Do as I Say, Not as I Vote!

Dyster, who never met a cut in government spending that he liked, said "with this crazy council majority, the next thing you know they'll be requiring that I purchase cheaper toilet paper."

Mayor Dyster worked very hard to raise our taxes last year.

Fortunately, the council stopped him dead in his tracks. The mayor’s rush to balance his 2013 budget on the backs of homeowners and businesses caused us to race to the archives.

And we discovered that in 2001 then Councilman Dyster -- as a member of that year’s council majority -- supported Mayor Irene Elia as she jacked up taxes a whopping 10 percent! Higher taxes as a first move to balance a budget, it would seem, are a hallmark of politician Dyster.

A deeper look into the archive shows that Councilman Dyster also voted to create USA Niagara, the Niagara Falls Water Board and the NTCC, three money pits that have proven to be costly, inefficient losers that have drained resources from the city for more than a decade.

He was also the prime mover behind the creation of the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center, torpedoing a deal between the school district and Benderson Development in the process, killing jobs and further shrinking the city’s tax base.

Later, Dyster appeared before the council to ask for a “one time” grant to put a new roof on the old high school building and cutting a backroom deal with one influential council member by promising not to run for mayor in 2007. That promise amounted to an outright lie.

And it was former Councilman Dyster who enjoyed four years of free dinners while sitting on the council.
It's worth noting for the record that when Dyster was a council member in the early 2000's, he had no qualms about attending the council dinners on the taxpayer’s dime.

“That’s politics and I can accept it,” said Councilman Fruscione of Dyster's criticism of the council's meal allowance that Fruscione will now cut. "But now, all of a sudden, after 50 years, and a hundred or so dinners himself, he is saying dinner at the Como might be a violation of the open meeting laws? Really, it’s time to stop the nonsense and get back to the business of running the government.”

“The bond debt and the lack of funds to cover the debt are priority one,” said Council Chairman Glenn Choolokian. “We can point fingers and play political games about a couple thousand dollars a year in dinners, but at the end of the day, millions are owed that the city does not have. So what’s the next move, how are we going to keep the city solvent under these conditions?”