Articles by: Mike Hudson

It may be a coincidence of course but the low traffic side street College Terrace was just repaved this year and Council Chairman Andrew Touma lives on the street. On the other hand main thoroughfares like Portage and Pine are in need of serious repaving. Happily Touma doesn’t live on those streets so the urgency is far less....

Main Street, Portage Road Crumble as Council Chaiman’s Street is Repaved

Community News, Niagara County June 30, 2016 at 6:01 pm

While Portage Road, Main Street and even sections of Pine Avenue look as though they’d been shelled by unfriendly artillery, and city crews working feverishly to erect “ROUGH ROAD” signs to warn motorists of the potentially dangerous driving conditions on these major arteries, residents on little traveled side streets haveRead More

Joe Perry, Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper are the Hollywood Vampires. They’ll be playing at the Seneca Niagara Casino and Resort on Friday, July 9.

The Hollywood Vampires, Cooper, Depp and Perry to Play Seneca Niagara Casino

Niagara County, Niagara Falls June 30, 2016 at 5:54 pm

You take Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, singer Alice Cooper and actor currently in the middle of an outrageously messy divorce Johnny Depp and you’ve got the Hollywood Vampires, a supergroup that’s been playing so sold out audiences here and in Europe for the past year. They’ll be taking the outdoorRead More

Train station nears completion but it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be empty anyway.

Dyster’s Train Station to Nowhere Ready to Open, Where are Tenants?

Niagara Falls June 23, 2016 at 4:47 pm

Earlier this year Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster assured taxpayers in this highly taxed city that his $44 million, 20,000 square foot, International Railway and Intermodal Transportation Center and Underground Railroad Interpretive Center would open in June. Unlike the old train 800 square foot station – which was funded entirelyRead More

The emerald ash borer, currently decimating ash trees in forests in Erie, Niagara and Cattaraugus counties here, has caused more than a billion dollars in damage nationally since it was first discovered in 2002. Thank our friends in China, and the near total lack of regulation over what they import into our country.

Chinese Ash Borer Poses Threat to Forests in Erie, Niagara Counties

Featured June 23, 2016 at 4:41 pm

  While cheap electronics, clothes and other goods come into this country in huge quantities from China every day, the emerald ash borer is the kind of Chinese import we don’t need. The small, metallic-looking green beetle – about the size of a grain of rice – previously unknown inRead More

Hallowed ground? The battlefield at Devil’s Hole State Park is now a parking lot for tourists. No monument exists to commemorate the more than 100 men who died there.

At Devil’s Hole: We Don’t Need No Stinking Historic Preservation!

Niagara Falls June 23, 2016 at 4:35 pm

Ask anyone who’s been there. The Custer Battlefield National Monument is a haunting and sacred place. The breezes blows through the long prairie grass as visitors wander among the scattered small markers placed following the June 25, 1876 fight, each marking the spot where a trooper fell and was buried.Read More

Brent Spiner reprises his role as the crazy Dr. Brakish Okun, premiering at a multiplex theater near you this weekend. Dr. Okun, from the first “Independence Day.” was killed off. But they’ve brought him back, saying he’d spent the past 20 years in a coma.

“Independence Day: Resurgence” May Succeed Without the Critics this Summer

Uncategorized June 23, 2016 at 4:32 pm

For whatever reason, 20th Century Fox has decided to launch its’ entry into the summer blockbuster sweepstakes – “Independence Day: Resurgence” – without screening it for critics in advance and with a mostly online and in-theater promotional campaign that that has been unimpressive, to say the least. That’s usually aRead More

Old Stone Chimney Moved and Dedicated Seems a Little Crooked

Old Stone Chimney Moved and Dedicated Seems a Little Crooked

Niagara Falls June 23, 2016 at 4:21 pm

There was a crooked mayor, And he had a crooked town. It had a crooked chimney and….   Oh, sorry. Just thinking to myself. They moved the Old Stone Chimney from its spot at Porter Park downtown out to LaSalle off the former Robert Moses Parkway, much closer to whereRead More

Bob Dylan played to a sold out audience at Red Rocks Colorado on Father’s Day. Next Thursday, he will play to a sold out audience at Artpark. It will be without question the most important June 30 show to take place on the Niagara Frontier.

Bob Dylan at Artpark?

Community News June 23, 2016 at 1:48 pm

What could you possibly have better to do? Bob Dylan doesn’t have to tour, he doesn’t have to play shows. He’s got nothing to prove. If, at the age of 75, that’s what he chooses to do, and clearly he does, it’s because he loves it. He’ll be at ArtparkRead More

For those who drive, Uber represents a flexible new way to earn money. For passengers, it helps strengthen local economies, improve access to transportation, and make streets safer.

Uber Taking Country By Storm; Everywhere Except For Here!

Niagara Falls April 14, 2016 at 8:40 am

While most people consider New York to be a progressive state, many of the rules and regulations imposed by Albany’s notoriously big government seem downright archaic by 21st Century standards. Take the state’s byzantine laws regarding taxicabs. Passed back when John Montana’s taxi monopoly in Buffalo made him look more likeRead More

Mainstream Media Gets Wise To Smoke And Mirrors Hamister Hotel

Niagara Falls April 14, 2016 at 8:38 am

While some media outlets still cling to the fantasy that do nothing Buffalo developer Mark Hamister will one day build a boxy, truck stop style hotel on one of the choicest pieces of property in the Niagara Falls tourist district, more are coming to the realization the Reporter reached onRead More

Robert Warshaw was hired by Mayor Paul Dyster to oversee policy for the Niagara Falls Police Department. Sources say trouble is brewing over some of his policies.

Sad History Of Warshaw Here Points To High Level Administration Bungling

Niagara Falls April 14, 2016 at 8:30 am

You’ve got to hand it to Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster. He chose a city engineer, Ali Marzban, who was unlicensed to practice engineering anywhere in The United States. And he picked as his preferred hotel developer Mark Hamister, who not only had never built a hotel before but lackedRead More

In Niagara Falls, under Council woman Kristen Grandinetti’s proposed legislation, someone who left an open can of Friskies on the back steps at night would be risking fines and jail time.

Council Tables Grandinetti’s Anti-Cat Amendments To Animal Law

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 8:29 am

This week the Niagara Falls City Council tabled legislation introduced by Council member Kristen Grandinetti that would have tightened regulations for cat owners in the city, and made feeding a stray cat a criminal offense. Grandinetti’s bill seeks to amend Chapter 701 of the Codified City Ordinances, which governs ownershipRead More

Mayor Paul Dyster spent more than $700,000 of public money on a series of Hard Rock concerts. Happily, he got to emcee many of those concerts.

Mayor Dyster Talks For 90 Minutes Says Absolutely Nothing At All

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:45 am

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster is a man of many unique abilities. Just this past Monday, for example, he spoke before the city Council for an hour and a half without saying anything at all. “It really was astounding,” said one awestruck witness. “He just went on and on!” Ostensibly, theRead More

A small mistake - not putting up support beams in the attic led to this Centre Ave. home's collapse. Thankfully the Isaiah 61 students had left the building before the home fell down.

Isaiah 61 Struggles Despite More Than $1 Million In Public Funding

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:43 am

  Although the city, state and various charitable organizations have thrown over $1 million at the Isaiah 61 Project since its’ inception in 2012, little has been accomplished to date. Isaiah 61 is a not for profit which receives local and state funding to rebuild rather than tear down vacantRead More

How curious: When Mayor Paul Dyster campaigned for reelection his motto was "moving forward together' and he used a fast forward button symbol. Now that he has been reelected Dyster suggests that his department heads have been holding him back.

City Hall Morale Plunges As Dyster Misses Own Deadline For Reevaluation

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:39 am

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster suggested last week that employees might perform better with a veritable sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. Despite running on a platform that touted his leadership skills in assembling a team of the “best and the brightest” during last year’s election, once he wasRead More

Writer Ginger Strand penned an entirely different view of Niagara Falls than the elected officials described.

International Journalists Help Us See Ourselves As Others See Us

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:33 am

In our effort to see Niagara Falls as others see it, we’ve examined both the statistical rankings that regularly appear on internet websites devoted to such things and the views of community leaders whose livelihoods largely depend on making people think things are good or at least getting better (SeeRead More

As one can see from the aerial picture, much of downtown Niagara Falls is being utilized for parking. Oddly, parking is in demand for only three months of the year, during the tourist season; the rest of the year, the lots are mostly empty.

See Yourself As Others See You? In Falls, Parking, Crime, Taxes, Health Problematic

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:28 am

Niagara Falls, already Number One in so many categories – is now poised to take the top spot in a competition to see which American city has squandered the most valuable real estate for use as surface parking lots, which often sit empty for large parts of the year. StreetsblogRead More

Gov. Andrew Cuomo [center] promised in 2013 a new Niagara. It was tied in part to the tipping point Hamister hotel which has not been built largely because Cuomo's campaign contributor and developer Mark Hamister [left] does not have the financing to build it.  Hamister has inflated the price of the proposed hotel by 100 percent in order to falsely qualify for more taxpayer funding.
The new Niagara is much like the old Niagara.

Falls Hierarchy At Odds With Outside Assessments Of Falls Sorry Condition

Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:26 am

There are two sides to every story, so they say, and if you want to hear the side that completely goes against the grim portrayals of Niagara Falls that regularly appear in the national media or the statistically based rankings that show the city to be at the top ofRead More

Vacancy and blight and not spin off greet the visitors approaching the Seneca Niagara casino 

What Were They Thinking? Seneca Casino Sucks Life From City

Featured, Niagara Falls March 31, 2016 at 10:54 am

What were they thinking? Back in 2002, when the state of New York, under the leadership of then Gov. George Pataki, handed 50 prime acres of downtown Niagara Falls real estate to the Seneca Nation of Indians to settle the Grand Island land claim and allow the Seneca to openRead More

When the Robert Moses Power Plant opened in 1961, the generation of electricity by private industry in Niagara Falls became a thing of the past. What were they thinking?

Urban Renewal, State Park, Power Project:, What Were They Thinking?

Featured, Niagara Falls March 31, 2016 at 10:53 am

Stupidity and corruption of the part of city officials in Niagara Falls isn’t a recent development. It is a tradition that goes back to even before the founding of this great metropolis, on March 17, 1897. In fact, things started going downhill as early as 1885, with the creation ofRead More

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