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

Answer: Down a $350,000 rat hole.Question: Where did the money for the “train station re-bid” go? Paul Dyster and George Maziarz walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and shouts, “You sleazy politician, I thought they finally caught up to you, get out! Senator Maziarz, you can stay.” WhatRead More

Happy late February everyone, winter is nearly over and spring , just like Ricky’s, is right around the corner. Been getting lots of positive feedback on our beer batter fish fry. Incredibly our fish fry has already been referred to as the best in town by our customers on socialRead More

And so it begins. As the reality of the city debt and deficit sinks in – combined with the fact that the casino revenue is currently exhausted and dwindling for the coming years – city hall is frantically searching for ways to stem the tide of rapidly rising red ink.Read More

“Volunteers / Interns / Festival                            Director’s Wanted”                                                               Read More

An October, 2015 Design Report/Environmental Assessment document jointly issued by the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) and the New York State Dept. of Transportation (NYSDOT) outlines the steps the two agencies will take to obtain the myriad regulatory approvals necessary to move forward with the construction of twoRead More

Let Your Voice Be Heard! By Kenny Tompkins, Niagara Falls City Council   What can I say about the February 22 council meeting other than “Wow!”? The community turnout for this particular meeting was far and beyond anything I have previously witnessed. This even includes meetings I attended before IRead More

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul A. Dyster had hoped to push through his parking meter installation plan at the February 22 council meeting, but an unusually vocal group of residents pummeled the council and mayor with questions regarding operating costs of the parking plan. As a result the plan was votedRead More

While New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is traveling on a bus tour seeking support for his minimum wage proposal, the facts are coming out and economic experts are labeling a $15 minimum wage “reckless,” “radical” and an “economic canary in the coalmine” with respect to job losses. The NY PostRead More

Drug dealers target seniors The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency [ICE] warns seniors traveling abroad to beware of schemers who might trick them into smuggling drugs into the U.S., reports the Association of Mature American Seniors. The traffickers figure that customs officers are less likely to search baggage belongingRead More

  Niagara Falls – A series of arson fires targeting city-owned garbage totes has become a serious enough concern that both Fire Chief Thomas Colangelo and Police Chief Bryan Dal Porto have asked for the public’s help in identifying the culprits. In the meantime, Colangelo warned, garbage totes should beRead More

Type the words “methadone” and “controversy” into your Google search engine and you’ll quickly come up with more than 213,000 hits that demonstrate that methadone maintenance, as it is commonly called, is not the simple, safe and effective answer to addiction its’ proponents claim. Even though leading health organizations promoteRead More

  Niagara Falls – Assurances by promoters of two proposed methadone clinics here will be beneficial both to recovering heroin addicts and the community as a whole flies in the face of a pair of recent studies that agree that replacing heroin with the even more highly addictive drug methadoneRead More

>BY FRANK PARLATO Frequent readers of Artvoice have seen our long running series The Cult of NXIVM. The series exposes over and over again that behind NXIVM’s so called executive coaching program is a world of lurid sex, powerful money, danger, vengeance and alleged criminality. At the center of itRead More

Aries: (March 21 – April 19): Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.  Muddlement is your word of the week.  Obstacles will seem insurmountable to you this week, and they are. Life on the home front has never been more se-rene since you left.  Your talents asRead More

The Right Side By J Gary DiLaura In January 1985 a massive Ice Jam was caused in the East Upper Niagara River by the Power Authority. A week after the Ice Jam, at a meeting of 500 people in Amherst, the then Army Colonel Hardiman “declared” that the Power AuthorityRead More

In spite of the fact that the ribbon cutting of the Dyster administration train station is but a few months away the transportation facility is still, incredibly, without an operation and maintenance budget. Due to that fact some diehard Dyster administration cheerleaders have taken to promoting a cover story toRead 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