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Primary Critical to Keeping Check on Dyster Administration

Mayor Dyster

There is a good reason for Niagara Falls Democrats to vote on primary day, Tuesday, Sept. 10th.

The direction the city is likely to take in coming years may be decided in this modest primary where as few as 1,500 votes might secure victory for a candidate.

There are two competing philosophies represented in the primary for three open council seats. Four Democrats are running.

Three candidates hold views that mirror those of Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster.

These are incumbent council members Kristen Grandinetti and Charles Walker and candidate Andrew Touma, who is the cousin of Dyster's campaign manager, Craig Touma.

On the other side, one man stands apart: Sam Fruscione.

Fiscally conservative, Fruscione thinks taxes are too high, and that Dyster, unfettered, would be a tax and spend politician who will raise taxes, and blow through the casino money, while firmly supporting Albany and Buffalo interests over the people of this city, much as he has tried to do during his first four years as mayor.

It was only after the narrowly won election of Glenn Choolokian in 2011 that Fruscione and Robert Anderson formed their council majority to curb Dyster's expenditures.

Last year, the council majority cut Dyster's proposed tax increase from 8.3 percent on every homeowner in the city down to zero.

The council majority serves as a fiscal watchdog on the free-spending Dyster administration.

Now in this upcoming Democratic primary, one of the four candidates who are running - whoever is the low vote getter - will be eliminated. The three who remain will run in the general election in November against three Republican candidates.

In the general election, the three highest vote-getters, regardless of party, will be elected.

Since no politician in any of the executive branches of government from president on down to the mayor of a small city wants checks and balances on his own administration, even if he wants it for everyone else, Dyster's sights are set on Fruscione.

If Dyster can eliminate Fruscione in the primary and elect Touma, Grandinetti and Walker in the general election, Dyster will then have complete control of city government and its purse strings.

So how would the mayor's rubber stamp council impact the city?

In the following stories we will try to address this issue.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter - Publisher Frank Parlato Jr. www.niagarafallsreporter.com

SEP 03, 2013