 W. Eagle Street is not a new idea, according to this 1998 Buffalo News Article.

The original section of the Erie County Holding Center was designed by renowned architect E.B. Green, who also designed the Albright Knox Art Gallery, the First Presbyterian Church and the Market Arcade, among other area landmarks.

The article identifies the separate, W. Eagle Street building, which currently houses the Erie County Board of Elections, as a “contributing structure” to the Joseph Ellicott Historical District.

Green also designed Buffalo’s War Memorial Auditorium, which was demolished this year and is soon to be commemorated as a coffee table book. A Bass Pro store may or may not take its place.

In other, unrelated-to-David-Archuleta news:

• North District Councilmember Joe Golombek will open a discussion next week on whether Buffalo might benefit from a city manager form of government. In that form, a (0ne hopes) professional city manager is hired by the legislative branch, and the office of mayor becomes largely ceremonial rather than adminstrative. The notion is that the political acumen that’s required to be elected mayor of a big city does not necessarily guarantee the adminsitrative experience and skills required to run it. Golombek has invited Darnell Earley, city manager for Saginaw, Michigan and president of the International City/County Management Association, to speak at next Tuesday’s meeting of the Buffalo Common Council’s Legislation Committee at 2pm.  At 7pm, Early will speak in the auditorium of the Buffalo Historical Society.
• I’m no fan of Erie County Executive Chris Collins, but I think he got a bum rap on the Volland Electric contract. And I admire his response: He has instructed all the companies in which he has a stake to refrain from bidding on county work.
• Battaglia Trucking and Demolition, down on Seneca Street, has applied for a modification of its solid waste managememnt permit from the New York State Department of Environmental. The modification would raise Battaglia’s capacity from 3,800 tons of waste per month to 1,600 tons per day. Battaglia also wants a new, 13,000-square-foot building and increased operating hours. A letter from DEC to Mayor Byron Brown, asking the administration to help determine who the lead agency in the environmental analysis of the request ought to be, was filed with the Common Council today. Expect the Seneca-Babcock neighborhood to, um, react. More on this and other South Buffalo waste yards later in week.

Just got back from the State of the County Address at the “UB Gateway” building. Never heard of the place? It used to be the old M. Wile building at 77 Goodell Street. M. Wile was founded in Buffalo in 1877 by a German immigrant and operated for over 90 years as a clothing manufacturer. In the 1970s, the company employed over 2000 western New Yorkers at the factory on Goodell Street and in the city of Dunkirk.

UB bought the place in September 2007. It was then called Century Center 2. UB and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC) have been buying up real estate for the new medical corridor that’s part of the big UB 2020 plan UB President John Simpson keeps telling us about. He couldn’t tell us today, because we were informed that he’s out of the country. Good for him. It was minus 6 degrees in Buffalo this morning.

Here’s a shot of the crowd huddled in the old defunct factory that used to serve as a thriving workplace.

It’s got a great view.

I didn’t stay for the address, but here’s a copy of it if you want to read. Just click here. In it, County Executive Collins points out, on page 18: “You are sitting in the former manufacturing facility of Buffalo’s own M. Wile clothing company. UB now owns this facility which is part of the downtown expansion of the University and it’s (sic) interconnection with the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. This building, once a symbol of our past, is now a symbol of our future.”

Not sure what that means. Is he saying our future is an underused, nearly vacant hulk of a structure owned by a state entity?

There are also plenty of plugs for “Lean Six Sigma.” Fourteen mentions between pages 3-5. But any of you brown-nosers wanting to sign up quick so you can get your yellow, green or black belt in Six Sigma, you’re gonna have to wait. There’s a list of people ahead of you waiting for the training. The only place you can get this certification around here is…you guessed it…at the UB Center for Industrial Effectiveness. It’ll run you $4,900 to get your black belt, grasshopper.

Outside the old M. Wile building, there were a dozen yard signs promoting a Web site called bragaboutbuffalo.com. You can see one of the signs at the top of this post. If you visit the site, you won’t find out anything about who they are, but you will be offered tips on how to brag about Buffalo. For example, if someone asks, “Are there any big schools there?” we are supposed to reply, “If by “big” you mean the biggest one in New York State, then yes.”

That kind of positive talk might not turn the region’s fortunes around, but it should solidify our reputation as insecure dorks.

Read this before you participate:

Here’s something that drives me crazy about the Buffalo News: the “Another Voice” column on the editorial page. It would be a nice idea, except that so often it is not given over to “another” voice. It is given, rather, to the same old voices: to people who are frequently quoted as sources in articles, who are in positions of political or economic power, to folks whose job is to push agendas—to people, in other words, who have no difficulty making their voices heard.

Today’s “Another Voice” column is by Ron Rienas, general manager of the Public Bridge Authority. None of the evasions he offers here are new, nor has Rienas lacked opportunity to make them in a public forum. He has been quoted in at least 40 Buffalo News articles in the past year. He wrote another “Another Voice” column in January.

In the past two months, the column’s authors have included incoming State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, who earns headlines somewhere in that state nearly every day; Tom Golisano, who can order up a microphone and reporter whenever he needs one; Erie County Legislator Maria Whyte, with whose column I agree but who already  has occasion to speak with reporters weekly; UB President John Simpson, stumping for the UB 2020 plan that is frequently the subject of articles in the news pages; Erie County Executive Chris Collins, also no stranger to headlines; and outgoing Congressman Tom Reynolds, who, it is true, has not been much in the limelight in the past two years.

And Rienas’ column today is a response to a recent “Another Voice” piece by attorney David Colligan, chairman of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy. I agree with much of what Colligan says in that piece, but he’s another guy who hardly lacks opportunity to speak his mind: He is quoted in the pages of the Buffalo News about once a month, sometimes more often than that.

In between these privileged perspectives, the column frequently comprises articles by the mouthpieces for lobbying or special interest groups. It would be nice, I think, if “Another Voice” were afforded solely to those who are invisible in the news media, underrepresented in government, underserved by our institutions and economy.

Late last night, at the tail end of one of the few weeks in the past year in which we did not publish anything snarky about anybody, someone threw two gallons of paint on our front doors. Seems a waste; we hadn’t even earned it. Nonetheless, we were cleaning up all morning.

Last week, sure, I can see that: maybe Chris Collins, maybe Steve Pigeon. But no…those guys wouldn’t stoop so low. They don’t even return our calls. It must have been someone else.

Buck Quigley had what sounded on his end like a civil conversation with Bob Gioia earlier in the week, so I can’t believe it was him. And I can’t imagine his brother, Anthony Gioia—recently confirmed as a representative to the 63rd session of the UN—would be so undiplomatic. James Williams? No, Dr. Williams loves AV. He told me so last year. And I can’t believe anything would have changed his mind since then.

Revenge, like pizza, is best served cold, but we understand that the folks at La Nova have made peace with their neighbors. So that’s not it.

George Sax is too urbane to have caused us trouble with the Public Bridge Authority or the Erie County Democrats. And though Bruce Jackson frequently draws heat down on the paper, it doesn’t seem like the Seneca Gaming Corporation’s style. Our other Bruce, late of county government and now thinking deep thoughts about public policy at Buffalo State, is generally brisk but not offensive…unless Bob Wilmers has been nursing a grudge against Fisher and occasional AV contributor John McMahon for months.

What the hell. It couldn’t have been former Buffalo News editor Murray Light.

I’m sure the vandal didn’t issue from City Hall, the good offices of which are AV’s most frequent target, because anyone who works for the city would know that there’s one of those new surveillance cameras just up the street. The blue-light specials.

When I called B District to ask if the camera might have caught the guilty party in the act, I was told that a detective would call back later today. Then, maybe, we’ll see.

I’ll return to Steve Pigeon’s chronic deficiencies in the realm of campaign finance disclosure filings later today or tomorrow. (Next stop: Pigeon loyalist Gary Parenti’s 2006 campaign for the 158th District Assembly seat.)

But for now I’d like to turn to another fellow who won’t always share numbers with the public, or even with his colleagues: Erie County Executive Chris Collins.

Erie County Executive Chris Collins

On Wednesday, Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz released an analysis of Collins’ first budget. (Here’s the 40-page document if you’d like to read it for yourself. I’ll digest it here later, after listening to Poloncarz present his analysis to the Erie County Legislature this morning.)

Wednesday was October 29. According to the county charter, the comptroller ought to have released an analysis of the essential architecture of the budget—that is, its revenue and major expenditure forecasts—by October 15. That is also the date by which the executive must release his budget for the upcoming financial year. The intention, clearly, is that the legislature be presented with the executive’s budget and the comptroller’s analysis at the same time, so that legislators can weigh both and consider how to proceed.

Here’s the relevant passage in the county charter:

On or before the 1st day of October the county executive shall submit to the comptroller all revenue estimates and expenditure estimates for Medicaid, public assistance, and pension contributions and health care insurance costs for county employees to be used in the proposed budget. The comptroller shall review all revenue estimates and expenditure estimates for Medicaid, public assistance and pension contributions and health care insurance costs for county employees to be used in the proposed tentative budget prepared by the county executive and submit to the Legislature in writing by the 15th of October a report indicating whether or not such estimates are suitable estimates for the upcoming fiscal year. Should the comptroller determine that any such revenue or expenditure estimate is not suitable for the upcoming fiscal year, the Legislature, upon notice from the comptroller may revise any such revenue estimate downward upon a two-thirds majority vote and may revise any such expenditure estimate upward by a majority vote. The Legislature shall not revise any such revenue estimate upward.

So why didn’t Poloncarz provide an analysis by October 15, as the charter requires? My mistake: The comptroller provided analysis of the revenue and expenditure projections they’d been provided; that analysis was released on October 10. But the analysis did not include the county executive’s estimate of next year’s property tax levy.

Tim Callan, Polocarz’s deputy comptroller, told me that the county executive’s budget director, Greg Gach, sent his revenue and expenditure projections to the comptroller’s office late in the afternoon on October 1.  But he would not provide an estimate of property tax revenues. That is the second largest revenue stream in the county budget—the largest, if you leave aside that portion of the sales tax that is distributed to local governments. An analysis of the budget is difficult to complete without that hefty slice of the pie chart.

Collins’ budget director argued the charter does not require that he provide the comptroller with an estimate of property tax revenues. That may be technically so, but Joel Giambra’s budget director last year provided an estimate of property tax revenues by October 1. Why wouldn’t Collins oblige this year?

According to Callan, the county executive asserted that the property tax levy is not a revenue source until the budget has been adopted. (Because who knows? Maybe the legislature will raise taxes, lower taxes, abolish taxes forever.) Still, Giambra’s budget director managed to conjure some numbers by October 1 last year, and surely Collins’ budget director had working figures to offer. Was Collins holding off on disclosing a proposed property tax  increase as long as possible? Was Collins cutting Poloncarz out of the loop because he views him as a political rival? Did he hope to go directly to the legislature with his budget before a third party could cast a critical eye on it?

Poloncarz insisted that the county executive hand over his numbers. The county executive refused. So Poloncarz was not able to review the budget until the complete document was released, at the late last minute, on October 15. Two weeks later Poloncarz released his office’s  analysis—but not before revealing that Collins had neglected, among other things, to reckon a $16 million debt to ECMC in his budget.

More on this soon.