Last week's decision by the Niagara Falls City Council to pass a budget that calls for the library to be closed for half the year was a shameful disgrace.
Charles Walker, Babe Rotella, Bob Anderson and Jimmy Stewart, who voted in favor of the closure, lacked the collective spine needed to stand up to Mayor Vince Anello and his lunatic cost-cutting proposal.
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Anello's phony budget is laden with more pork than you'll find at Johnny Cheff's annual sausage picnic, but our limp-wristed Council chose to ravage one of the city's most important public institutions rather than risk the mayor's ire.
They owe each and every resident of this city an apology for their cowardly cave-in.
While Irene Elia's administration was characterized by a delusional, faith-based approach, Anello's has raised political payback and shady, behind-the-scenes dealmaking to an art form. Knowing the city's recent history of one-term mayors, it seems he's bent on grabbing as much as he can for his family and cronies during the four years he's guaranteed.
That the Council would meekly go along -- jettisoning the library in the process -- is yet another embarrassment for a city that has seen more than its share.
I guess it's no big secret that I think of state Sen. George Maziarz as the smartest politician in Niagara County. If he represented Niagara Falls, he'd get my vote every time.
That being said, I do realize that Maziarz can often be devious, and a ruthless opponent. I suppose those are a couple of his admirable qualities. But every time I mention his name in this column, I get mail from people who've been splattered like bugs on the windshield over the course of his long career.
Sometimes I think Maziarz is Polish for Machiavelli.
One of his great tricks is to get lesser politicians to fall on their swords for him, often in a very public and humiliating fashion.
That, I think, is exactly what happened last week, when county Legislators Richard Updegrove of Lockport and Malcolm Needler of North Tonawanda argued that the county should receive a portion of the local share of revenue generated by the Seneca Niagara Casino here in the Falls.
On its face, the proposal is absurd. After all, when the county received $42 million in tobacco settlement money a few years back, how much of it was used to benefit the residents of Niagara Falls?
Zero. Nada. Zilch. That's how much.
Additionally, two proposals -- one submitted by Maziarz and the other by state Sen. Byron Brown and Assemblywoman Francine Del Monte -- are already headed for the state Legislature, and neither plan includes any provision for the Albanian Bureau of Sewage Disposal -- I mean county government -- to get a chunk of the casino cash.
But Maziarz has taken some heat, from Del Monte, Brown and Mayor Vince Anello, for "butting into" Niagara Falls affairs when he doesn't actually represent the city.
Anello, Del Monte and Brown didn't complain when Maziarz set up the meetings between the Senecas and Gov. George Pataki that would eventually result in Indian gaming here, or when he used his seniority in the Senate to ensure that the casino would be located in the Falls rather than Saratoga, the Catskills or any of the other places that wanted it.
But now there's money on the table, everybody wants to get in on the act. They oppose the Maziarz plan, which would give 75 percent of the estimated $12 million local share in 2005 directly to the city and split the remaining 25 percent between the Niagara Falls School District, Memorial Medical Center, Niagara Falls International Airport and the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp.
Which is where Updegrove and Needler come in.
By proposing a ridiculous and hopeless resolution demanding that a cut of the cash be funneled to the county seat in Lockport, they've taken some of the heat off of the senator. Under his plan, at least, all of the casino money would directly benefit the city, and not be used for paving cow paths in Appleton or providing stop signs for Middleport.
I don't know whether Maziarz asked them to do this or whether they just took it upon themselves to help the man who handed them a Republican majority in the 2003 elections. I thought about calling the senator and asking him, but figured he wouldn't tell me anyway.
He is, after all, the smartest politician in Niagara County.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Nov. 23 2004 |