OFFICIALS CALL ON STATE, NIAGARA COUNTY D.A. TO INVESTIGATE HOLIDAY MARKET

Niagara Falls Reporter

OFFICIALS CALL ON STATE, NIAGARA COUNTY D.A. TO INVESTIGATE HOLIDAY MARKET
Leaders from across the political spectrum last week called on the state Sales Tax Audit Bureau and the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office to look into what – on the surface – appears to be either one of the most comically maladroit tourist trap schemes in the history of Western civilization or a simple case of fraud on a massive scale. We’re talking, of course, about the Niagara Falls Holiday Market, a hastily constructed shantytown thrown up on Old Falls Street last Thanksgiving by Boise, Idaho, snake oil salesman Mark Rivers. Rivers managed to cajole a total of $481,000 from the city and the state’s USA Niagara Development Corp. to stage the 37-day event here based on the promise of 250,000 people visiting downtown Niagara Falls in the dead of winter to ice skate, buy holiday treats, and listen to concerts. In the end, the Holiday Market drew perhaps a tenth of the number of people Rivers said it would, nobody wanted to ice skate on the substandard rink, and every concert he staged lost money. Rivers had promised some 80 vendors but reality saw less than half that number on any given day, with Rivers himself running as many as seven booths in order to make it look busier than it was. What about the $481,000 in city and state taxpayer money? Gone with the winter wind, lost says Rivers along with a similar amount he invested himself. But developers who have looked at Rivers’ operation say it is doubtful if the whole thing cost any more than $200,000 to stage, leading some to speculate that he didn’t put any of his own money in and left town around a quarter of a million dollars richer than when he came. City Council Chairman Sam Fruscione is demanding answers. In a letter to the state Sales Tax Audit Bureau, he states that simple math. “I am respectfully requesting that your department review the Holiday Market sales tax figures … in order to determine if New York State and the City of Niagara Falls received their fair share of sales tax revenue,” wrote Fruscione, a lifelong Democrat. City Republican Chairman Bob Krause called for a criminal investigation on the part of the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office. “As a concerned taxpayer, I would like to request an investigation on the “Holiday Market” in the city of Niagara Falls New York , held between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day 2011,” Krause wrote. “As reported in the Niagara Falls Reporter in the article, “MORE HOLIDAY MARKET SECRETS REVEALED” in the May 22 2012 edition, there seems to be fraud involved concerning taxpayer funds.” Was criminal intent used to obtain public money for the doomed project? Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster was one of the Holiday Market’s biggest boosters. He originally said the project would generate $30,000 in sales tax, $35,000 to $50,000 in added parking revenue, $3,000 in bed tax, and create 350 part-time jobs. All of those estimates were wildly off the mark. Now, in a recent edition of the Idaho Business Review, Dyster is blaming the people of Niagara Falls for Rivers’ failure. “This is a problem that has existed in Niagara Falls going back decades,” Dyster said. “People just don’t know how to treat out-of-town developers and business people.” Dyster, who himself has antagonized out-of-town developers and business people as well as their local counterparts, also blamed the City Council for not promoting the event because Rivers wasn’t a local operator. But Dyster’s denunciation of Niagara Falls as a desperately poor and desolate place where political infighting and a small-town mentality stand in the way of progress cannot change the fact that Rivers’ festival bombed in every single measurable way, even by Rivers’ own numbers. A few lowlights: --- Despite promising 80 vendors and a quarter-million attendees for the 37-day event, there were 30 vendors, some of whom did not participate in the entire 37-day run. --- Three concerts booked for the event each sold less than 1,000 tickets — including 768 for the Canadian Tenors, 714 for Aaron Neville and 350 for Elisabeth von Trapp. --- A Santa Claus event drew about 1,400 people. --- The Aaron Neville concert allegedly cost $40,000 to stage, and Neville was said to have been paid $25,000 for his performance. Around the same time as the Niagara Falls show, Neville played a 500-seat nightclub in Los Angeles for a $7,500 fee. To make matters worse, Rivers wrote a rubber check to Advanced Production Group LLC, which staged the show, almost leading to cancellation, a company spokesman said. --- The ice skating rink bombed badly. Only about 370 people actually skated on the ice rink Rivers said cost $147,000, bringing in gross receipts of $6,463. A poor showing by any measure. Did Aaron Neville really receive $25,000 to play in front of just 714 ticket buyers? Rivers isn’t saying. Who collected the reported $117,000 in salaries paid by Rivers and his company? Rivers isn’t saying. How much did Rivers clear for himself through his company, BRIX Niagara LLC, which may have been created specifically for the Holiday Market operation? Again, Rivers isn’t saying. The only way to get answers to any of these questions is through the power of subpoena, a power that both the state Sales Tax Audit Bureau and the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office have in spades. It’s about time the people who paid for the debacle known as the Niagara Falls Holiday Market finally found out how bad they got taken.

Leaders from across the political spectrum last week called on the state Sales Tax Audit Bureau and the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office to look into what – on the surface – appears to be either one of the most comically maladroit tourist trap schemes in the history of Western civilization or a simple case of fraud on a massive scale.

We’re talking, of course, about the Niagara Falls Holiday Market, a hastily constructed shantytown thrown up on Old Falls Street last Thanksgiving by Boise, Idaho, snake oil salesman Mark Rivers.

Rivers managed to cajole a total of $481,000 from the city and the state’s USA Niagara Development Corp. to stage the 37-day event here based on the promise of 250,000 people visiting downtown Niagara Falls in the dead of winter to ice skate, buy holiday treats, and listen to concerts.

In the end, the Holiday Market drew perhaps a tenth of the number of people Rivers said it would, nobody wanted to ice skate on the substandard rink, and every concert he staged lost money.

Rivers had promised some 80 vendors but reality saw less than half that number on any given day, with Rivers himself running as many as seven booths in order to make it look busier than it was.

What about the $481,000 in city and state taxpayer money? Gone with the winter wind, lost says Rivers along with a similar amount he invested himself.

But developers who have looked at Rivers’ operation say it is doubtful if the whole thing cost any more than $200,000 to stage, leading some to speculate that he didn’t put any of his own money in and left town around a quarter of a million dollars richer than when he came.

City Council Chairman Sam Fruscione is demanding answers. In a letter to the state Sales Tax Audit Bureau, he states that simple math.

“I am respectfully requesting that your department review the Holiday Market sales tax figures … in order to determine if New York State and the City of Niagara Falls received their fair share of sales tax revenue,” wrote Fruscione, a lifelong Democrat.
City Republican Chairman Bob Krause called for a criminal investigation on the part of the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office.

“As a concerned taxpayer, I would like to request an investigation on the “Holiday Market” in the city of Niagara Falls New York , held between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day 2011,” Krause wrote. “As reported in the Niagara Falls Reporter in the article, “MORE HOLIDAY MARKET SECRETS REVEALED” in the May 22 2012 edition, there seems to be fraud involved concerning taxpayer funds.”

Was criminal intent used to obtain public money for the doomed project?

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster was one of the Holiday Market’s biggest boosters. He originally said the project would generate $30,000 in sales tax, $35,000 to $50,000 in added parking revenue, $3,000 in bed tax, and create 350 part-time jobs. All of those estimates were wildly off the mark.

Now, in a recent edition of the Idaho Business Review, Dyster is blaming the people of Niagara Falls for Rivers’ failure.
“This is a problem that has existed in Niagara Falls going back decades,” Dyster said. “People just don’t know how to treat out-of-town developers and business people.”

Dyster, who himself has antagonized out-of-town developers and business people as well as their local counterparts, also blamed the City Council for not promoting the event because Rivers wasn’t a local operator.

But Dyster’s denunciation of Niagara Falls as a desperately poor and desolate place where political infighting and a small-town mentality stand in the way of progress cannot change the fact that Rivers’ festival bombed in every single measurable way, even by Rivers’ own numbers.

A few lowlights:

--- Despite promising 80 vendors and a quarter-million attendees for the 37-day event, there were 30 vendors, some of whom did not participate in the entire 37-day run.

--- Three concerts booked for the event each sold less than 1,000 tickets — including 768 for the Canadian Tenors, 714 for Aaron Neville and 350 for Elisabeth von Trapp.

--- A Santa Claus event drew about 1,400 people.

--- The Aaron Neville concert allegedly cost $40,000 to stage, and Neville was said to have been paid $25,000 for his performance. Around the same time as the Niagara Falls show, Neville played a 500-seat nightclub in Los Angeles for a $7,500 fee. To make matters worse, Rivers wrote a rubber check to Advanced Production Group LLC, which staged the show, almost leading to cancellation, a company spokesman said.

--- The ice skating rink bombed badly. Only about 370 people actually skated on the ice rink Rivers said cost $147,000, bringing in gross receipts of $6,463. A poor showing by any measure.

Did Aaron Neville really receive $25,000 to play in front of just 714 ticket buyers?

Rivers isn’t saying.

Who collected the reported $117,000 in salaries paid by Rivers and his company?
Rivers isn’t saying.

How much did Rivers clear for himself through his company, BRIX Niagara LLC, which may have been created specifically for the Holiday Market operation?

Again, Rivers isn’t saying.

The only way to get answers to any of these questions is through the power of subpoena, a power that both the state Sales Tax Audit Bureau and the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office have in spades.

It’s about time the people who paid for the debacle known as the Niagara Falls Holiday Market finally found out how bad they got taken.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com June 19 , 2012