A very good friend of mine has a saying, which I’ve made the headline of this column. Although he’s a born and bred Western New Yorker and makes his home here, he’s traveled the world by virtue of his employment and probably spent half his adult life away from here. The gist of the saying: We live in one of the greatest locations in the entire world, but we need to look beyond the obvious. People usually invent things to bash you about, but they’re not always true.

Western New York has a black eye in the entire world because of its weather. Many times, I’ve had people from London contact me to see if we’ve survived a recent snowstorm because they heard about it on the news. Really? We’ve got a lot more to talk about than our weather, but this is the impression at this moment in time. And everyone knows, other than the blizzard of ’77, we’ve never really had anything that most people would think to write about. Try imagining a mudslide that wipes out 70 percent of your total economy, like Nicaragua had a few years ago, or the recent tsunami that flooded Manila in the Philippines. Our snow melted; their dreams got crushed.

Luckily for my friend, he’s not had to worry too much about local government, politics or any of that stuff that makes up daily life for most people tethered to Western New York by virtue of birth or career. He’s free to come and go, and can live virtually anywhere in the entire world, but chooses to live here. And by the way, he’s far from alone. There are many people who choose to live here, including hockey Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman and current Sabres broadcast analyst Harry Neale. They can live anywhere, but choose to live here.

For one reason or another, what we constantly complain about, they find appealing. And people who live here know it’s a myth, but sometimes find themselves perpetuating or repeating that myth.

It’s 2009 and it’s time to start identifying things as they are — not as people say they are. While it’s easy to do in the case of the weather — we can’t change it, but we can start referring to it more akin to what it is rather than what outsiders make it out to be — it’s also true of our government. The people in leadership around here submit press releases and hold press conferences that tend to be skewed towards a fantasy land which doesn’t really exist. It’s time we conduct a frank and open dialog about the state of our economy, leadership, environmental issues, health concerns like cancer rates and all other quality-of-life issues that human decisions can impact.

Hopefully, technology can lend a hand towards this early New Year’s resolution — to speak more truthfully and work more diligently and directed.

We’ve said it before: There is more knowledge about how to run our local government residing in the living rooms of Niagara County than there is inside the fortress of County Hall. A few brave souls — labeled the three-minute crowd — trudge down to county meetings and religiously give their opinions. Thank heaven they do. Any inattention by them and the Legislature would probably eliminate public speaking altogether. But by the reactions of the legislators and staff, such opinions have little or no impact. The comments are usually met with indifference, if not outright disgust. A very palpable “us and them” mentality has existed throughout Niagara County for several years now. The “them” have been the horde of attorneys being hired by the county into part-time jobs, while the “us” has been the public questioning about why are we hiring so many new attorneys.

And let’s face it: Keeping people from talking to each other is an essential task of government in Western New York.

So what to do? When the weather is bashed and it’s plainly not true, and when the economy is horrible because of our lack of leadership but the rhetoric from those in charge is that all is well, where are we to turn?

We turn to those very living rooms and homes throughout Niagara County and all of Western New York. We engage in dialog about issues using real data and we become unafraid to accept things as they are and even more unafraid to change things.

The Internet can connect us, but we are the ultimate solution. Can we set aside past slights and deal with each other civilly and unite behind common goals? I’m sure hoping we can — and will — very soon.

Tom Christy is the founder of FAIR Government, a non-political and non-editorial educational foundation dealing with local government issues. The Web site is www.fair-government.org. He encourages communication and can be reached via e-mail at aim1986@mac.com.