Wallenda night: The city hosts its own festival. The Mayor’s favored businesses like Hard Rock make big bucks. This shocking photo (courtesy Gazette) shows policeman assigned to city festival, and it seems the bill sent to Wallenda

Dyster posted four of five pictures atop his Facebook page of Wallenda and him. This one shows Dyster after he gave Wallenda the “key to the city.” The key unfortunately opens nothing.

In a stunning rebuke to Mayor Paul Dyster, the Niagara Falls City Council on Monday night voted 4 to 1 to direct the administration to back off its attempts to collect more than $25,000 from Nik Wallenda for extra security costs on the night of his historic tightrope walk across the falls June 15th.

Chairman Sam Fruscione said the council took its action “because of the extraordinary economic benefit that Wallenda brought to the city with his nationally televised walk that was seen around the world.”

Dyster in recent days had publicly called for Wallenda to pay the city $25,000 for the extra fire and police protection on the night of his walk, saying it was his obligation to cover those costs under the terms of the special legislation that was passed by the state to permit the crossing.

The council resolution that was passed on Monday noted the thousands of people who visited the city to see the walk in person and the millions who watched it on television.

The resolution stated, in part, that Wallenda’s wire walk across the Horseshoe Falls “was a spectacular event that drew national and international attention to the City of Niagara Falls and the entire region.”

And the resolution expressed concern that Wallenda might scrap any plans to locate a “family circus type attraction” in Niagara Falls if he is in conflict with the administration.

In a statement late Monday to the Niagara Falls Reporter, Wallenda said he was grateful for the council’s intervention and that he looks forward to a great relationship with Niagara Falls on both sides of the border.

The only “no” vote on Monday night was cast by Council member Kristen Grandinetti who declined to comment on her decision.
Council member Glenn Choolokian, who had earlier expressed embarrassment at Dyster’s public money grab, said he was pleased that the council overturned the mayor’s shameful bid at squeezing Wallenda after all the good publicity he had brought the city.
The move by the council rebuking the mayor had been anticipated for the last two days and Dyster, who normally attends the council sessions, did not show up.
It was a stinging defeat for Dyster, who has a history of being quick with taxpayers’ bucks when it comes to things like administrative salaries, last year’s Holiday Market tent show, and perhaps his favorite, the Hard Rock summer concert series which the city generously pays for, including $24,000 during 2010 for portable toilets.

But with Wallenda, the mayor was playing penny-pincher with the whole world watching, drawing a line in the sand over the $25,000 he said Wallenda owed Niagara Falls for police and fire costs during the walk that brought Dyster’s city more publicity and more people than any of the events he’s dreamed up as chief executive.

Dyster didn’t dream up the Wallenda crossing but when it came, he was quick to jump into the spotlight in the local media, trumpeting his efforts at pulling off the stunt that was so great for the city even though the reality is he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to go along with probably the biggest attraction the city has ever seen. But all that was lost on the big night as the mayor leaped in front of television cameras to take credit for the moment that was propelling Niagara Falls to worldwide fame.

Now that the dust has settled and the city is on the brink of financial disaster because Dyster has blown through the casino revenues and there are no more in immediate sight because of the gaming dispute between the Seneca Nation and the state, the mayor decided to go after Wallenda, the daredevil who brought an estimated $3.3 million windfall to the cataract city and generated more publicity around the world for Niagara Falls than all of the local and state agencies combined for the last decade.

“My responsibility is to try and collect the debt on behalf of the taxpayers,” Dyster said about the $25,000 he claims Wallenda owes under the special state legislation that was enacted to allow the walk to take place, a position supported by Corporation Counsel Craig Johnson who returned a call placed to the mayor for comment over the weekend.

But an angry Wallenda, in a telephone interview on Saturday from Branson, Mo., where he was performing, said the agreement was with New York State, not the city, and he has paid the $150,000 to the state that was required and he owes the city nothing for extra police and fire costs.

“It is up to the head of [New York] Homeland Security to divvy up that money,” said Wallenda, “it is not up to me. He [Dyster] needs to reach out to Homeland Security and ask about his cut.” Wallenda said the whole thing is “coming out of the blue,” and said the mayor must have an ulterior motive.
As for the event itself, Wallenda’s legal team says Wallenda should not be held responsible for street costs outside the state park where the city held its festival on Old Falls Street. In fact, his attorney, John Bartolomei said the city should pay back the $17,500 gift it received from First Niagara Bank in Wallenda’s name, an unlikely event given the city’s current state.

Dyster was not responsible for bringing the Wallenda event to Niagara Falls. It was originally pitched to Wallenda by Roger Trevino, the executive vice president of Niagara Falls Redevelopment, and the legislation was shepherded through Albany by State Sen. George Maziarz. Neither Trevino nor Maziarz are in Dyster’s political camp and while he didn’t name names, Wallenda said on
Saturday he believes politics may be involved in Dyster’s hard-nosed tactics on the alleged debt.

“I hope the people realize there is something fishy here,” said Wallenda. “It doesn’t make sense. It (the walk) will end up costing me money; don’t know how much yet. If I’d made millions, I wouldn’t even argue, but I didn’t make a penny. And why in the world would you pay a bill if it wasn’t yours.”

Wallenda said he paid $50,000 on the Canadian side to cover security costs and he has continued talking on a regular basis to the mayor of Niagara Falls, Ont., Jim Diodati, who is pushing to have a life-size bronze statue of Wallenda put up for tourists to take pictures, giving the illusion of being on the wire with the daredevil for the historic crossing. And Diodati says his city is treating the Wallenda event as an investment and doesn’t expect full reimbursement on costs. But the situation on the U. S. side is far different.
“I thought everything went great,” said Wallenda of the event which was broadcast live by ABC-TV in prime time and promoted heavily by the network leading up to the breathtaking walk itself. He said he was completely blindsided by the mayor’s public claims that he owes the city money.
“(Dyster) never brought anything up when he gave me a key to the city. He never called said I owed anything. This is nothing but a political game.”
Wallenda says he is most disturbed because he fears people might be getting the impression from Dyster’s public remarks that he’s not paying his bills. “I’ve paid all my bills,” said Wallenda,” and this is definitely a shock. I feel my character has been attacked. He was against it all along. What kind of mayor would be against an event that brings worldwide attention?”

Niagara Falls council member Glenn Choolokian called Dyster’s actions an embarrassment, saying “he blew through $100 million in casino revenues” with little to show for it, “and here is great advertising, all over the world, and everybody was in a good mood. How can you treat a guy that way. We just lost again.”

For the record, the spendthrift mayor who is publicly called out Wallenda, has raised salaries of his department heads from a range of $57,000 - $71,000 to a much higher scale of $85,000-$120,000 for a city of 50,000.

When he recruited Kevin Cottrell, a state park grant specialist, to develop an Underground Railroad exhibit, he increased Cottrell’s salary from $47,500 to $75,000 to oversee the project, a favorite of the mayor’s. Cottrell’s salary has recently been reduced after the Reporter discovered he was working at selling tours from his private company while on the public dime.

As previously reported by this newspaper, the mayor paid a consultant more than $13,000 to have Orchard Parkway the street he lives on to earn a historic designation; spent $225,000 for the Holiday Market which enjoyed marginal success at best, and has fronted money to the Hard Rock to the tune of over $700,000 for a summer concert series, even paying the $24,000 price tag for portable toilets in 2010 before City Controller Maria Brown got hold of the bill and chopped it by $22,800 the next year by using Modern Disposal which already provides waste removal services for the city.

Now, with the city out of casino money and facing severe economic challenges, the mayor was willing to go after Wallenda for $25,000 and risk damaging the city’s public image in the wake of the euphoria over the historic walk that put Niagara Falls and its world wonder in newspapers and on television around the world.

Wallenda has continued to be an ambassador for the city, and says he has been telling audiences in Singapore , India and Africa how Niagara Falls does not really get justice on television and that you must go there to experience the wonder in person.

During his run up to the walk, Wallenda charmed Niagara Falls with his grit, courage, and outgoing manner, and he still harbors warm feelings for the city and for how he was treated by the people. But he says Dyster’s public attacks have given him some second thoughts adding if something like this had happened in Sarasota, Fla. , where he lives, “I would be at City Hall trying to get rid of him [the mayor].”

Wallenda may be relieved tonight that the City Council stopped Dyster in his tracks and maybe put Niagara Falls back on Wallenda’s schedule for future appearances and possibly that circus-type attraction the council referred to in its resolution.