Welcome to Niagara Falls, ladies and gentlemen, where the comedy never quits. If a novelist or movie screenwriter made some of this stuff up, you'd say, "Something like that could never happen!"
But it can, and it does. With depressing regularity.
What have we learned this week? That former mayor and current federal indictee Vince Anello got himself a job as the "master electrician" up at the Hope VI housing project, a money pit designed by Housing Authority Director Stephanie Cowart, County Legislator Renae Kimble and former Buffalo Common Council president James Pitts.
The figure hung on the Hope VI project has been upwards of $80 million, but how much upwards no one is prepared to say. Each of the low-to-moderate-income housing units contained in the project will cost more than $200,000, roughly the cost of the most expensive single-family residential property currently listed by realtors in the city.
During the project's planning stages, no mind was paid to the fact that nearly 50 percent of the currently existing rental units here now sit vacant, a fact that would seem to indicate the need for additional housing here is at a historic low.
The site chosen to build the housing, along with additional recreational facilities and other niceties, was also less than optimal, because previously it had been a waste dump where tons of incinerator ash had been buried. The county Health Department and the state DEC shut down construction altogether, and testing of the levels of potentially hazardous waste at the site is continuing.
You'd think that a city that became a national disgrace because of Love Canal would vow never again to let residential development take place on top of a former hazardous waste dump, but you'd be wrong!
When he was mayor, Anello was wildly supportive of the HOPE VI project. So enthusiastic was his support that he earmarked $3 million in city funds to help it along. Then he pledged an additional $2 million.
After that, he failed to come up with 700-odd signatures needed to run for re-election, got indicted by the feds on corruption charges and went to work on the HOPE VI project.
Anello's successor, Mayor Paul Dyster, is equally enthusiastic about the snakebit project. He's given $3 million in city money to it, and he's only been in office for a year!
Think about it. The city's actually given the project $6 million. If the project is completed as planned, which is highly doubtful, it will provide 282 units of housing. In other words, for what the city's already spent on this white elephant, it could have just given each of the 282 prospective tenants upwards of $20,000 and let them find their own housing.
This, of course, doesn't count the $20 million kicked in by the feds thus far, a figure that would allow each prospective tenant a windfall of $92,198. For that kind of money, who wants to live on top of a former waste dump?There are plenty of nice homes in DeVeaux and LaSalle that don't cost as much.
But at least former mayor Anello has a job. Housing Authority Director Stephanie Cowart said she had nothing to do with him getting the job. Believe that if you want.
Meanwhile, over at Francine Del Monte's state park, the fiscal shoe thrown by her pal, Gov. David Paterson, earlier this week finally dropped. The upshot? Parks commissioners were told that "any non-essential items over $500 should not even be submitted to the Albany headquarters for consideration."
Wait a minute, isn't this the same Parks Commission that last week hosted a big town meeting to discuss the reconfiguration of the Robert Moses Parkway, a project expected to cost upwards of $12 million?
Yes, it is. They can't put together five hundred bucks but somehow they're going to come up with $12 million for a project so vaguely defined that few of the people who attended the meeting came away with the slightest idea of what they were talking about.
And for all you fans of Tom DeSantis' Old Customs House train station project, isn't it time that somebody called up Amtrak, which would run the alleged trains to the new facility, and CSX, which owns the long-unused track, bridges and other infrastructure that would need to be drastically updated in order to allow passenger trains to service it?
It turns out that not a single railroad official has been consulted by DeSantis in his planning, which is going to cost the city, state and federal governments $33 million, according to projections made by DeSantis.
For anyone interested, CSX Transportation is a private company that is loath to repair or even paint unused bridges Ñ such as the one that crosses Main Street in the city's North End. Getting them to move an entire train station could take years, or even decades.
DeSantis used the same sort of approach when coming up with his new master plan for the city's downtown. He conceived a downtown hotel district without speaking to a single hotelier or developer, which has resulted in general outrage among those who have to do business in the district because of a daft, 80-foot height restriction he placed on as yet unbuilt buildings he hopes may be built someday.
Note that I refer to DeSantis' "new" master plan. This in order to differentiate it from his two previous master plans, neither of which resulted in anything concrete.
Had lunch with state Sen. George Maziarz at the Goose's Roost out by the airport this week and told him that never, in the 17 years I've lived in New York state, have I heard as much grumbling, complaining and downright anger from the proverbial man on the street as I have since Gov. David Paterson announced his incredible new round of tax hikes.
Those who like regular soda better than diet will be taxed. Those who can't afford the taxes that make a pack of cigarettes cost a ridiculous $7 here will now be pursued onto the Seneca and Tuscarora reservations and taxed there.
And if you download songs onto your iPod, you'll be taxed. And if you get a haircut, you'll be taxed. And if you go see a movie, smoke a cigar and take a taxicab home, you'll be taxed and taxed and taxed again.
This from the governor of a state where taxes are already 70 percent higher than the national average. Where the Medicare system costs more than those of California and Texas combined.
And, in return for all these new taxes, Gov. Paterson is promising even fewer services from the state! Maziarz smiled that sometimes wicked smile of his and looked across the table to Henry Wojtaszek, who the smart money says will be the next state Republican Party chairman. Both of them, it seemed, had thought of all this before.
The governor's mansion will be up for grabs in 2010, they were thinking, and the incumbent Democrat is no longer a viable candidate.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 23 2008 |