The Hamister Hotel deal is exactly the sort of fiasco that makes Niagara Falls such a special place. Choose a politically connected “developer” who apparently doesn’t have any money, hand him a parcel of prime real estate for pennies on the dollar, along with tax breaks and other incentives, thenRead More

At the behest of the Niagara Falls City Council, the New York State Legislature created the city Water Board back in 2002. Locally, the primary cheerleader for spinning off the city’s water and wastewater treatment services was Paul Dyster, then a freshman Council member and now mayor of the city.Read More

In addition to calling for the termination of Niagara Falls Water Board Executive Director Paul Drof, city Councilman Ken Tompkins has introduced a resolution with Councilman Ezra Scott asking that all five members of the Water Board by approved by the mayor and the Council, so as to regain cityRead More

  Is the decision by the city’s Underground Railroad Commission to broaden the scope of what was to have been the Underground Railroad interpretive center at the Whirlpool Street train station a tacit admission that Niagara Falls has little if any Underground Railroad history of its own to begin with?Read More

The Castellani Freedom Crossing exhibit at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center and the Underground Railroad interpretive center at the new Whirlpool Street train station won’t just be competing with each other, they’ll be competing with museums all around the country designed to lure tourists interested in former slaves escapingRead More

For Bill Bradberry, history is both an avocation and a passion. A decade ago, he became deeply involved when the Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University undertook its Freedom Crossing exhibit, and when Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster announced the formation of an Underground Railroad Commission to mount an exhibitionRead More

Does the city of Niagara Falls, which already pays an outside agency around $2 million a year to promote tourism, need to create a new governmental position to promote tourism? And does it need the Tourism Advisory Board, a group of well-meaning and politically connected amateurs put together by MayorRead More

The governmental affairs director of the region’s largest business advocacy group, the Niagara USA Chamber, said there is little that can be done legally to prevent the Seneca Nation of Indians from building a tax-free gas station and smoke shop on their downtown Niagara Falls reservation. Kory Schuler told theRead More

You read it here first, folks. Back in 2013, when Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster and Buffalo developer Mark Hamister announced that a resort style luxury hotel would be built on city owned Rainbow Boulevard property, the Niagara Falls Reporter smelled a rat. The plan was vague, Hamister was evasiveRead More

  A bill that would make New York the first state in the nation to ban cat declawing is now being championed by 115 veterinarians from across the state. Veterinary support for the bill is being organized by The Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association (HSVMA) and The Paw Project. “DeclawingRead More

    For Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster, it’s not about the destination but the journey. Which is why, since taking office in January 2008, the city has been subjected to numerous and lengthy forays into the unknowable unknown, for the most part without any measurable result aside from moneyRead More

    Using public money to promote alcohol consumption? Using public money to promote the mayor’s private business? It’s all good in Niagara Falls, where the 10th annual Art of Beer festival last week managed to do both things simultaneously. Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster has gifted the sponsoring organizationRead More

  While lawmakers representing Niagara County may lack the political will to remove the Robert Moses Parkway, the state Senate has recently taken the bull by the horns and moved to change the road’s name. Sen. Rob Ortt introduced a bill to rename the Robert Moses Parkway as the NiagaraRead More

 Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster is known for running one of the most secretive administrations in recent city history. Freedom of Information Law requests need to be filed in order to obtain even the most routine public documents and high priced consultants reports have been put away in drawers andRead More

  What can the people of Niagara Falls do to ensure that the nightmarish implementation of a citywide parking plan by Mayor Paul Dyster’s handpicked contractor, Desman Associates, isn’t simply a repeat of what recently happened when the company did the same thing in Chicago? The Niagara Falls City CouncilRead More

  The owners of Macky’s Essex Street Pub in Buffalo have come up with what would be a revolutionary idea in Niagara Falls. They’re staging an entertainment event and not asking the government for any money to make it happen. Unlike the Hard Rock Café concert series, the Niagara Falls BluesRead More

   There’s one thing about the people who run the poverty industry here in Niagara Falls. Whether they’re taking care of the homeless or battered women, generational welfare recipients who make up the majority of public housing residents or dope fiends seeking a daily fix of methadone, the providers ofRead More

  Resistance is stiffening to a proposed methadone clinic – serving as many as 400 addicts – proposed by the not for profit Northpointe Council in the old school district administration building at Walnut Avenue and Sixth Street. State Rep. John Ceretto, retired City Court judge and state Assembly candidateRead More

   The fabulous resort location on Rainbow Boulevard North here isn’t the only hotel in Western New York that do-nothing developer Mark Hamister hasn’t built, h e’s also failed to build down in Jamestown, where a promised Double Tree Inn has likewise failed to materialize. It was on June 24,Read More

  As with so many other segments of the colorful tapestry that makes up the population of Niagara Falls, at least some of the city’s registered sex offenders appear to be packing up and leaving for greener pastures. According to the reference website city-data.com, there are currently 166 registered sex offendersRead More