Spotlight on: Local effects of federal service cuts

Yahoo

24-05-2025

Stand Up Lockport will make its public debut Tuesday night with a Niagara County Town Hall at the Kenan Center's Taylor Theater.
The nonpartisan citizens group, formed in response to wide ranging federal spending cuts mandated by the Trump administration, is aiming to raise awareness of the possible local impacts of those cuts, and give a voice to the 'silent majority' of the local electorate.
The town hall is part panel discussion, part Q&A. The panelists and their subject areas are: Michelle Roman, education; Alissa Ellman, veterans' services; Todd Vaarwerk, chief of public policy at WNY Independent Living, social services; and Carla Speranza, local government.
The moderator is Jim Shultz, and the panelists will field general questions from him, specific questions developed by members of Stand Up Lockport, and questions from the audience. The discussion will begin at 6:30 p.m.
Stand Up Lockport started in March with a conversation among five people, according to Shultz. The group has since grown to more than 100 people who have attended one or more meetings and/or joined in a local protest.
Some, like combat veterans Luke Udell and Alissa Ellman, were drawn to Stand Up's centrist orientation. Turned off by the partisan bickering and blaming that permeate social media, they each found relief in face-to-face conversations with people focused on what unites, rather than divides, us.
Udell was tipped off to Stand Up by chance as he rode his bike on Niagara Street one day in March and passed by a protest outside Republican U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney's district office. The retired Army officer stopped to check it out, and although he was skeptical at first, he said, he stayed and talked to enough people to feel 'reassured' it wasn't a partisan thing. When the group gave itself a name and started organizing meetings, he was in.
Udell was, and still is, gravely concerned about funding cuts to the Veterans Administration as well as the overall tenor of the Trump administration.
'Coupled with real threats to services that people deserve, the attacks on our institutions, our democracy, I felt I had to do something,' he said.
In their biweekly meetings, over coffee, members of Stand Up Lockport are discussing kitchen table issues — how family, friends, neighbors and this community may be affected by reductions in veteran benefits, Medicaid, SNAP, education and other aid — and getting updated on the latest developments in Washington, then considering what actions they can take locally.
Ultimately, Udell said, their aim is 'to let our (congressional) representatives know, what's happening is not good.'
For instance, the newly House of Representatives-approved 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' takes an ax to Medicaid funding, and the Congressional Budget Office has warned that more than 7.6 million people nationwide will lose their benefits over the next 10 years. Stand Up Lockport has determined that 54,000 residents of Niagara County — about 25% of the population — are Medicaid recipients.
'So now, every fourth person I see in the grocery store could lose their health insurance. That could be deadly,' Udell said.
Alissa Ellman, a disabled Army veteran who was fired from her job at the VA office in Buffalo under a directive of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), derides the 'waste, fraud and abuse' excuse for gutting federal agencies and cutting services/direct benefits to citizens, and says bluntly that blame for the cuts belongs to the electorate.
'We have to take responsibility: it's our fault (Trump was elected). If this country fails, we failed,' Ellman said.
'The middle, what was called 'the silent majority' in the eighties, needs to speak up now. Our lives, our loves ones' lives, will be greatly affected by what's about to happen,' she said. 'We need to start talking about what we agree on: (protecting access to) Social Security, Medicare, benefits that people earned and deserve.'
Stand Up Lockport gives Ellman a place to focus her energy.
'I am seething,' she acknowledged. 'But instead of posting on Facebook I want to actually do something. I think other people joining (Stand Up) feel the same way.'
Robert Barton said joining Stand Up Lockport was a way 'just to not feel helpless.' His wife Tiffany Barton, who found out about the nascent group, is now leading the 'action / protest' portion of its activities.
'I knew that we were heading into a dark time with this administration, and I'm tired,' she said. 'I can't wait around any more… I have to try to do something.'
Tiffany Barton said Tenney, who's on the record enthusiastically supporting President Trump and his administration, has been invited to the Niagara County Town Hall. She doubts Tenney will attend, though, so her hope is that fellow concerned citizens will, and will get informed enough about the federal cuts and policy changes to address Tenney themselves.