Niagara Reporter-
Gov. Cuomo “State of the State” speech deconstructed
Oblivious to the fact that most have “had it up to here” with his failed policies, and as a dress rehearsal for his run for the White House in a couple of years, Gov. Andrew Cuomo hit the road this week carrying his “Happy Days are here again, the sky above is clear again” message across the state in the guise of a series of State of the State speeches to his faithful followers. Our request for tickets to Cuomo’s event at UB’s North Campus earlier this week surprisingly went unfulfilled, therefore we had to utilize a transcript of his
Memorial Gala to Honor Roscetti, Dr. Chandan
It is a special night. The annual black tie gala sponsored by the Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center’s Foundation will be held Saturday at the Seneca Niagara Casino, and will honor two of the area’s best, a medical professional and a veteran lawyer who have distinguished themselves with their contributions to the hospital and the community. Niagara Falls attorney James Roscetti and family practice physician Dr. Komal Chandan are this year’s honorees at the much-celebrated and much-anticipated soiree known as the The Premier. The Memorial Medical Center’s Foundation selected Roscetti and Dr. Chandan for their respective contributions to the community.
Defendant Walker Elected Chairman; Touma Weighs Future
“Could only happen in Niagara Falls!” That’s what people were saying this week after Councilman Charles Walker – who is still dealing with four misdemeanor charges brought by the state attorney general for allegedly failing to file campaign finance reports – was elected to either his third or fourth two-year term as chairman of the City Council. Walker says he’s not sure how many times he’s been elected chairman, but it is probably fair to say this is the first time he’s been handed the gavel while facing misdemeanor criminal charges, which will likely be settled shortly in some kind
New York State of Health website a boon for software giant Adobe Systems
As part of the implementation of the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly called “Obamacare”, an online insurance exchange was created to enable New York residents to purchase health insurance from private insurers participating in the new internet marketplace. Over 3.3 million New Yorkers purchased health insurance from “New York State of Health” before the December 15 deadline for coverage to begin on Jan 1, 2017, the vast majority using the convenient website to evaluate and choose their plans. The New York State of Health web page has an odd quirk which, while probably escaping the notice of most
It May be Early, But Restaino Clearly Eyeing Mayoral Run
Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster won a third term in 2015, but barely. Dyster, who had been harshly criticized by former Council President Glenn Choolokian on his handling of city finances and the secretive Hamister hotel project among other development broken promises, defeated Choolokian by a mere 64 votes in the Democratic primary and garnered only 49 percent of the vote in the general election, defeating Republican John Accardo who received 39 percent of the vote. But Dyster may not have won a third term without Choolokian’s help, the primary opponent who had been one of
Cuomo, State Parks fight EPA order to close Sewage Cesspools, Endangering Public Health
Finally, something is being done about the stench coming from Albany, and we’re not talking about the recent indictments of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aides. Six years after Cuomo and his NYS Parks commissioner Rose Harvey came into office, 54 large capacity cesspools (LCCs) containing human filth, among 16 New York state parks, with the potential to leach into the water table in violation of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SWDA), are finally slated to be closed, pursuant to a consent judgment rendered in federal court last month. The cesspools are associated with public restrooms located within the parks,
Alan Roscetti Highly Regarded as He Launches Bid for City Court
“The citizens of Niagara Falls would be hard-pressed to find a better candidate for a seat on the City Court bench than Alan Roscetti,” says longtime pharmacist Robert Kendzia when asked about the young man’s plans to run for an expected open seat next year on City Court. We caught up with Kendzia and several other folks at the Bowl-O-Drome on Pine Ave. this week to ask them about Alan J. Roscetti, who is announcing his candidacy for City Court in 2017 to fill the seat of Robert Merino, who will reach the mandatory
New Sign on Parkway shows Cuomo’s Contempt for City, Reporter, Feds
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, through his associates at State Parks and the New York Power Authority, sometime over the past week perpetrated an act of such petty vindictiveness and blatant contempt for Niagara Falls that we thought it appropriate to come up with a special name for his attitude towards us. We decided to call it the “Big Eff U”. The Dec. 8 issue of the Niagara Falls Reporter hit the newsstands and the internet last Thursday morning. It featured an article headlined “Feds to Cuomo: Parkway Signage out of Compliance”. At some point over the succeeding four days, as of
Bills Keep Sinking as Playoff Hopes Disappear Again
There’s not much I can say about the Buffalo Bills that I haven’t said before many times in numerous articles dating back many years, long before the Buffalo sportswriters finally got around to writing the obvious. I’ll sum it up this way: the organization stinks. Throw out the four Super Bowl years in the early 1990s (unfortunately most notable for losing four straight), this franchise under Ralph Wilson and now Terry and Kim Pegula is a disaster. I said when it was announced that Rex Ryan was coming to town that motormouth wasn’t the answer given his .500 career record.
Virtuoso Says GOP’s Last-Minute Raises Out of Line
A last-minute budget amendment giving hefty pay raises to two appointees of the GOP majority of the Niagara County Legislature is coming under heavy fire today from Minority Leader Dennis Virtuoso of Niagara Falls. Virtuoso told the Niagara Falls Reporter that the raises pushed through by the majority in the budget amendment before the full vote on the budget Tuesday night “are out of line,” and did not come before the home committees for discussion as they should have. Democrats, who have only four of the legislature’s 15 votes, were overrun on a straight party line vote on the
Lack of Direction, Wasteful Spending rampant as Niagara Greenway enters 2nd decade
This newspaper first started reporting on the Niagara River Greenway Commission over ten years ago, in a Feb. 1, 2005 article headlined, “PATAKI GREENWAY PROPOSAL STINKS”. Among the problems identified at the outset: When an activist group of Niagara County environmentalists realized that Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper was selling them down the river, so to speak, hustling to reap the hundreds of millions of relicensing dollars up for grabs for the benefit of Buffalo and Erie County waterfront, instead of communities that are actually impacted by the Power Project such as Niagara Falls, Lewiston, Youngstown and the Tuscarora Nation, and started
Dyster publicizes “Warming Centers”, but not in free Reporter
Winter is taking a turn for the worse here in Niagara Falls today and tomorrow, with wind chills in the negative numbers and the temperature plummeting to single digits. At around 7 pm Wednesday, the Buffalo News and the Niagara Gazette both reported on their web sites that Mayor Paul Dyster issued a press release notifying the two newspapers that “warming centers” at three locations in the city were available for shelterless people to come in from the cold. The Niagara Falls Reporter did not receive the press release. “While the city of Niagara Falls has missed out on much of the snowfall