We here at the Niagara Falls Reporter make it our business to try and analyze the news of the day in ways that might be helpful to our readers, to read the tea leaves -- so to speak -- to try and determine how the actions of the various politicians who run this burg reflect upon their stated philosophies and ambitions.
Last week, Mayor Paul Dyster named Fran Iusi as head of the city's office of business development and head of the NFC Development Corp., which has traditionally been responsible for handing out low-interest loans to friends of whoever happened to be mayor at the time, full in the knowledge that the businesses started with the loans -- mostly bars and pizza joints -- would likely go bankrupt and leave taxpayers here holding the bag.
The position was formerly held by Ralph Aversa, a longtime City Hall fixture who decorated his office with pictures of Don Stefano Magaddino and other top mobsters, though maybe he took them down on the days when the FBI came to question him about corruption and bribery in the administration he so ably served.
Will Iusi be more or less incompetent than Aversa? That is the question.
We've known Fran forever. She's been another player in the revolving-door world of city politics, having first worked for the taxpayers here way back in 1975. We got to know her best during her brief stint on the City Council here earlier in this century.
But it was eight years ago next week, at a party to celebrate the launch of the Niagara Falls Reporter, that Iusi made her most lasting impression on the staff of what has turned out to be one of the most successful new businesses to start up here in the past decade.
We've argued about whether we invited her or whether she just showed up, as the event was held at a semi-public venue on Pine Avenue, but it really doesn't matter. What does matter is the business acumen she displayed to us on the day our first edition hit the streets.
"This is never gonna make it," she said. "The people of Niagara Falls are never gonna go for this."
Happily for us, she was dead wrong. But perhaps unhappily for city taxpayers, she's now been put in charge of determining the potential of other new businesses here.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | June 24 2008 |