It is painful to watch as residents and business owners wrestle with what Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster and City Administrator Donna Owens have done to Niagara Falls with their trash/recycling program.
Angry residents – especially struggling small business owners – have suddenly noticed the Dyster administration is anything but transparent.
Where have they been the last 6.5 years?
Was anyone watching as he built a $46.5 million courthouse house with millions in overruns? Do residents have the slightest clue what went on with that building? Do they realize it carries a finance charge of nearly $3 million per year for 30 years?
The Underground Railroad "Interpretive Center" was scheduled to have opened its doors three years ago, yet it sits shuttered, as a mysterious board of directors handles casino dollars that already – no one knows how much or to whom exactly – has been doled out to consultants.
Dyster is the chairman for the NFC that awards loans and grants for small businesses. The fact that he has granted money to his campaign contributors and political friends to open and operate businesses that are – in a normal business world – sure to fail appears not to concern anyone.
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(Above left) Mayor Paul Dyster enjoys being on stage at publicly funded Hard Rock concerts. (Above right) More than $3 million has been spent on the Underground Railroad Exhibit, yet it still looks like this. (Below) Dyster fired the city engineer, while campaign contributors built what has been called a $22 million courthouse for $45 million, unsupervised. |
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Hamister hotel? The mayor was walking around last November with what he claimed was a finished Hamister contract yet the City Clerk's office lacked a copy (all contracts must be filed with the City Clerk upon completion) and no one thought this suspect.
Consultants you say? Dyster has cut contracts and informal agreements with LiRo Engineering, contract after contract with Wendel Engineering, and all manner of consulting agreements with "experts" for everything from parks inventory, to road design, to train stations to parking studies and everything in between.
With this foul trash agreement – an agreement that smells worse than anything you may set at curbside on garbage day – we have a few people calling for heads to roll.
Where were you from January 1, 2008 up until a few weeks ago when Dyster dumped the garbage deal on us and trashed the taxpayers?
You hadn't noticed the opaque mayor before?
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