Niagara ReporterVince Anello is a former Niagara Falls mayor and a current radio talk show host. He is also, by the nature of his time as mayor and councilman, a consummate student of municipal government. And for that reason he has become persona non grata with the Dyster administration.
On his December 31 show the former mayor explained in a frustrated tone how the current mayor has apparently decided that he’s someone to be ignored. Mr. Anello explained that Mayor Dyster, “continues to take shots at me…I’ve been out of office for eight years now…none of my calls are returned.”
The facts, if not clear to Vince Anello, are clear to us. Anello knows too much and asks too many questions. To quote from the film, Jerry McGuire, he’s “been to the puppet show and seen the strings.” Anello knows budgets, he built roads, he worked with casino money, and he handled his share of personnel challenges while calling the shots at city hall for four years. Vince Anello is an inconvenient political fact of life for city hall.
Perhaps most important of all is that the former mayor left office in 2007 with a budget surplus. A city surplus is something that hasn’t been seen since 2007. And that’s in spite of the fact that Paul Dyster has had close to $100 million casino dollars to support his administration from 2008 to 2015. How is it possible to run a deficit in the face of an annual casino revenue cushion of around $20 million?
Anello has sought information from the Dyster administration in any number of areas including the budget, casino revenue spending, road construction, personnel issues, and the 72nd Street water line drama. And he hasn’t been bashful in filing FOILs in order to learn more about city hall.
Vince Anello has questioned the operation and management of the city administration, and for that he has been labeled a trouble maker. The Reporter knows exactly how the former mayor feels.
Vince Anello has questioned the current administration.
