A mayor who has been a disaster from the day he took office in January, 2008, has finally admitted the obvious and came up with what he himself called a “disaster budget” that calls for a whopping 8.3 percent tax increase, dozens of layoffs in various city departments and a moratorium on hiring seasonal and part time workers in the coming year.
Mayor Paul Dyster -- who has managed to find $40 million for his silly train station project, funded Mark Rivers’ completely unsuccessful “Holiday Market” to the tune of nearly a half a million dollars and has lavished $657,000 on the billionaire owners of the Hard Rock Café in order to bring the questionable talents of any number of D-List rock acts to the city – is now crying poor and asking homeowners and businesses here to pick up the tab for his reckless spending.
We hate to say it, but we told you so.
After delaying his announcement of the bad news for more than a month, Dyster stood before the City Council last week and delivered the bad news. A standing-room-only crowd of taxpayers and city employees shook their heads in disbelief as the self-described boy genius said things weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been, were it not for his special brand of leadership.
“I assure the Council that, as unpalatable as some of the measures presented here may seem, the overall package is far better and a less painful product than what we started with in late summer and early fall,” Dyster said.
The mayor was eager to blame others for his own profligate overspending, the dissolute and decadent squandering of taxpayer money on dumb ideas, costly consultants and huge salaries for do-nothing department heads, many of whom do not even live in the city or pay taxes here.
In particular, he blamed the dispute between New York State and the Seneca Nation of Indians that has resulted in the Senecas withholding $60 million in payments to the city for hosting their casino. Dyster has done nothing to address the dispute, and has continued budgeting and spending the casino cash as though the Senecas had any intention whatsoever of paying it.
Dyster’s ongoing disinterest in collecting the money owed to the city has been the subject of numerous articles in the Niagara Falls Reporter. Now Dyster acts as though the problem just cropped up.
“The delay in the delivery of the casino revenues has been a catastrophe,” the mayor muttered.
Dyster has at least one backer on the City Council, his perennial cheerleader and close neighbor Kristen Grandinetti.
“To be honest with you, I’m pleased with the outcome of the budget,” she gushed. “It’s been a long struggle to get this far and, unfortunately, we all have to bear the weight of this problem with the casino.
Other Council members were less sanguine.
“Over $100 million was collected from the casino and they blew every nickel,” said Councilman Glenn Choolokian. “We’re worse off now than we were 10 years ago (when the casino opened).”
Council Chairman Sam Fruscione agreed.
“We’re overtaxed,” he said. “I’m paying as much as I would for a house in Lewiston worth $300,000 on a house worth $100,000 over here. We don’t accept what we see right now, not at all.”
Even Dyster would be hard pressed to name a single accomplishment of City Administrator Donna Owens, the Atlanta, Georgia-based bureaucrat who collects a six-figure salary and lists a tiny flat at the Jefferson Apartments as her primary residence.
Her four years in office have been characterized by a series of comedic pratfalls, a paranoid emphasis on security, and a near total disinterest of the culture and community of the city whose residents pay her salary.
And Dyster seems to have personal ties to almost everyone whose loan and grant applications are approved. For instance, $350,000 to Dyster campaign contributor Craig Avery to open a saloon on Third Street; $13,150 to Dyster campaign contributor Clinton Brown for a study for "historic district" designation on Orchard Parkway, where the mayor himself lives; $131,000 to Brown to prepare an application to the state to turn South Junior High School into condominiums; and $20,000 in grants to Mike Lewis, Dyster's political ally and campaign strategist, for a wellness spa.
Dyster gave Jeannine Brown Miller a contract to do presentations and write reports regarding the city work force. She is a human resources "expert." She is also a sister of the Brown brothers -- Patrick, Steve and Chris -- of Brown Accounting, who have supported the mayor with contributions. And she is sister-in-law of Maria Brown, the city controller.
And Dyster gifted his friends at Li Ro Engineering with a $14,000-a-month construction monitoring contract.
All of these fiscal outrages were covered extensively in the Reporter, repeated warnings that fell on the deaf ears and numb skulls of city voters who will now pay dearly for returning this charlatan to office a year ago.
In all, 20 city employees would be laid off under Dyster’s proposal, and the increase of more than 8 percent in the city’s homestead tax will add $73 a year to the burden of a homeowner whose property has an assessed value of $50,000.
Business owners would see an increase of $1.59 to $32.99 per every $1,000 of assessed value, an increase of about 5 percent. The owners of a mom and pop deli with an assessed value of $100,000 would pay $3,299 in taxes under the Dyster plan.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
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