The most recent project I’ve been involved with was helping select a new operator for Sal Maglie Stadium. Needless to say, I think the City of Niagara Falls has hit a home run with the new group currently making major aesthetic improvements to the ball park – including plans to erect a new scoreboard and playing host to major youth baseball tournaments.

by Jim Ostrowski The older I get, the more I think that politics is a battle of the dictionaries.  Whoever has the best words, wins. The political movement I have been active in for 35 years is the contemporary revival of the movement that is responsible for most of whatRead More

In reading about Council member Kristen Grandinetti’s boneheaded idea about fining or jailing people who are taking humane steps to manage the area’s feral cat population, I couldn’t help but think that it’s too bad we can’t trap, spay and release Grandinetti somewhere other than Niagara Falls.

Airbnb is a website for people to list, find, and rent lodging. Founded in August 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company is privately owned, and in the business of matching vacationers and business travelers with locals who want to rent out a room, apartment or house.

Last fall, the Niagara Falls City Council agreed to sell a landlocked half-acre city owned parcel to Sheraton at the Falls owner NFNY Hotel Management for $190,000. DiCienzo confirmed that the intentions are to add a water park to the hotel that has in recent years developed a T.G.I. Fridays, Rainforest Cafe, a candy store, and a Starbucks Cafe.

Buffalo developer Mark Hamister was given “preferred developer” status on a valuable piece of property on Rainbow Boulevard just a few hundred yards from the state park entrance for two reasons.

While the Hyde Park Boulevard speed limit was lowered recently in front of Gaskill Prep, a middle school, from 35 mph to 25 mph, the speed limit past Hyde Park School, serving children Pre-K through 5th grade, remains at 35 mph.

It was in the Sept. 3, 2013 editions of the Niagara Falls Reporter that I broke the story that one of the top prosecutors in the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office was threatening to bring legal action against the county on her claims that she had been discriminated against inRead 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

  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

The Niagara Falls Reporter received two communications from the Niagara Falls Police Department this week. The first came on Feb. 23. it read: At 10:00 p.m. last night Niagara Falls Police Officers responded to 9 Monteagle Ridge for a reported assault. Upon arriving they found 39 year old Antoine MalloryRead More

   The company at the center of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion” initiative and the stated reason Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster and city Planner Tom DeSantis spent $165,000 of taxpayers’ money on a largely worthless piece of property on Highland Avenue is in serious financial difficulty, and analysts sayRead More

  Freshman City Councilman Kenny Tompkins says his first two months on the job have been something of an education. Coming from a long background in private business, he says the lack of communication between Council members has come as a bit of a surprise. “I’ve been disappointed in aRead More

  Why was parking lot operator John Guido paid $45,000 in public money last July to vacate the Rainbow Boulevard North property he leased from the city so that Buffalo developer Mark Hamister could begin construction of his proposed hotel? While at least five other hotels have been built inRead More

There’s two major differences between the seven point finance plan presented in this column and the finance plan recently offered by the council’s Financial Advisory Panel: The Reporter’s plan is both easily understood and easily implemented. No buzzwords. No double talk. Just straight forward remedies for the city’s sick fiscalRead More

“If it cost $10 million dollars more to run the city than it did eight years ago, then charge me.” With those words, retired school teacher, former city Council member and a member of the Niagara Falls Financial Advisory Panel, Frank Soda advocated for what would be in effect aRead More

  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote the great Spanish philosopher George Santayana. He wasn’t talking specifically about Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster, Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp. CEO John Percy or any of the state parks and other officials who have predicted thatRead More