By Tony Farina No matter where you look in Niagara Falls, there is a failed or under water investment development plan that has come up empty.  Whether sponsored by the city of Niagara Falls or USA Niagara it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Outside of the Welcome Center developedRead More

By Tony Farina Niagara Falls may not be officially considered one of the seven world wonders but is most commonly listed as an honorary 8th wonder or a natural wonder. Anyone who has seen the mighty falls in person or on film recognize it is truly a wonder of worldsRead More

During a Niagara Falls City Council meeting on September 4th, Tanya Barone stepped up to the podium to speak for the good of the community. Once she announced that she was going to discuss a Freedom of Information Act request that she filed regarding a contract between the City ofRead More

Niagara Falls NY – As the city’s eminent domain legal fight to take 10 acres of private property from Niagara Falls Redevelopment continues, Mayor Robert Restaino has two messages for his dwindling supporters. One, above all, the city needs Centennial Park, the mayor’s boondoggle dream – a $250 million planRead More

Mayor Restaino’s reckless and wanton misuse of our tax dollars seems to know no boundaries. He now wants to renovate the former DPW building in the middle of Hyde Park into an animal shelter. He’s planning on using $4.5 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to pay for thisRead More

By Tony Farina The rock band SoleTurn, featuring the new and re-imagined hits they famously deliver, will be on stage Friday night at Angry Buffalo, 2753 Wehrle Dr., Williamsville, from 7 to 10 p.m., outside if weather permits, inside if not. In addition to their usual menu of crowd-pleasing newRead More

By Tony Farina Very few government-sponsored development projects make good on their promise in Niagara Falls and the latest hope for a successful finish is now fading like many of the others with the state-backed subsidized housing plan at the former South End TeleTech call center site now being challengedRead More

The City of Niagara Falls, NY has been plagued by poor development deals since time immemorial. Mayor Restaino promises to keep that tradition alive by marching our city into the development business and right off a fiscal cliff.  First is his abysmal dream of Centennial Park, which appears to beRead More

On Wednesday night, all five members of the Niagara Falls City Council voted unanimously to revoke the membership of council appointed Niagara Falls Water Board (NFWB) member Michael Asklar due to “numerous complaints” and “dissatisfactory performance,” and to replace him with James S. Dean. Mark Scheer of the Niagara GazetteRead More

By Frank Parlato Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino proposes to build an arena on a property the City doesn’t own. To do so, he must stop Niagara Falls Redevelopment LLC (NFR) from developing a $1.5 billion AI Data Center on its own property with its own money. Restaino wants toRead More

Once again, Mayor Robert Restaino is being accused of racism against Black people in the City of Niagara Falls. For those keeping score – this is the second series of complaints of this nature against the mayor this month. This time, the complaint is coming from members of the NiagaraRead More

By Tony Farina The super-hot rock band SoleTurn is coming off two tremendously successful shows this past weekend and is planning on another big turnout on Saturday (June 29) at 7 at the Hamburg Public House on Lake Erie where they will be performing on the patio stage, weather permitting,Read More

By Tony Farina The exciting and up-and-coming rock band SoleTurn will kick off its summer concert series this Friday, June 21, at the warm and inviting Blueberry Treehouse Café in West Falls beginning at 6 p.m. and then follow that up with a beachside show at the vintage bar Marge’sRead More

Niagara Falls, NY, has the opportunity to have a world-class, state-of-the-art data center with developers ready to go. It will be a huge project. The developers, Niagara Falls Redevelopment and Urbacon, have the money, the skill, and the plans to build a mammoth $1.5 billion digital center with an emphasisRead More

The inaugural Grey Area Film Festival will take place on June 13, 2024, from 6:00PM to 9:00 PM, celebrating the creativity and hard work of Niagara Falls High School students. This event will be held at The Capitol Theatre in Niagara Falls, providing a platform for students to premiere theirRead More

Live entertainment experts such as Christian Printup have voiced their opinions in opposition of Mayor Restaino’s proposed event center in Niagara Falls, NY. One of their key arguments as to whether or not this project is even feasible involves the saturated market for live events in immediate proximity to ourRead More

Two points keep nagging me about Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino’s plan to build an arena on NFR land – land he has gone to court to force the sale through eminent domain. The location for the arena seems to be the mayor’s deliberate plan to favor the Seneca NationRead More

Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino is hell bent on building his Centennial Park, actually not a park but a 7000-seat arena right at the entranceway of Niagara Falls Redevelopment land, on NFR land, and in so doing block NFR’s plan to build a $1.5 billion data center. The Restaino arena,Read More

Niagara Falls, New York is currently at an extraordinary, perhaps historic, crossroads. At the head of the city is Mayor Robert Restaino, who is solely responsible for deciding whether Niagara Falls will move into the future and accommodate the current demand for high tech data centers or let them beRead More

This past Friday, the Niagara Gazette’s investigative journalist Mark Scheer published an editorial entitled “Economists on sports venue public financing: ‘read the fine print’.” Scheer astutely compared expert analyses on the public funding of the new Buffalo Bills stadium with Mayor Robert Restaino’s proposed use of public funding for hisRead More