CVB, Solar Convention and the Bed Tax

I spent the day at public day of the National Solar Convention at Buffalo Niagara Convention Center. Overall, it was a nice event. Kudos to the Buffalo Convention and Visitors Bureau for landing this fish. Certainly, when I think of places to hold a convention/conference on Solar technology, I wouldn't necessarily think of Buffalo. That would be why I am not the head of the CVB.

I spoke with many of the vendors about solar technologies, and about Buffalo, and no one had a bad thing to say about their time here. Several vendors were very impressed with the volume of traffic they were seeing during Saturday's Public Day. Unfortunately, I did not get to attend the Governor's speech on Friday night.

On another CVB issue, things are heating up in the Buffalo News about Chris Collins assertion that the bed tax is just another form of revenue for the county. Additionally, his forcing out of Richard Geiger as the CVB Director is another direct assault on an agency that actually manages to bring outside revenue to town. It's amusing that Republicans are up in arms about the forcing out of GM CEO Rick Wagoner, based on the idea that they are getting government money and will have to follow some government behests, but local Republicans don't seem to be outraged by the same practice on the local level.

The CVB is one of the few agencies that bring tax revenue to the region WITHOUT raising taxes on the already overburdened residents. Their efforts should have a dedicated source of funding that is not able to be withheld for political reasons. Collins ran on a platform of running county government like a business. Any good businessman recognizes the necessity of a good marketing plan, and having the money to implement it. The CVB will not be able to be successful without funding of their marketing initiatives, and bringing it in-house as an actual county-run agency, as it appears Collins would like to do, will not help the ultimate mission of the bureau.