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If she could shoot herself in the foot any more she wouldn't be walking. For some unfathomable reason, Mayor Irene Elia decided to show up at last week's tax foreclosure auction, where she was roundly booed by the standing-room-only crowd.
What could have possessed her? It was her 17 percent tax increase last year that was responsible for the record 350-plus properties going to the block in the first place. Her reassessment, in which numerous properties had their values increased by as much as 100 percent, will guarantee an even larger number at the next auction.
Despite the crowning achievements of her administration, a hot air balloon ride and a yet-to-be-built putt-putt golf course on the West Mall, Elia's popularity has plummeted faster than a suicide at the American Falls. She had to know -- or somebody should have told her -- that a personal appearance at the tax auction was a bad idea.
She should have gone out, had her hair done, lunched at the country club and spent the afternoon working in her lovely garden.
Instead she proceeded to make things worse with her message to the courageous would-be property owners. She was happy to take their money, she said, but the city would be keeping an eye on them and if they didn't fix the places up fast enough to suit her, legal action would be taken to confiscate the properties they had just bought.
How many used cars would Tony Soluri sell if his pitch consisted of a scolding followed by a threat?
And anyway, the biggest slumlord in the city of Niagara Falls is the city of Niagara Falls. Look for a weed-choked yard and an abandoned, rat-infested building in any of the city's poorer neighborhoods and chances are eight out of 10 the city owns it.
There are two ways to interpret the mayor's appearance at the tax auction, and neither of them are kind. Either the monumentally bad judgment was exercised out of total ignorance, or out of a malevolent mental condition that allows Elia to see herself swathed in the robes of a hero, leading her lazy, stupid and largely dishonest flock to some paradise as yet undefined.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 23 2002 |