Dyster Blows Own Horn In State of City Speech
By Mike Hudson
Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster must’ve been feeling like a giddy bride as he delivered his State of the City speech. He brought something old, something new, something borrowed and he talked until he was blue in the face.
He grabbed credit for the Wallenda wire walk, something NFR Executive Vice President Roger Trevino and State Sen. George Maziarz set up. From day one, Dyster dragged his feet, sniped at the event and ducked meetings with Wallenda and the event planners. His ignorant attitude was supported by some in the media and various wanna-be Olmsted types.
But in his State of the City address, Dyster referred to “Nick Wallenda’s unforgettable walk across the Niagara gorge.” The mayor apparently forgot that he was against it until he was for it, which was moments before it took place. And he didn’t remember that after the walk, he tried hard to shake Wallenda down to the tune of $25,000 for alleged “expenses” incurred by the city for the event, which took place in the State Park.
There is nothing unusual in people taking credit for things they never did, and there is certainly nothing unusual for politicians taking credit for what they wished they had done. But Mayor Dyster’s 2013 State of the City speech surely set records for outright theft.
In the city with a screwed up casino situation that needs unscrewing, Dyster failed to utter a single syllable about what the crisis means to the city. He mentioned no plans as to how he will govern if the casino funds fail to show. How we might pay our bills, for example, or whether or not a control board is just around the corner.
What changes would we like to see, Mr. Mayor, in a new Seneca gaming compact? While a city councilman, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the current dysfunctional accord. Would he like to see the city receive a larger cut of the slot revenue in the next agreement? We will never know, as the mayor stood mute on the topic during his 90-minute address in front of a captive audience.
Likewise, Dyster pushed for an 8.3 percent increase in the 2013 homeowner tax for this year’s budget, crying poor and even suggesting that nothing less than that large increase would keep our chronically corrupt city solvent.
The City Council shot down the ridiculous tax hike with all the “savoir-faire” of five galoots hunting ducks with 20 mm anti-aircraft cannon. So what happened to Dyster’s Chicken Little crisis? We’ll never know, since Dyster failed to say a word about it in his stupefying speech.
And did someone say “fracking?”
Not the mayor.
While the environmental dangers of fracking are debated across the country, Dyster -- our phony “green” mayor --maintained his record of silence on the subject during the State of the City address. He never said a single word on the subject.
The council passed an anti-fracking water treatment resolution in March of 2012 that made national headlines, but the dullard refused to weigh in on the subject at the time.
While everything he hasn’t said and hasn’t done would lead us to believe he is pro-fracking, his continual wrapping himself in a green mantle has many local environmental bumpkins convinced that he actually gives a rat’s ass.
And what the heck is up with Dyster’s man-boy love affair with the youthful Seth Piccirillo? He’s moved him so far and so fast that it has experienced city government professionals and observers alike scratching their collective heads, grey and balding as those heads may be.
In last year’s address, Dyster sprung his new hire, Seth, on the zoned-out crowd. He started the young lad out at $70,000 and the local media greeted the hire with unquestioning adoration. Seth has never lost the momentum that came with this cockamamie introduction, and his small-town celebrity status only increased as Dyster fluffed and fawned over Piccirillo’s preposterous program that will pay students to live in this dump of a city while they pay off their college loans.
At the 2013 State of the City, Piccirillo was the only “talking department head” included in the Dyster video presentation. In the actual speech, Piccirillo was mentioned and his programs were highlighted time and again.
Looking back on the presentation and reading the actual speech, it’s embarrassing. Is Dyster merely letting his feminine side take over? And is Seth, pliant, willing and ambitious, simply laying down in front of the steamroller of political expediency?
In any event, young Seth Piccirillo - rolled out at the 2012 State of the City and promoted through the roof in the 2013 State of the City - is now seen as the Buffalo interest’s hand-picked future mayor of Niagara Falls.
While the mayor may know the art of beer – and whiskey and vodka and schnapps – he is ignorant to the art of brevity. He went on and on. He said little, and his hopes, thinning more rapidly than his hair, of ever being elected to some office higher than that of mayor of Niagara Falls dwindle and one day will die.
Because all the Jimmy Glynn’s of this world don’t have enough money to cover up and protect Dyster’s disastrous mediocrity. He was a novelty in Niagara Falls because he passed himself off as an intellectual, when in reality his second rate, Dollar Store mind proved itself again and again backstage at the Hard Rock concert series, where he pounded shots with broken down musicians as though credibility could be bought with the taxpayer’s dime.
A child of privilege, Dyster has governed like a spoiled brat just aching to be something he is not: a man.
It’s a lucky thing his father happened to make a lot of money. Because once his current reign of error has ended, our esteemed mayor will be essentially unemployable. His sad decline, taking place before our very eyes, is a pitiful thing to watch, and our hearts go out to his poor wife and family.