Clinton aims to clean up brownfields

Senator visits Broome leaders

BY LIZ SADLER
Press & Sun-Bulletin

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stops to greet, from left, Marjorie Kanick, Janet Kanick and Lauren Kanick after her meeting Saturday with Broome County leaders. Michael Kanick of Binghamton is a staff assistant to Clinton and arranged for his family to meet the senator.

KATHRYN DEUEL / Press & Sun-Bulletin

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stands Saturday with Broome County Executive Jeffrey Kraham, right, and Deputy Broome County Executive Terrence Kane at Binghamton University. Clinton met with members of the Greater Binghamton Coalition.

KATHRYN DEUEL / Press & Sun-Bulletin

VESTAL -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to help bring optimism and economic opportunity back to Greater Binghamton, she said during a Saturday stop in Vestal.  

Clinton met with the Greater Binghamton Coalition of private and public sector leaders at Binghamton University to discuss the future of the Southern Tier. After another morning meeting with local defense contractors at the university, she spoke with the editorial board of the Press & Sun-Bulletin.

Clinton listed plans to clean up local brownfields, former industrial sites where contamination is presumed, and to secure more federal aid for farmers among her top priorities. She also wants to direct more federal dollars to New York defense contractors --both small and large, she said.

"Anything I can do to help put resources on the table I will do," Clinton said. Topping her agenda for Broome County is cleanup at about 80 "shovel-ready" brownfield sites, she said. Clinton and AIG Marketing Corp. will hold a conference in Greater Binghamton to discuss brownfield cleanup.

"(The conference) will cast further public attention on the issue," said Kenneth S. Kamlet, director of legal affairs for the Newman Development Group, a local developer that has built several retail centers in the Southern Tier. Kamlet, who attended the meeting at BU, said he hopes the senator can encourage Democratic state lawmakers to enact brownfield legislation that would provide incentives for private investors to redevelop brownfield sites.

Most of Broome County's brownfields are privately owned, Kamlet said. And New York is one of the few states without a program to encourage private investment in brownfields.

"(Brownfields) don't do anybody any good the way they are," he said. "It's to everybody's benefit to put them to use."

John Fitzsimmons, president of Broome County's Partnership 2000, a consortium of business leaders supporting local development, also attended the meeting with the senator. He said local leaders hope to win Clinton's support for the Broome County Plan for Sustainable Development, a local government initiative to bring economic diversity and prosperity to the Southern Tier.

"Senator Clinton is very impressed that the Greater Binghamton area has taken the initiative to formulate a plan," he said. "Now it's much easier for her to take various initiatives in that plan and come up with some specifics to help us."

The senator can help secure federal money to clean up local brownfields, for example, and to fund initiatives that involve the university and community, he said.

In addition, Clinton said, plans to develop sensory research and the study of protein dynamics at Binghamton University will help boost the school's academic profile.

BU President Lois B. DeFleur said she is encouraged by the meeting.

"(Clinton) was impressed (by the BC Plan) and continued to say that this is a significant step for us," DeFleur said. "Throughout the meeting, she indicated how important it was for the university to be a central force."

The group also discussed ways to market the Southern Tier effectively.

"We have to sell ourselves a little better," Fitzsimmons said.

Kamlet added: "A lot of what's required to dig ourselves out of the economic hole that we find ourselves in is a matter of marketing."

Clinton said Broome County's assets include beauty, amenities and quality of life. The Broome-Tioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services, Broome Community College and good public schools provide quality education and additional incentive for people to live here, she said.

"This is a place that people want to raise a family," she said.

Despite a recent slew of layoffs in Broome County and a weak national economy, Clinton said job opportunities exist in the area. She encouraged former manufacturing workers to upgrade their skills and look for high-tech and supply jobs.

"Part of (the initiative) has to be a change in attitude," she said.

Local leaders said they left Saturday's meeting more optimistic about the future of the Southern Tier. But they said whether Clinton will follow up on her promises remains to be seen.

"The proof is in the pudding," Fitzsimmons said. He said it's now up to local leaders to continue to ask for the senator's support.

Clinton: Close ranks to surviv

KATHRYN DEUEL / Press & Sun-Bulletin

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she came away from Saturday's meeting with the Greater Binghamton Coalition with a sense of optimism, but noted the community's mindset still needs to improve as it strives to regain its economic footing.  

"I was very encouraged by what I heard" from business and community leaders, she said in a later meeting with the Press & Sun-Bulletin editorial board. There's a recognition that the region needs to establish its priorities, develop more cohesion between the public and private sectors, and take advantage of whatever opportunities the federal government offers.

She said she regards her role as principally a facilitator, bringing people together for common benefit, and in that role will help put together a conference to look at brownfield recovery in the Southern Tier. Those are former industrial sites with all the utility connections that make them shovel-ready to be put to new uses.

As with communities across upstate New York, the effort to rebound from a decade-long recession must include a change in attitude -- a theme that echoes a key element in the AngelouEconomics report issued last year. We should be done mourning the past by now and building a better future.

That includes re-tooling the work force, Sen. Clinton said. "There are some jobs available here that local companies have to import workers to fill," she said. Former manufacturing employees need to upgrade their skills via education or training, or use their existing skills to provide different services.

Sen. Clinton cited many examples of other old industrial regions from New England through the Midwest that took stock when their economies changed, took steps to recover, and took advantage of the economic boom of the 1990s. "They closed ranks," Sen. Clinton said. Upstate New York communities did not.

The Southern Tier especially lacked the leadership or the willingness, or both, to change its ways and its outlook. And now it has strong currents of defeatism and pessimism to overcome as well.

Sen. Clinton is right when she notes the area has all the physical assets its needs, the basic infrastructure and the intellectual capacity. It is now developing a cohesive voice and a common vision. The high tech base is still strong, and as a member of the Armed Services Committee she might be able to steer more defense-related contracts this way. She also sees a potential niche for local firms in homeland security technology as that national effort gains momentum.

Optimism and energetic ambition alone won't turn things around, of course, but that kind of can-do attitude certainly beats the fear of change so prevalent in the community.

Sen. Clinton's underlying theme is that we have to be willing to help ourselves before anyone else can offer us assistance.

It's good to see and hear that the economic development leaders are starting to work in harmony and pull in the same direction. Now the community must join them.