County government made a big announcement this July that the Chautauqua Area Regional Transit System (CARTS) was being re-branded CHQ Transit, and the buses would essentially be shrink wrapped with pretty scenery.

The newspapers had reported way back on March 7, 2022 that CARTS would be rebranded as CHQ Transit with a new logo. Who knows how many tax dollars (county, state, federal) were spent between March 2022 and July 2023 just to give buses a new name.

In the county’s big announcement in July 2023 there was no indication that anything was changing at that time, other than the name. No change in the bus routes. No change in the frequency of service. No expansion of the hours of service. No change to better serve factory or office work schedules. Nothing different.

One can call a CARTS bus CHQ Transit or Chautauqua Luxury Transportation or 21st Century Mass Transit. — but it is still a bus.

There seems to be a trend locally of hiring public relations people or paying consultants to re-brand one thing or another. The County Executive last year got a majority of the County Legislature to give him a public relations person in the County Executive’s office. Somehow for 49 years, since the election of the first County Executive, Joe Gerace, through David Dawson, John Glenzer, Andy Goodell, Mark Thomas, Greg Edwards, Vince Horrigan and George Borrello, Chautauqua County survived with no public relations person on the County payroll at taxpayer expense.

This year saw New York State issue a scathing report on the practices and procedures of the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency (CCIDA). The response by the CCIDA is to add a public relations person to its already large payroll of at least 12 employees.

PR people are expert at “spin”. Wikipedia say this about “spin”: “In public relations and politics, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through knowingly providing a biased interpretation of an event or campaigning to influence public opinion about some organization or public figure.”

County government for 49 years managed to communicate to the taxpayers through the newspapers and radio stations. County department heads, such as the Director of the Office for the Aging, do a great job of communicating with the public. When the Department of Public Facilities needs to close a bridge for repair, the DPF has never needed a PR person to get the word out.

Through the pandemic, the then-head of the county’s Health Department (along with other departments) did such a good job of providing the people of Chautauqua County up-to-date fact-based information on mask wearing and the important vaccinations, that the County Executive fired her. The problem was not that the county could not communicate to the people but that the message should be under the control of the County Executive and a PR person in his office under his control.

Back to buses. Years ago now, the county moved CARTS from the Train Station in downtown Jamestown (restored, in large part by a US Department of Transportation grant to create an “intermodal” transportation hub where CARTS, taxi cabs, and the bus to Buffalo would meet) to an abandoned gas station across from Jamestown City Hall. After renting the abandoned gas station for a while, Chautauqua County bought it for $152,000 on Dec. 23, 2020.

Unbelievably as of October 2023 the abandoned gas station and its peeling paint looks the same as it did years ago and is still without so much as a sign that says “CARTS” or “CHQ Transit.”

If you have a bus station would you not let people know it is a bus station? Instead the sad looking building still says “Tune Up”, “State Inspection” and “Fast Lube.”

One hundred thousand dollars for a PR person in the Executive’s office and who knows how much money to rebrand CARTS as CHQ Transit but no money to put a coat of pain on an abandoned gas station the county has used for years as a hub for bus passengers and put a sign up to show it is a bus station.

A PR person might spin this neglect by claiming the county did not want to waste money on paint or signage in case CARTS changed its name same day.

A responsive county government would have thrown a coat of paint on the CARTS hub and put up signage for CARTS at least three years ago.

This community needs more achievements, not public relations spin.

Fred Larson is a retired Jamestown City Court judge and was Chautauqua County attorney from 1998-2005. He is a candidate for the Chautauqua County Legislature.