by Tony Farina Residents of Niagara Falls who want to learn more about the planned citywide property reassessment should make a point to attend next Tuesday’s (Sept. 6) council meeting at City Hall when officials including Assessor James Bird will brief lawmakers on the reassessment process. Joining Bird inRead More

New York State’s reputation as a socialist paradise that takes care of a multitude of free-loaders from cradle to grave, was recently extended to the great beyond for many of them, thanks to a bill recently signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Last Friday the governor announced that he had givenRead More

BY JAMES HUFNAGEL The State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) of 1978 was in tended to serve as a vehicle for citizen participation and government accountability with regards to decisions impacting the environment. Unfortunately, not only has the Act failed to live up to its original promise for greater democratization ofRead More

Lest anyone think the Niagara Falls Reporter prefers to dwell on the negative, concentrating on the city’s dire circumstances and cornering the local newspaper market on pessimism, try this article from major business network Bloomberg News, which ran a couple of years ago, on for size.   “Niagara Falls’ descentRead More

  For many who live in the City of Niagara Falls, life is a daily struggle. Poverty, crime, substandard housing, lack of educational attainment, drug abuse and teen pregnancy here are across-the-board higher than New York State averages. For example, according to US Census figures, 40.6% of children in Niagara FallsRead More

    Well, the Buffalo Bills have opened camp to prepare for their second season under head coach Rex Ryan.  Could this be the year the Bills end the longest playoff drought in major sports? Of course we won’t really know the answer to that question for some time, probablyRead More

Political operative and former Erie County Democratic Chairman Steve Pigeon faces nine felony counts in a state prosecution involving former State Supreme Court Justice John Michalek who has already pleaded guilty to two felony counts, including taking bribe, and who is expected to be a key witness against Pigeon ifRead More

  The first citywide property reassessment in 14 years is likely to begin in November, says Niagara Falls Assessor James Bird, with the new rates for taxpayers likely to be included with the school tax bill of August, 2018, if all goes according to plan. “A lot of people believeRead More

The big political news this week, of course, was the nomination of New York billionaire Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president at the GOP convention in Cleveland. Prominent among the Trump supporters is Buffalo developer Carl Paladino, front and center in front of the podium at the headRead More

Carrie Cohen was a big-time prosecutor with corruption-fighting U. S. Attorney Preet Bharara in the Southern District of New York and before that, with the State Attorney General’s office.  But she left it all behind a few months ago to return to possibly greener financial pastures in private practice withRead More

Every once in a while in life, we find a perfect match.  It may be a golf club, a pet, a career, or a partner.  There is something that tells us this is it!  This fits me perfectly and I know it, a once in a lifetime match that IRead More

Aries: (March 21 – April 19): Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but no one has to use their eyes to see your stupid. When shoplifting, avoid stealing purple bathing suit. It will reveal unflattering dimple. High appeal to the opposite gender. Fun to be around. Very caring.Read More

Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to Niagara Falls on Tuesday to officially break ground on the long-awaited Hamister hotel project in downtown Niagara Falls and he used the occasion to praise his state development team led locally by Howard Zemsky and Sam Hoyt and paint a rosy picture of the successRead More

  It turns out that nearly everything City Planner Tom DeSantis told the mainstream media last week in connection with a radioactive waste dump on North Avenue was incorrect, and Tuesday he was back peddling in the Niagara Gazette after an investigation by that paper found that the reporting onRead More

As the sultry summer weather settles in, investigations into alleged corrupt activities of the Cuomo administration are also heating up. Independent probes by both Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, delving deeply into the state’s putrescent pay-to-play political culture, have already revealedRead More

Aries: (March 21 – April 19): You may start complaining about second hand smoke the minute you shed the extra 200 pounds. Inform judge before sentencing that anger management classes piss you off royally. AM: Put Ex-lax in the custard doughnuts. Your boss loves these as much as you do.Read More

Despite Big State Spending, Start-Up NY Falling Miles Short on Jobs Almost lost in the unbelievable feeding frenzy over the indictment last week of political operative Steve Pigeon was the news that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s highly-touted job-creation program Start-Up NY has created more tax-free zones than jobs. Empire State Development,Read More

The Right Side J. Gary DiLaura You have got to be kidding me! First let me say this, FBI Director Comey is human, puts his pants on one leg at a time and makes mistakes ( boy does he), the same as you and me. This was absolutely a BONERead More

Aries: (March 21 – April 19): Your heart was a frozen block of ice, scarred by the skate blades of broken relationships, until new lover comes along and like a beautiful Zamboni floods your heart with warmth, scrapes away the ugly slushy bits, and dumps them in the empty parkingRead More

French cement maker Lafarge, which has several Western New York locations including Buffalo and Niagara Falls, entered into deals with armed groups in Syria, including the Islamic State, to protect its business interests in the country, according to the French daily newspaper Le Monde. According to Le Monde in aRead More