By Tony Farina
It’s time for Niagara Falls voters to elect a council that will be more than just a rubber stamp for the mayor! Mayor Restaino and his administration have been actively campaigning to “vote in his own slate of politically beholden candidates” and is even paying for many of their campaign mailers from his own political coffers!
It is a bad idea, both legally and politically, for a sitting mayor to underwrite or fund campaign mailers! But that is a topic that can be addressed at another time.
Now that Election Day is upon us, it is more important than ever for voters to make their voices heard at the voting booth!
Voters should do their homework and support candidates who they believe will have an independent voice! Voters should reject the kind of government the mayor condones, no-bid contracts (such as the Hyde Park Ice Pavilion deal), hiding behind “special meetings” to keep the public in the dark, and recklessly spending your taxpayer dollars without going through an open bidding process or public review.
Many wanted to believe in Mayor Restaino but, Restaino has delivered nothing but political theater and chaos at City Hall. His administration’s support of a slate of council candidates who will clearly rubber-stamp his agenda and only ensures needless vanity expenditures, secrecy and less accountability will be the order of the day for the City.
If voters don’t want to foot the bill for the Mayor’s (unfunded) vanity projects, they should reject the mayor’s slate of candidates and choose a new direction for Niagara Falls. Voters should say NO to a continuing culture of control and concealment. If residents truly understand what’s at stake, they’ll vote for change — or risk surrendering their voices (and their hard earned money) to a city government whose spending and transparency will go unchecked.
Niagara Falls absolutely deserves a better path forward and its fate is in the voters going to the polls. Now is the time to vote for a better future, not for a rubber-stamp council that will keeps the public in the dark and drag the City into potential insolvency with Restaino’s record of unchecked spending.
The record of this administration is there for all to see. It is not for the weak-hearted or for those who complain but, then do nothing about it to stop the secrecy of the Restaino regime.
Here’s just a taste of that record:
• No accountability for the city’s growing budget pressures;
• No real economic development plan beyond vanity projects and costly legal fights;
• No vision for job creation or public safety reform;
• No transparency, with key meetings kept from public scrutiny through “special meetings”;
• No public trust, as no-bid contracts like the Hyde Park Ice Pavilion deal expose back-room governance;
• No independence if the mayor’s candidates win — ensuring the public remains in the dark.
At the end of the day, it all adds up to a campaign that insults voters’ intelligence by pretending everything is fine. It isn’t and change is urgently needed to build a more inclusive, transparent government.
This election, more than ever, is about the future of Niagara Falls. Voters must stand up and say no to more to Restaino’s political control and yes to transparency, fairness, and opportunity for every single resident in the city.
The message must be clear: the city belongs to its people — not to any one man or political machine.
As many wise men on the street corners will tell you, Niagara Falls needs change. It needs a government led not by one individual’s control but by lawmakers who value the city, respect the people, and want real progress.
It is their hope, and mine, that voters will choose change over more of the same old Restaino political agenda.
