State’s monopoly on Park, failed Economic Development policies to blame By James Hufnagel The city of Niagara Falls suffers from some of the highest rates of taxation and poverty (nearly double the rate of childhood poverty), and from the highest rates of per capita violent and property crime of anyRead More

By Darryl McPherson It was announced on Tuesday that the financial outlook for the City of Niagara Falls was changed from “stable” to “negative” by Standard & Poor’s (S&P), one of the Wall Street credit rating agencies.  Sometimes a government has to sell bonds on the market in order toRead More

Somewhere, somebody, dropped the ball.  Big time. That ball contained the hopes and dreams of local politicians, who believed it held a financial windfall in the form of revenue from casino gaming in New York.  Starting in 2002, that shining orb would bounce in every year, and the community wouldRead More

By James Hufnagel Governor Andrew Cuomo, by loudly and publicly demanding that the July 29 discharge of black, smelly wastewater into the area surrounding the Maid of the Mist dock be promptly and thoroughly investigated by his State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), is engaging in a blatant 180-degree flip-flopRead More

It’s impossible not to notice that during the 23 and 1/2 hours a day when the four score or so daily Amtrak passengers at the new Niagara Falls International Railway Station and Intermodal Transportation Center are not in the process of arriving or departing, the station takes on this empty,Read More

By Nate McMurray Town Supervisor of Grand Island I was in a public park in San Francisco once and I saw a young woman pray to a tree. Yes, a tree. And it wasn’t even a particularly nice tree. She was covered in crystals, she spoke loudly, and made grandRead More

As Niagara County’s Republican-dominated Legislature met Thursday night to pass a series of resolutions seeking multiple criminal probes of the Niagara Falls Water Board in the wake of the sludge-dumping scandal—and with one local law enforcement official confirming that such probes are already underway—one unidentified lawmaker couldn’t resist the urgeRead More

By Candra Thomason As the September 12th Niagara Falls City Council Primary draws near, I would like to remind those that saw my announcement earlier this year and inform those that missed it, that I Candra Thomason am running for Niagara Falls City Council. Now More than ever before theRead More

My name is Lakea Perry and I am a candidate for Niagara Falls City Council. Running for City Council is a task that I do not take lightly. I am so passionate about making our city a thriving city again that I lay my time, energy, experience, and personal reputationRead More

An employee at the Niagara Falls Water Board treatment plant on Buffalo Avenue was doing routine maintenance on a submersible pump in sedimentation basin #5 when he realized that, in order to prevent a catastrophic black water discharge into the Niagara River on a Saturday afternoon during the height ofRead More