Well, that tears it. Last week Mayor Paul Dyster and the weak-kneed City Council that services him went ahead and committed $44 million to build a new train station in a lonely, isolated corner of one of the city's worst neighborhoods.
For former state Sen. Al Coppola, running for the 60th District Senate seat he won and lost back in 2000 has become almost second nature. After defeating Niagara County Legislator Renae Kimble in a special election held in February of that year, he lost the seat just seven months later to Byron Brown, who went on to become the mayor of Buffalo.
Just as Cayuga Island residents did earlier this year, property owners on Orchard Parkway and Chilton Avenue have overwhelmingly rejected a harebrained scheme cooked up by Mayor Paul Dyster and "City Planner" Tom DeSantis to have their streets designated as a historic district by the city.
The hubby and I attend any number of picnics, parties, reunions and graduations throughout the summer, but none as unique as the Pig Roast and Pepper Contest held at our friends' home in Cambria.
I was shocked, shocked, by the City Council's release of an audit last week that showed Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp. Director John Percy spent scads of our money on food, booze, first-class airfare, massages and various and sundry other luxury goodies while living his jet-set lifestyle over there in India, Germany, England and wherever else he went.
Why would Americans be reflexively skeptical and wary of Islam? We were born a Christian nation. For a thousand years, our ancestors fought a war of civilizations with Islam. In the name of Islam, Muslim fanatics massacred 3,000 of us. In our media, the names commonly associated with Islam are al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
Only six weeks after America Speaking Out was introduced as "an unprecedented initiative to listen to the American people," ASO did not rush out to hold open policy-crafting town hall forums in places like Fargo, Fresno and Freeport. Instead, they held a closed session in the snug confines of House Minority Leader John Boehner's Capitol Hill office.
I have spent the bulk of the last two decades working in tourism here. With nearly 40,000 hours in, I can call myself an expert on the attractions of Niagara and the people who visit them.
Would you like to hear what will be said about you at your funeral? In 1938, in the mountains of Tennessee lived a real-life hermit, who had once been charged with murder, but wasn't convicted. "No Damn Trespassers" read the sign on his property.
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