This is the problem we face when the legislators are in the pockets of the unions… We could be seeing a cost of 10 grand a day and Kennedy would hold it up until he and his union gets their way?

Watch who donates to your candidate and or legislators campaigns. Kennedy, Iannello, Marinelli, Whyte, etal are all being controlled by the unions at our expense. This is proof positive that they will do what ever it takes to please the unions at our (the taxpayers) expense.

Problem solved — Alden prison likely to be updated

A project to add vital space to the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden was held up for 10 weeks this summer because of a problem that turned out to be little problem at all.

Now a contractor should be able to soon start replacing windows in a building there, ensuring that it can continue to house prisoners.

While the job probably won’t be completed until early next year, Erie County will be able to show the state agency that polices local jails it is trying to ease crowding at the prison.

County officials hope that as a result, the state Commission of Correction won’t force the sheriff’s jail management division to board inmates in other counties, a step that could cost $10,000 a day.

The logjam broke when the County Legislature’s Economic Development Committee approved a contract with Flower City Glass to replace 78 windows at a spare building at the correctional facility, the Yankee Building.

The Yankee Building was pressed into service to house 80 to 90 inmates, but the state insisted its windows be replaced with jail-grade windows.

Just before the Legislature’s summer recess, the county Public Works Department asked lawmakers to let low-bidder Flower City Glass install the windows during the summer months at a cost of about $646,000.

But the contract didn’t move. Legislator Timothy M. Kennedy, chairman of the Economic Development Committee, can bottle up government projects that don’t conform to the apprentice-training law he championed more than a year ago, and he didn’t like what he saw.

The law requires that contractors on county jobs maintain an apprentice- training program. While trade unions like the law, it has been panned by non-union contractors and the Associated Builders and Contractors as driving up the cost of public works jobs and favoring certain types of firms, particularly large unionized ones. more–>