Published: May 18, 2008 12:43 am            

OUR VIEW: Look out, Las Vegas, here comes Mr. Smith

If all goes as planned, Lockport Town Supervisor Marc Smith’s trip to Las Vegas, where he plans to tout the Transit North project, will be a fruitful one.

Smith has his brochures, CD-ROMs, lanyards and more, ready to entice business people at the annual retail conference. If he comes back with a few leads, the trip was worthwhile. After seeing the materials he’s bringing with him, we wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t get more than just a few nibbles.

With around 55,000 participants being the norm for the conference, it’s a no-brainer that the Lockport area be part of it. There’s so much for the taking, so why not go to Vegas and make the pitch. If we don’t, someone else will.

When Smith said the benefit of landing a business or two outweighs the cost of sending him and councilman Mark Crocker to Vegas, he was absolutely right. Reinventing Transit Road is a concept worth embracing. If you look at transitnorth.com, you’ll get on board. Just looking at some of the concept drawings and pictures gets you excited.

The economic impact, and numbers listed on the site, would have potential retailer salivating at the chance of joining the two-town, one-city project.

There’s no doubt retailers aren’t exactly knocking down the doors or municipalities in Niagara County or even Western New York.

So when the chance arises to go out and get those retailers, our elected officials need to jump on it.

Let’s just make sure we’re not scheduling too many trips to places like Las Vegas. Unless of course there’s some real return on that investment.

        

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