Evidence Shows Grandinetti in Dyster's Pocket Despite Early Claims It Would Never Happen

Kristen Grandinetti appears to be a mere shill for Mayor Paul Dyster.

The lady dost protest too much. Back when she was first running for a seat on the Niagara Falls City Council, Kristen Grandinetti told the Niagara Falls Reporter that, despite the fact that she lived on the same block as him, and despite the fact that he had her campaign signs staked down in his front yard, she was not - and would never be - some kind of rubber stamp for Mayor Paul Dyster.

She hardly knew him, she said. Just because you live on the same street as somebody doesn’t mean you’re friends.

She lied, in other words.

In practice, Councilwoman Grandinetti has voted with Dyster nearly 100 percent of the time. She has strongly advocated for his policies and programs outside the council chambers. She has made his enemies her enemies and she and has permitted him to hide behind her skirts as the occasion has called for it.

This “Stand By Your Man” attitude might be considered admirable were Grandinetti and Dyster’s tryst a thing that took place behind closed doors and the objectives they sought to advance the stuff of private business.

But they’re not. Dyster happens to be the mayor and Grandinetti an influential member of the council. And any money they spend together is that of the Niagara Falls taxpayer.

Like Bonnie and Clyde, they have ridden roughshod over the hopes and dreams of the average Niagara Falls voter. Dyster proposed having the block they live on declared a state historic district, and Grandinetti threw the considerable weight of her full concurrence towards the proposal.

She’s no thin slip of a girl.

Are she and Dyster linked romantically? Only time will tell.

Poor Becky Dyster, left at home with the gardening and the housekeeping, withering on the vine as her erstwhile husband sallies forth to do battle against the infidel, with Grandinetti by his side.

But what can one say? Manners common among all of humanity, elemental human decency, would prevent us from going any further.

So what, then, of Grandinetti’s voting record while a member of the Niagara Falls City Council? Does her nearly 100 percent advocacy of the programs and proposals put forth by her friend, neighbor and obvious hero Paul Dyster affect her re-electability, her worth as a human being or her political viability?

Of course it does.

And it doesn’t reflect well.

Shortly after taking office, Grandinetti lodged a formal complaint when former Council Chairman Bob Anderson jokingly ordered a bottle of “dago red” at the Como restaurant, where council members were having dinner. Anderson, a great friend of Dominic Colucci, who runs the place, is Paul Dyster’s nemesis and has quite a reputation as a prankster.

After trying to get Anderson in trouble, Grandinetti got in a bit of trouble herself when it was discovered by this newspaper that she was wrongly collecting city “opt-out” health insurance benefits for a family when, in fact, she was and is a single woman living alone.

The overpayments from the city ran into the thousands of dollars and, despite the fact that she said she never noticed she was being paid twice as much as she was entitled to, some people thought the whole thing smelled kind of fishy.

Following the disclosure in the Niagara Falls Reporter, Grandinetti began paying restitution.

Dyster blamed the city’s Human Resources Department rather than his staunch political ally for the oversight.

Grandinetti is also the head of the movement to crucify Councilman Sam Fruscione for selling T-shirts emblazoned with the likeness of the late Niagara Falls mob boss Stefano Magaddino.

She claims that, as an Italian, she is offended by any reminder of the fact that it was Italians who started the Mafia, also known as La Cosa Nostra, which means “our thing” in Sicilian.

One wonders what the councilwoman’s Italian family was doing during the half century that Magaddino ruled Niagara Falls with an iron fist, whether they acted all offended by his presence or whether they tried to get along with him.

Magaddino, who died peacefully of natural causes in 1974 without ever having being brought to trial, much less convicted of any crime, would probably have been glad to tell us of his relationship to Grandinetti’s family.

He’d have probably said the lady dost protest too much.