I love being a Western New Yorker, and cannot imagine ever leaving. Almost all of my friends have left this area. Most of them love their hometown too, but they were not lucky enough to find the good jobs here that other places have provided them with. Those of us that stay here do so because we love our communities. For this reason, we put up with the lack of funds, the exorbitant taxes and tolls, the corruption of the state government, the corruption of the county governments, the corruption of the local governments, the oversights, the undersights (sic), and the scandals.

I am happy to be a Western New Yorker, but I am very unhappy with being called a New Yorker. To put it bluntly, we have been tricked. We have been fooled into believing that being a New Yorker is something that is good for us. That being a New Yorker is something that gives us things we otherwise would not have. We are wrong.

Being a Western New Yorker is part of what makes us who we are. But I am not, nor will I ever consider myself to be, a New Yorker. A New Yorker is someone who lives downstate and feeds off the natural resources that the western part of the state hands to them for a pittance. A New Yorker is someone who lives downstate and feeds off the hard work that the west part of the state does for them.

The western part of the state lives with the job losses and the brain drain. Its communities breathe an unhealthy, steady stream of chemical and coal particulates. The downstate area gains by receiving our jobs, our talents, and the clean air that we could be blessed with. The downstate area is where the “New Yorker” lives and they walk all over us.

The powerful New York State thinks that it is easy to pull a fast one on us. With each of these Buffalo News articles about the corruption of the New York State Power Authority, I hope that our eyes are opened as to what advantages are being stolen from us and what disadvantages are being forced upon us by being a part of New York State.

Back when the Erie Canal was created, it provided great wealth for downstate families. For many years, the canal provided a symbiotic relationship between the “up” and “down” parts of this state. Unfortunately for us, the use of our great canal dwindled and died with the advent of new commercial delivery methods.

From that time on, the symbiotic relationship was gone. Slowly and steadily, Western New York lost out. It lost population, wealth, and talent. The downstate was able to maintain their vast enterprise. Without a counterbalance, they have been suckling all that they can get from us for years.

They impose upon us their politics and their way of thinking. We are a group of working class communities that have fallen victim countless times to the manufacturing bust. Our communities should be transitioning to a new mode, with tax incentives and electricity savings for new businesses. The albatross we wear is the tag team of New York City and Albany. They keep us from performing this transition. They impose high taxes, impose ridiculous governing rules, and steal our natural and intellectual resources—all for their own gain.

I’m sick of it! I love this community; it hurts to see it suffer so much. I will never call myself a New Yorker. I am a Western New Yorker, and that is nothing like a New Yorker.

If we break from the New York City and Albany oligarchy, we will have a bright future. If we were to become the State of “West New York,” we could control our own future. We would hold a vast resource, which produces more electricity and more profit than any other hydroelectric plant.

Without the stranglehold of big state politics and their bloated policies, we would be free to grow into something great. Our local politics and county politics would be vastly improved, because our state would be close to local communities in both location and heart. This would provide a solid foundation of checks and balances that keeps corruption out.

These checks and balances have been sorely missing. Albany is so far away, it is easy for the corruption to go unnoticed. Not to mention the corruption of Albany is itself disgusting. Furthermore, downstate benefits when upstate governances remain corrupt. With ill-functioning local rule in Western New York, it is much easier for downstate to take from us what is rightfully ours. It is therefore not in the interest of New York State to prevent local corruption. Since it is not in their interest, it will never happen while we are still a part of the state. It must then be that the only way to dissolve the corruption of local and county politics is to secede from the state which perpetuates it.

By becoming our own state, Western New Yorkers would be able to focus on providing a government that is effective and holds values instead of corruption. In partitioning from a clearly distinct set of values, we would be in a stronger position to attract businesses and talent. We would also gain our own seats in the United States Congress, and have a direct voice in Washington to look out for our own local and special needs.

Citizens of Western New York rise up, we have nothing to lose but our taxes!

Mike Syposs

Buffalo