Dyster's Letter to Top City Employees Touches Off Fear And Paranoia For The Holidays

Mayor Paul Dyster sent a letter to department heads and nonunion city employees seeking their resumes. This has led to speculation that the mayor may be choosing to replace some employees not protected by civil service.

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster sent a chilling letter to all of his department heads and select appointees this Monday and Tuesday thanking the city employees for their service, and advising them that if they want to potentially keep their jobs, to put it a letter of intent along with a resume and give it to his secretary, Nick Melson, no later than December 21.

Excellent sources deep within city hall have told us that the pre-holiday Dyster letter has sent waves of Christmas time paranoia and fear from the halls of city hall to the outlying administration offices across the city.

No one, obviously, wants to head to the unemployment line between Christmas and the New Year.

We understand that the mayor and his secretary are going to be holding meetings from December 21-30 with the council members to review the current list of top city employees before anyone is recommended for termination and replacement. Involving the council in what are clearly personnel matters risks violating the city charter by drawing the council into what is sure to be resulting personnel drama if some top Dyster people are marched out the door.

The Reporter has received a number of calls as to who is alleged to be on the termination and replacement list. It would be highly irresponsible to print names that are linked to nothing more than rumors at this time. But the Reporter does note that the recent Dyster election saw the mayor scrambling to cobble together a coalition of votes. That scramble means that there is the possibility that Dyster has made promises and deals during the election that may result in putting bullseyes on the backs of some of his top people. The very large and ever growing city hall salaries are the very thing that attracted politicos who are in need of employment to the mayoral campaign in the first place. Such is politics.

All of this is rank speculation.

What is fact, is that Mayor Dyster shoes to send a letter to his top employees asking for their resumes.

It has set off anger across the ranks of the department heads and non-union workers as the mood in the building is tense and rife with rumors as to who may be getting removed and who the replacements could be.