Will Fruscione Re-enter The Race and Actively Campaign? Reporter Predicts He Will Make a Go of it

Will Fruscione get back in the ring?

Andrew Touma, Kristen Grandinetti, and Charles Walker are running as Democrats for three seats on the Niagara Falls Council. These are Mayor Paul Dyster's allies. They will run against Republicans Vince Sandonato, Russell Vesci and, if he remains in the race, Robert Elder. It will be a seven-way race, if Sam Fruscione, who came in fourth in the Democratic primary, stays in. He is on the ballot on the Conservative and Independence party lines.

After his fourth place finish in the race for three seats in the Democratic Primary Sept. 10, it looked like the end for Councilmember Sam Fruscione.

He has the Conservative and Independence Party lines, but no major party line. Newcomer Andrew Touma and incumbents Charles Walker and Kristen Grandinetti will have the Democratic line in this largely Democratic city.

In the primary, Fruscione came in fourth with 1,338 votes.

Touma was first with 2,171; Walker second with 1,994; and Grandinetti third with 1,721.

However sources familiar with the candidate indicate that, while Fruscione has not announced whether or not he will actively seek reelection, he is not only considering it, but will likely make a run.

Some have linked Fruscione's opposition to the Hamister hotel deal, along with the political influence of Mayor Paul Dyster, and the media pummeling of Fruscione for various reasons, not the least of which was his opposition to the Hamister hotel deal, as causes for his fourth place finish.

But, as facts emerge about the Hamister deal and the additional fact that the general voter is less likely to be overwhelmingly pro-Dyster and his handpicked, hoped-for council members - Walker, Grandinetti and Touma, plus when one considers Democratic primary votes are less than 10 percent of registered voters, one can see where some might think that there is a small light at the end of the tunnel, a valid reason for Fruscione to stay in.

It will give voters the opportunity to choose for themselves whether primary-voting Democrats should alone decide to elect a pro-Dyster council.

If for nothing else, Fruscione owes it to the Conservative and Independence Parties, which endorsed him in good faith, to run.

And if you factor in an entire city, and the fact that Fruscione is the tipping point on the council, with two members in lockstep with the mayor and two who oppose his free-wheeling spending plans, Fruscione’s candidacy is significant.

Will he run?

With only two minor party lines, it is a long shot at best.

But Fruscione has name recognition and a following.

Perhaps the people who vote in November will realize that he was the voice against the Hamister giveaway.

The Niagara Falls Reporter predicts Fruscione will indeed announce, sometime in October, that he will actively seek reelection and that the city needs checks and balances to the spending machine known as the Dyster administration.

Will he win?

That's up to the voters.