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

      Was city Planner Tom DeSantis’ longstanding desire to build a new train station in the city’s North End driven by any actual need for a new facility or by something else? Is his relationship with Wendel Duchscherer Architects and Engineers merely a professional alliance or something moreRead More

Over the past seven years the Reporter has posed a series of inconvenient questions regarding the funding, construction and operation of the Niagara Falls Intermodal Transportation Center…the train station. Recently the Niagara Gazette wrote a story that the train station is opening in May and has yet to determine itsRead More

Niagara Falls – In a bow to public outrage and basic human decency, the Dyster administration has announced a do-over, and will hold a public auction for a four-unit apartment building at 631 Chilton Ave. The 3,160 square foot building, which has assessed value of $37,261 and comes with itsRead More

It’s enough to make one wonder what happened to the servant part of public servant. Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster last week vetoed a resolution by the city Council that would have ended the gilt edged health care benefits Council members receive for their part time jobs. Dyster said theRead More

Niagara Falls -Keep an eye on the Chemours closing. Chemours plans to close its Niagara Falls plant by the end of this  year, eliminating about 200 jobs at the Buffalo Avenue factory. The Niagara Falls plant makes reactive metals for specialty chemicals industries such as pharmaceutical, pulp and paper andRead More

There was a time when husbands and wives did it frequently. Lovers thought it was incredibly romantic to do over and over again. Sometimes they did it all night long and from city to city. When was the last time you did it? Ride the train, that is. Mayor PaulRead More

    Niagara Falls – It didn’t take long for freshman councilman Kenny Tompkins to get a close up look at Mayor Paul Dyster’s veto pen. And from what we’re told Mr. Tompkins is not pleased at seeing the mayor – with a stroke of his seldom seen veto penRead More

    On June 30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill creating the nation’s first federal park at Yosemite, in northern California. Now Delaware North owner Jeremy Jacobs Sr., who ran concessions in the park from 1993 to 2016, says a trademark he filed makes him the owner ofRead More

 Whether you agree with her or not, you’ve got to give Niagara Falls City Councilwoman Kristen Grandinetti credit. She speaks her mind, lets the chips fall where they may and apparently doesn’t worry about what anyone thinks. Last week, on her Facebook page, the kindergarten teacher posted a picture ofRead More

Niagara Falls – The Underground Railroad Commission has been receiving $350,000 per year in dedicated casino revenue since 2009. At $350,000 per year for seven years that’s a total of $2,450,000. The money is set aside annually out of the casino revenue account to support and promote the Underground RailroadRead More

While great attention has been paid to the condition of the city’s casino revenue account, virtually nothing has been asked, much less revealed, as to how the city is using the interest earned by the many millions of casino revenue dollars that have been received and banked over the years.Read More

What do tree stump removal, police overtime, engineering consultants, penguins, pothole patching and the train station all have in common? They were all supported with casino revenue over recent years. It’s strange, but true, that every one of these things – and a whole lot more – were deemed byRead More

    Niagara Falls – With the city’s new train station and Underground Railroad Heritage Museum ready to open by the end of May, a couple of questions linger. How do you open a history museum when not a single artifact has been acquired or display fabricated? Despite the factRead More

      It was the summer of 2013, almost three years ago, and the city of Niagara Falls was in the midst of a crisis. According to the Buffalo television stations and local newspapers quoting Mayor Paul Dyster, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Sen Kirsten Gillibrand, one man wasRead More