I recall an episode of MASH in which Klinger described one of his plots to convince the Army that he's too crazy to stay in Korea: "I tried shooting off my own toe, but my foot won't stand still." Well, our civic leaders in Buffalo sure don't have that problem. Sometimes I wonder if Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello spends his spare time painting bullseyes on his own feet for target practice, or perhaps placing rakes carefully around his home so that he steps on them and thus causes them to swing up and whack him in the nose. It sometimes seems this way.
As I've noted before, the Seneca Nation of Indians wants to open a casino in the Buffalo area (they already have on in Niagara Falls, thirty miles north). They were looking for a downtown location, but the one they wanted -- Buffalo's convention center -- was taken off the table by the County Executive (Joel Giambra, a guy who vacillates between making really good decisions and really dumb ones), so this week the Senecas announced that they now preferred to put a casino not in downtown Buffalo but in the suburb of Cheektowaga, which happens to be the location of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport. This is a suburban location that actually makes sense, because there's no way that a casino will spark the kind of economic development that is needed downtown, but it might give a boost to the slumping hotel market around the airport and spark the creation of a Metro-rail line* from downtown to the airport.
Well, Masiello and Giambra are so sold on the idea of a casino sparking development that now they're suggesting Buffalo's waterfront as a site.
Yup. That's exactly what the waterfront needs: a self-contained casino where gamblers need never go outside to eat, drink, or anything else. That's just the way to take advantage of Buffalo's proximity to water.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
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