Water Board Creation Leaves to Wonder What Were They Thinking?
At the behest of the Niagara Falls City Council, the New York State Legislature created the city Water Board back in 2002. Locally, the primary cheerleader for spinning off the city’s water and wastewater treatment services was Paul Dyster, then a freshman Council member and now mayor of the city.
The board consists of five members, one appointed by the governor, one by the state Senate, one by the Assembly and one each appointed by the mayor and the Council.
In other words, Dyster and a majority of Council members, along with then mayor Irene Elia, thought it would be a great idea to give Albany effective control over the delivery of potable drinking water to the residents of Niagara Falls, as well as taking care of sewage treatment.
What were they thinking?
You really had to be there. Elia, Dyster and the rest of the Council were faced with a problem. The mayor was asking for tax increases every year while, at the same time the Council was increasing water and sewer rates.
The thought was that, if an independent board was created not directly under the control of the city government, the local politicians could hardly be blamed for the water and sewer increases. While no official would say this on the record at the time, the reasoning was clear.
Especially for a politically ambitious like Dyster, who first ran for mayor after just one term on the Council, losing to fellow Council member Vince Anello. Dyster didn’t want to be attacked for raising water, sewer and tax rates all at once, and his vociferous support for the creation of the water board is testimony to that.
And how has it worked out for the people of Niagara Falls?
The Water Board charges $20 per month to any property that has the potential of receiving water service but does not, meaning some shell out $240 a year even if not one drop of water runs through their water line. The Water Board collects an average of $150,000 each year on the fee.
Rates have been raised in a majority of the years since the board was created, to the point where an audit released last week by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, board is flush with a $6.3 million surplus that could have been used for construction or to lower water rates. It was used for neither, and questions remain as to whether the Water Board even knew it had the excess funds on hand.
City Councilman Andrew Touma has called for an across the board reduction in water and sewer rates in the wake of the news, and Councilman Ken Tompkins is demanding the resignation of Water Board Executive Director Paul Drof for what he calls gross mismanagement of the money.
Both Touma and Tompkins cited the fiasco on 72ndStreet, in which residents were left without running water for two winters in a row because of a frozen water main that the Water Board refused to shell out $300,000 to repair.
The city, which is essentially broke, is now paying just under $1 million to fix the problem, as Drof and the Water Board still refuse to pay for any part of the repair.
What were they thinking?
