The Seneca Niagara Casino stands prominently today as a living monument to government failure.

There was the failure of Niagara Falls city officials to get a significant cut of the casino revenue in the first place and their continuing failure to ensure that money was spent on worthwhile projects or that it was collected.

Then there was the failure of state officials, blinded by the prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars flowing unencumbered annually into Albany ’s coffers, to do anything at all to protect the poor, taxpaying saps of Niagara Falls, known in official documents as the “host community.”

 And there was the failure of the Seneca Nation of Indians and their business arm, the Seneca Gaming Corp., to make even the slightest effort at being good neighbors. Make no mistake, in the eyes of the Seneca’s, the casino isn’t a tourist attraction located in downtown Niagara Falls, it is a major profit center located in the middle of sovereign land.

 Their corporate attitude toward the host city makes even the petrochemical industry’s robber barons who gave this city Love Canal seem benign in comparison. The Seneca’s don’t pay taxes, they don’t adhere to building codes or zoning ordinances, they can’t be sued in court and they act as though the world owes them a living.

If the people of Niagara Falls do not rise to prevent it, in four years, the Seneca and the state of New York may sign another compact. 

How are our local and regional leaders preparing for the coming challenge? In much the same way they “prepared” a decade ago during the negotiations that led to the casino opening, which is to say not at all. 

State Sen. George Maziarz, ex-Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte, Mayor Paul Dyster, Councilman Charles Walker – were on board in 2000 and 2001, when roughly 55,000  benighted residents of what may be the highest taxed municipality in the  United States consumed the mantra of “Trust Albany” like it was Kool-Aid.

We’ve had three governors and two mayors since George Pataki and Irene Elia signed off on the original deal.  The “Trust Albany” theme has undergone a rebirth with two of its adherents being Councilwoman Kristin Grandinetti and, again, Mayor Dyster.

But there are dark rumors swirling around the governor’s mansion that hint that Gov. Andrew Cuomo may be getting ready to sell the Niagara Frontier further down river.

 The state now allows Finger Lakes Gaming and Batavia Downs to call themselves casinos, even though they’ve only got electronic slot machines. Both want a casino license to have table games. There’s one hitch. Gov. Cuomo says he wants to open it up to competition and the nine race tracks in New York would not necessarily get first crack.

Cuomo is said to favor a plan that would see the new, non-native casinos opened downstate, with Western New York reserved for Indian gaming and blacked out to further development. Cuomo is said to believe that such a plan would address what the New York Daily News and other downstate media have characterized as his “Indian problem.”

This would mean, while the rest of the state could have anyone open a casino, from Donald Trump to Steve Wynn, in Niagara Falls only Seneca Indians would be allowed to run them .

If the past is prologue, the people of Niagara Falls have no reason whatsoever to believe their elected leaders will get them a better deal this time around. We’ll be lucky to keep what we have and that is pretty close to nothing.