I ask, why do we have so many IDA’s………..? It’s stupid to have so many, we need to grow this area as a whole not in individual little clusters.

Amherst IDA is protecting its turf

Development agency’s information campaign is against merger with the ECIDA

The Amherst Industrial Development Agency, threatened by a push to create a single county wide IDA, is going on the offensive.

The agency is taking its case directly to Amherst residents, distributing a four-page pullout in a weekly newspaper and offering to make its case in presentations with community groups.

“This is the kind of information that needs to get out to the Town Board,” said James J. Allen, the agency’s executive director. “The mis perception is really not a mis perception that we’re causing.”

County Executive Joel Giambra has renewed his push to combine the Amherst and Erie County industrial development agencies and the Amherst Town Board has voted twice since last August to call for state legislation authorizing a merger.

Negotiations for a merger, however, have moved slowly and the Erie County IDA earlier this month began to move forward with its search for an executive director — an effort it had intentionally delayed in hopes that the consolidation talks would bear fruit. But Giambra’s term ends in slightly more than three months and the November election could change the shape of the Amherst Town Board.

The Erie County IDA has been without an executive director since last December, following the departure of Charles Webb.

“I still have a hard time trying to figure out why the Town Board would want to abrogate the responsibility for this to a political agency downtown,” said Amherst IDA board member Randall Clark, referring to the Erie County IDA during the agency’s meeting Friday. “If you ever break it, it will be hard to ever put it back together.”