Unshackle Upstate Campaign Launches

The tag line: "Over a half million young people left Upstate since 1990." Unshackle Upstate (UU), a conglomerate of business community members, begins a public rally campaign in Buffalo today. From the group's website:

". . . a coalition of more than 40 business and trade organizations, representing more than 32,000 companies that employ more than 1 million people . . . in terms of population growth, Upstate New York ranked third from the bottom of all fifty states – with only North Dakota and West Virginia fairing worse. During the last decade, Upstate lost 33 % of its manufacturing jobs, and overall job growth was only 4% compared to the national average of 23%. The departure of over a half million young adults is alarming."

The next public rally is scheduled for tomorrow in Rochester:

2:00 p.m.
Location:
Former site of Liberty Precision Industries
3025 South Winton Road,
(near Brighton-Henrietta town line)
Rochester, NY
Speakers: Sandra A. Parker, CEO of Rochester Business Alliance; Arunas Chesonis, Chairman and CEO of PAETEC Communications; Doug Woods, former CEO of Liberty Precision Industries; Brian Hickey, Executive Vice President of M&T Bank; Randy Henderson, CEO of Henderson Automotive.

The cause sounds noble enough and the organization's views on issues like Medicaid reform are sensible and needed. However, UU's economic development policies support programs like the Empire Zone and COMIDA - programs that have failed to deliver.

You will notice that the Rochester rally is being held at the "former" site of Liberty Precision. What happened to Liberty Precision? It is not quite clear, a visit to their website finds this message from CEO Dan Wood:

Since 1922 Liberty Precision Industries has been supplying manufacturing solutions to industries throughout the world. We have thrived over the years on meeting the challenges of the marketplace no matter how technically or commercially difficult they might be. However, despite all of our successes and accomplishments we find ourselves facing a series of obstacles which we can not overcome despite our best efforts and have therefore been forced to close the company.

The owners and employees have done everything in their power to navigate Liberty through this difficult period, but the magnitude of the issues affecting our customer base and the compounding affect they have had on our company have left us with no other options at this point.

Perhaps the location of the rally was chosen to highlight another successful business stifled by the unfavorable New York business climate. Maybe. In 2002, operating out of Rochester, Liberty Precision seemed to be doing quite well:

Automotive-oriented dial and transfer machine builder Liberty Precision Industries (Rochester, N.Y.) is acquiring the assets of Australian-headquartered Kirby Engineering, similarly a supplier of machining systems to automakers.

It was only after applying for, and not receiving, benefits as a regionally significant Empire Zone that Liberty experienced adversity. As Rochester Turning pointed out last week:

The argument is that property taxes are not the major driver of business cost. Then there is this quote from Mayor Bloomberg.

“Any company that makes a decision as to where they are going to be, based on the tax rate, is a company that won’t be around very long. If you are down to that incremental margin, you don’t have a business.”