Gillibrand and Our “Leaders”

Newly appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand came to WNY today and met with a roomful of city, state and county officials.

Afterwards she met briefly met with reporters (3 questions) before heading on to her next event in Rochester.

Ill leave this video and my tweets  that unfortunately didn’t make it to twitter (damn technology…) to describe the scene :

• Gillibrand arrives in WNY.  Interesting group of leaders set to meet in about 15 minutes
• State delegation is here, county legislators from erie and niagara. Even wannabe Mayor Mickey Kearns in the hiz-house!
• ECHDC Jordan Levy, Muriel Howard, BNP ’s Andrew Rudnick to name a few.
• Why do people invite Andrew Rudnick anywhere?
• Want to know why WNY is in the shithouse? Just look at all the non elected “power” people in the room
• Macaroni King Robert Gioia? interesting choice of leaders…
• Taking seats for the big entrance. I’m the only media person in the room. And the camera guy from channel 7. But no reporters…
• WNY lacks young leadership. Besides me, the UB kids working the event and the personal assistants, Tim Kennedy is the youngest in the room by 5 years…and he’s 33.
• And the suckling begins… I’d like to thank…everyone in the room…
• We just got booted. At least we got something. Where was everyone else?
• When that many elected officials and “power” people are in the same room, the media should be allowed to be there for more than 5 minutes.

After about an hour, Senator Gillibrand emerged out of the meeting to answer three questions from the media. So much for Addie Bradshaw’s tough questions campaign.

One can presume that high speed rail was a major topic of conversation today seeing that the Senator mentions it three times in 8 minutes:

Shortly after, the reviews started coming in.

Congressman Higgins:

“Senator Gillibrand clearly recognizes the enormous economic challenges Western New Yorkers are facing, and she is committed to finding innovative solutions to bolster our economy. I know that she will be the kind of forceful leader we need in Washington, working tirelessly to improve the lives of all New Yorkers. As colleagues in the House of Representatives, we worked very closely on issues of mutual interest to our constituents and I look forward now working with her as one of our state’s two United States Senators,”

Mayor Brown:

“Senator Gillibrand said she will work hard to direct federal grant dollars to Buffalo, so that projects like the Center of Excellence can grow further and create jobs for our residents. She fully supports the expansion of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. We also discussed UB 2020, the University at Buffalo’s strategic plan that will create an estimated 15,000 jobs in Buffalo. Senator Gillibrand strongly supports the plan and understands the importance of UB to our city and its economy,”

“Senator Gillibrand has long been committed to exploring opportunities for ‘green jobs’ in Upstate New York, and she shares my goal of creating a Buffalo ‘Green Belt’. She supports our plans for transforming hundreds of acres of brownfields to attract business focused on renewable energy sources, sustainable development and emerging green technologies,”

And one of about three republican in the room, County Executive Chris Collins:

Overall I think she did pretty well and will make a fine Senator. She seems smart, knowledgable, and seems to care about WNY and the issues we face.

Best of all, she’s not from New York City…