There Was Nothing Politically Cricket About Dyster’s Cricket Field

Mayor Paul Dyster pours it on at a taxpayer funded event on Old Falls St.

 

For the past several months Mayor Dyster has traumatized the city with his scheming to build a cricket field. The Reporter has written several articles over this same time period in an attempt to shine a light on the mayor’s behavior.

Now that the initial stage of the cricket field build has been realized we’re not surprised to see that local media outlets have taken the Dyster bait – as they always do – and are praising the cricket field as a much needed recreation alternative for the community. Never mind that the community that paid for the field is the Niagara Falls community and the community that will use the field is the greater Buffalo community.

We want to point out that the Dyster cricket field “incident” is a microcosm of the Dyster administration. The cricket field affair perfectly encapsulates everything that is wrong with the Dyster administration: secrecy, irresponsible spending, political triangulation, and bureaucratic sleight of hand.

While Dyster first brought the notion of a city cricket field to the attention of local little league representatives in May, we now understand that the mayor had been in talks with the cricket representatives long before May. In other words by the time Dyster mentioned it, it was a done deal. That’s typical Dyster with his trash contract of last year being the most egregious example of how, by the time he mentions something in public, it’s already a done deal.

The mayor never mentioned the cost to construct a cricket field. The only time cost was ever mentioned was when councilwoman Grandinetti posted the incredibly slim construction figure of $1,500 on Facebook some weeks ago. We understand that there could be a phase-two and phase-three in the cricket construction plan. In any event the mayor has never discussed the cost to build the field or the cost to maintain the field…just as he has not, to this day, revealed the cost to operate and maintain his train station.

As members of the little league community complained that the mayor was building a cricket field while allowing the city baseball diamonds to fall into disrepair, the mayor essentially stated that anyone not in favor of a cricket field was un-American and hostile to “cultural diversity.” This was more of the same sleight of hand and political triangulation that he had used when residents challenge him on the turning of the YMCA into a homeless shelter. To those who disagreed with him over the YMCA project he testily replied, “I’m a Christian and if the homeless shelter represents the highest use for the building then I support it.”

If the mayor is so acutely sensitive to the American melting pot theory and the need for cultural diversity through the celebration of sports then why hasn’t he built a lacrosse field in the city? Lacrosse is the sport of Native Americans and it’s played in high schools and universities across our nation. 

With the building of the cricket field the mayor increased the city’s commitment to maintenance of park space, and, in doing so, automatically increased the size of the city budget in this regard…all without council approval and all without any of this being in the 2015 city budget. Those who celebrate the happy ribbon-cutting-cricket-field-moment should understand that all of what they witnessed was in complete contrast to how city government was designed to function. 

The Dyster cricket field is an irresponsible expenditure and secret initiative carried out by a cynical city hall in order to curry favor with a select group of sport enthusiasts.