Congressman Eric Massa Hosts
Town Hall Meeting at American Legion
By Jim Gill

A rare event took place in Ellicottville on Monday afternoon as a prominent politician kept a campaign promise taking time to address the concerns of area residents and explain his agenda since his arrival in Washington, DC. The first Democrat to be elected in Cattaraugus County since the Civil War, Congressman Eric Massa after only 99 days in office was well aware on activities in his district and expressed a sincere willingness to help local communities at the Federal level of government.

The Congressman stated that he will be in Ellicottville along with many other smaller communities at least once per year as long as he is in office. He also stated that he would remain at the meeting until he had a chance to answer everybody’s questions. Locally he has encouraged county and local politicians to have him involved should they feel he can assist them, mentioning that we are all in this together at all levels of government.

Massa gave a brief overview on some of his activities on the national scene including how he voted for the Stimulus Package and one of the very few Democrats to go against party lines voting against the Bank Bailout, feeling there was no guarantee the money would ever reach the consumers.
Questions from the floor

Immigration: Massa pointed out the fact illegal immigration is not the explosive issue it was two years ago, with the slowdown in our economy there is more outflow than inflow as many of the illegals unable to find employment are returning to their home countries. On the other hand Massa mentioned the need for some type of legal work program giving the wine industry as an example. Even with an hourly rate of $12.00 per hour and some benefits growers are unable to find Americans willing to work picking grapes, without immigrants legal or illegal the whole industry would collapse. His goal is to have some type of visa program in place to help control the illegal immigration.

Health Care: We are the only nation in the world who saddles half of the health care costs on employers and currently an estimated 52-55 million people are without health care and growing by 600,000 per month. Congress is about to embark on a 6 month debate on health care and according to Massa the end result will be a National Health Care policy.

Part of the debate will involve tort reform possibly placing a much discussed cap on lawsuits from patients, as he pointed out Doctors do not care what the cap is, as long as there is one in place.
Stimulus Money: This is the first time New York State has received more money from the Federal Government than they gave, 24.4 billion dollars will be coming back through the Stimulus Fund. This is also the first time the Federal Government has lived up to it’s commitment to fund Medicaid and Education, without the Federal support, property taxes would go through the roof and right now this is the last thing home owners can afford.

Ellicottville Mayor Coolidge questioned the equity in dispersing the money locally, the City of Olean received 1.2 million, Salamanca 1.1 million, the County 1 million, the small towns and villages received nothing, even shovel ready projects were turned down.

The Congressman asked all Mayors and Town Supervisors to remain after the meeting and he would arrange a conference call with the Political Director of New York State, he did follow up on this much to the satisfaction of the local political leaders.

Gun Control Regulations: Massa will not vote for gun control regulations mentioning that we haven’t even to begin to enforce current laws in place, so why introduce more laws. He does question the licensing and sales of assault weapons and went on to state that with the senseless shootings that occur it is not the weapons, it’s the people behind the weapons.

Route 219: He is a strong advocate of a corridor running from Buffalo to Interstate 86 and further south in terms of safety and economic development. Currently it is a bureaucratic rat’s nest with too much finger pointing with people far removed from the project making decisions. He has held discussions with the Seneca Nation and the Governor and plans on continuing the dialogue with them as well as having all groups involved in one room to resolve the finger pointing and start making progress. He is not happy to just sit for 3 years and see 84 million dollars of Federal money for the project go to another state.

West Valley Nuclear: While instrumental in getting the recent $74 million to move forward, Massa claims to clean up the entire site would be at a bare minimum 2.5-3 billion dollars. Having visited the site on several occasions he is well aware of imminent groundwater seepage and the potential for disaster if the site is not fully cleaned up. Compounding the problem is the geological instability of the area, if nothing is done over the years, erosion will take the surface down to the level where radioactive material is exposed to the atmosphere. Encouraging residents to stay involved Massa mentioned he can impact the process and work to get their voices heard.

While some of the 75-100 people attending the meeting may not have agreed with some of his answers, almost everyone was impressed with his honesty and willingness to help, something this area has not experienced in a long time.