By Councilman Kenny Tompkins This week, for the second time in two months, the Niagara Falls City Council voted NO (3 to 2) to a request to add an elevated position to the city’s Purchasing department. The department’s director, Johnny Destino, has put forth this request twice, citing the need toRead More

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

Speaking of unsightly- since the new garbage plan where the recycle bins are larger than the refuse bins – people all over the city have sought out alleys and abandoned spots to get rid of the trash the city used to pick up. This unsightly mess is in the alleyRead More

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

By Frank Parlato NIAGARA FALLS, NY – A spoils pile – which has signs posted around it warning that it is radioactive — at 915 North Ave. — the past site of a Niagara University bar once known as McQ’s, has been left abandoned and open to public access. TheRead More

On the occasions that Niagara Falls is featured on Good Morning America or Entertainment Tonight, profiled in People magazine or plugged on a travel website like TripAdvisor, the collective public relations apparatus of the city, State Parks and the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corporation (NTCC) usually takes notice. Whether it’sRead More

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

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

  It all seems so long ago that the state and the administration of Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster announced with great fanfare that the Hamister Group based in Buffalo had been selected for a $25.3 million downtown development project at 310 Rainbow Blvd. that would include an upscale hotel,Read More

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

By Jim Ostrowski What better topic to introduce my new column in this paper than Trump’s visit to Buffalo Monday night?  So there I was, in the press pen, literally walled off from the event with no food, no booze, no nothing.  What a glamorous life the media lead.  MostRead More

In our business, people frequently come to us as whistleblowers troubled by what they perceive as official misconduct and yet afraid that if they blow the whistle at work they will be retaliated against. It is necessary for us to protect their identities. This week two such people came toRead More

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

By Matt Ricchiazzi There are two seats up for election on the City of Niagara Falls’ school board, which will be held on May 17th. The full slate of candidates is still in flux, with a crucial filing deadline of April 27. As a body, the school board has immenseRead More

By Gia Arnold The Niagara Falls City School District election will be held on Tuesday, May 17, 2016. Not only will the annual budget be voted on that day, but there are also two [out of a total of nine seats] for the School Board up for re-election. Incumbents Robert RestainoRead More

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

According to informed sources in the Buffalo development community, Mark Hamister is about $6 million short of the mark in financing for his much-hyped $35.7 million Niagara Falls hotel project on Rainbow Blvd. that was trumpeted by state and local officials more than three years ago as the city’s bestRead More

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

As you read this, work on the state’s $50 million upgrade of Niagara Falls State Park, expanding parking, food service and gift shop facilities, is being rushed to completion in anticipation of the estimated eight million tourists who will come to visit Niagara Falls this summer. Meanwhile, the city ofRead More

Former Councilman Michael Gawel says it is time for new leadership at the helm of the Niagara Falls City Republican Executive Committee and he will be challenging current GOP Chairman Vince Sandonato for the top job at the reorganization meeting in September. Gawel, who has been a highly visible figureRead More