Niagara Falls Is Doomed With Current City Leaders

Yesterday at City Hall, everything that is wrong with city government in Niagara Falls was on full display.  Let me be clear, this rests on both the Mayor and the City Council.  Let's start with the Mayor.  The City Council invited the Mayor to come to their work session at 4pm to discuss the city's fiscal situation.  Specifically, the Council wanted to know what the Mayor will do if the City does not receive casino revenue this year.  The answer given, as reported in the Niagara Gazette, illustrates why Paul Dyster is in over his head.

The Mayor told the Council that he has been given every indication that the arbitration between New York State and the Seneca Nation will be settled by summer.  If this does not come to pass, Dyster indicated that his administration is looking at various scenarios including re-visiting the offer made by the New York Power Authority which was to accelerate payments to the City as a result of the re-licensing agreement.  This is what you call leadership???

I have stated many times that Dyster has not come up with one proposal to reduce City expenditures.  He continues down that path with his "hope and a prayer" that the arbitration is settled and if that fails he is prepared to take money from the Power Authority in a ponzi scheme that ends up short changing the City in the long run.  The Mayor's idea of leadership is to continue to kick the can down the road and hope someone will save him from having to make tough decisions.  With leadership like that the City of Niagara Falls will never create a business climate that will be attractive to developers.  The Mayor and his Administration should be ashamed of themselves.  Maybe when Dyster and his City Administrator go to these conferences they should attend meetings where they can learn about ways to consolidate city services.

The City Council is no better.  In their defense, they really need to take lead from the Mayor in order to deal with the fiscal situation.  But their ham-handed approach in how they have dealt with local volunteer agencies smacks of political retribution which typifies the political environment for the last 50 years in Niagara Falls.  This toxic political environment is as big of a detriment to economic development in this City as the inability to make government more cost effective.

The Gang of 3's rejection of the Oshei Foundation's offer to co-fund the NACC further illustrates that this is all about taking a shot at Dyster.  First, the money that is used to fund the NACC is bed tax money.  This has no impact on city property taxpayers.  Bed tax comes from people who stay at local hotels and motels.  Let me say it again: there is NO impact on city property taxes.  Second, Oshei's offer was to put up $15,000 with the City coming up with $15,000.  This means only using $15,000 of bed tax revenue and keeping the City landmark open.

What is abundantly clear to me is that there are no adults running city government.  On the one hand, you have a Mayor who is hoping that the Easter Bunny will come and leave him chocolate, Easter eggs and casino cash in his Easter Basket.  And on the other hand, you have the Gang of 3 who are the schoolyard bullies that are going to extract whatever they can from their political enemies.  If you wonder why Niagara Falls has not prospered, last night gives you the answer.  Incompetence, lack of courage and political vindictiveness are the plagues destroying the City.  It's time boys and girls in City Hall to put your big boy and girl pants on and do what's right for the people you serve.  Unfortunately, I don't see it happening.

Falls Bond Rating Goes Down & Blame Goes All Around

Last week or so, Moody's announced that the City of Niagara Falls' bond rating was lowered as a result of the casino revenue being withheld because of the stalemate between the State of New York and the Seneca Nation.  The significance of this is that it will cost the City more money if they want to borrow for capital projects.  It's no different than if a person has a bad credit rating: it is going to cost them more in interest if they want to borrow money.

The blame for this situation goes up and down the food chain.  The fact that Governor Cuomo has not had the decency to address this issue publicly is a slap in the face to the residents of Niagara Falls.  His lone visit to the City since becoming Governor was to give a sweetheart deal to Jimmy Glynn.  He never addressed the dire financial situation the City is in and of course none of the "hard-hitting" media in Western New York pushed Cuomo on it.

Then of course we have our local state representatives.  Neither Senator Maziarz or Assemblyman Ceretto has done anything to ratchet up the heat on the Governor to provide relief to the City.  The hair-brained scheme to advance NYPA money was a terrible deal for the City but it appears that it was the best that could be done by these two powers of state government.

Our city government has created this mess by spending casino money like drunken sailors.  Mayor Dyster is clueless.  He has lived off the casino revenue thinking that it was an endless source of revenue.  As a result, he never took measures to actually try to make government more efficient.  Tell me one initiative that Dyster has put forth that would reduce the cost of city government.  I don't think you can find one.

As far as the City Council goes, they are complicit with the Mayor in the fiscal mismanagement of this city.  They have gone along for the ride, holding the Mayor hostage by getting jobs for their friends.  The image that Glenn Choolokian and Sam Fruscione are protecting the taxpayers is bogus.  Particularly when you consider their actions in the formulation of the 2013 budget.  While the Mayor wimped out in dealing with the loss of casino revenue by making hard choices, Fruscione and Company did the same thing by cutting the funding to USA Niagara.  That reduction is simply a one-time fix.  They, like the Mayor, are banking on getting casino money to save them for 2014.  But there is no guarantee that will happen when you have a Governor who is more concerned about being President, 2 state representatives who have absolutely no ability or desire to place enough pressure on the Governor to get something done and a Mayor & City Council who are viewed as being backwater buffoons.

Of the whole group, there are 3 council people who will be running for re-election this fall: Fruscione, Kristen Grandinetti and Charles Walker.  Unless we send a message that we have had enough of the grandstanding and lack of courage to address this issue, we will be facing more of the same ineffective leadership and the City will continue on its downward cycle.