Richard Coates Morgan Lee James Loder Paul Dyster Walter Schertz John McKinney Gerald Tierney If it is any comfort to the people in Niagara Falls, we found one city with the exact same ratio of sex offenders as Niagara Falls the City of Lockport, population in 2013: 20,870. There were 71 registered sex offenders living in Lockport as of March 23, 2015. That means the ratio of residents in Lockport to the number of sex offenders is 287 to 1.

Does Niagara Falls have the highest per capita population of registered sex offenders of any municipality in the state?

It is impossible to say for certain, comparative statistics are unavailable. But it seems highly likely.

Currently, there are 173 registered sex offenders living in the city, a ratio of one for every 287 citizens. In neighboring Wheatfield, there is one for every 8,565 residents, and in Tonawanda it's one for every 5,519 normal people. In Buffalo, there is one dangerous sexual predator for every 417 residents.

When Mayor Paul Dyster first took office in 2008, there were just 82 registered sex offenders living in Niagara Falls. So, while his record on economic development, fiscal responsibility, garbage collection, street maintenance and other traditionally important areas of municipal management may stink on ice, his ability to attract the scum of the earth is fantastic. Under his watch, the population of pedophiles, perverts, rapists and sodomites has grown by an astonishing 111 percent!

Meanwhile, the population of hardworking, taxpaying citizens continues to dwindle. Residents are often so eager to get out they simply abandon the houses they once knew as homes to the elements and those who steal copper pipe.

Officially the city population has declined from 51,567 in 2007, to 49,468 in 2013, the latest year the US Census Bureau has estimated - a drop of 2099 - or an average one person a day every day of the year - since Dyster was first elected mayor - quitting this city, presumably, for good.

But that loss of 2099 people only tells a fraction of the story. As many as - who knows? - 10,000 working people may have fled the increasingly hostile environment since Dyster took office in 2008.

These fleeing folks were partially offset by others moving in - aided by New York State's generous lifetime welfare and Medicaid benefits - and Dyster's support of subsidized housing - programs like those at the Niagara Falls Municipal Housing Authority - where corporate developer-driven projects create hundreds of subsidized apartments more than the city can sustain from its present ration of poor - requiring the Authority to advertise and seek welfare tenants from other areas - such as New Yorkc City,.

Then there was Dyster's celebrated LiveNF program where the city pays college graduates 'students loans if they move here.

That program, after two years, only attracted seven individuals. And reportedly three have split town already - without completing their two year residency requirement.

And then again, many here speculate the administration is deliberately courting the state Parole Board in an effort to attract as many sex offenders and other criminals released on parole in order to turn the problem of declining population around.

The city stands to lose millions in state and federal subsidies should its population remain below 50,000 in the 2020 census, just five short years away.

The problem is that the more sex offenders, parolees and generational welfare recipients the mayor imports, the more publicly subsidized housing he builds and creates, the less likely it is that decent people will want to live here.

Should Dyster's poverty promoting policies prevail, Niagara Falls will be, by the end of his hoped for unprecedented third term, the equivalent of a Third World city,where residents eke out their marginal livings processing the garbage brought in from other, more prosperous, locations - such as the Dyster supported Covanta Niagara expansion plan that will see Niagara Falls accept 500,000 tons of New York City garbage each year by rail - and taking care of individuals nobody else wants to be around, the dregs of society.

The future he envisions is that of a welfare state, run by nannies at City Hall who are paid $100,000 a year salaries, and, for the most part, have never held a real private sector job in their lives. A place where who works and who doesn't is decided by bureaucrats, as is who benefits from the meager development opportunities such a place presents.

The fact that Dyster can even think about running for a third term is astonishing to many here. The fact that, at this point in the race, he's the odds on favorite to win is almost beyond belief.

Maybe he won't even need those 173 votes his registered sex offender constituency would likely be more than happy to provide.