The words posted at entrances to the Niagara Falls Public Safety Building on Hyde Park Boulevard aren't exactly what you'd call welcoming.
Under large white letters spelling out "DANGER,"the following verbiage greets the hundreds of residents, police officers, judges and clerical workers who enter the structure that New York state ordered the city to get rid of years ago:
CONTAINS ASBESTOS FIBERS
AVOID CREATING DUST
CANCER AND LUNG DISEASE HAZARD
Apparently, the signs comprise the totality of City Hall's response to the latest round of citations issued by the state Labor Department's Public Employee Safety and Health Division, which found tiny bits of the cancer-causing material floating in the combination police headquarters/courthouse/city jail.
We say apparently, since dead-duck Mayor Vincenzo V. Anello no longer feels the need to say much of anything to anyone about anything anymore, other than to clog the local airwaves with boasts about how many roads he's paved.
Police and city workers have received no official explanation for the sign.
"Nobody knows what to do,"said a city employee who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Everybody's afraid." Nor has anyone been instructed on how, precisely, one avoids "creating dust."But Citycide recommends tip-toeing at every opportunity, not touching anything ever, stifling the urge to cough or talk loudly and generally keeping as still as humanly possible.
None of those precautionary measures do much good, though, when the building's antiquated heating and air-conditioning system kicks on, circulating asbestos and God knows what else throughout the building.
"This has been going on for years,"the employee said. "There are a lot of people wheezing, your throat closes up. They should close the building and send us someplace else."
No one is really sure exactly what will happen to you if you breathe in asbestos, except that it is decidedly not good. Here are some of the possibilities, according to the National Cancer Institute's Web site (www.cancer.gov):
"Although rare, mesothelioma is the most common form of cancer associated with asbestos exposure,"the Web site reads. "In addition to lung cancer and mesothelioma, some studies have suggested an association between asbestos exposure and gastrointestinal and colorectal cancers, as well as an elevated risk for cancers of the throat, kidney, esophagus, and gallbladder."
But wait! There's more!
"Asbestos exposure may also increase the risk of asbestosis (a chronic lung disease that can cause shortness of breath, coughing, and permanent lung damage) and other nonmalignant lung and pleural disorders, including pleural plaques (changes in the membrane surrounding the lung), pleural thickening, and pleural effusions (abnormal collections of fluid between the thin layers of tissue lining the lung and the wall of the chest cavity). Although pleural plaques are not precursors to lung cancer, evidence suggests that people with pleural disease caused by asbestos exposure may be at increased risk for lung cancer."
PESH got involved yet again after city worker Ernie Bivins -- who had previously been sent into the icy, rushing waters of Cayuga Creek without proper training or equipment, but with a chainsaw he wasn't trained to use -- informed PESH that he was being exposed to asbestos and other workplace hazards in his new assignment, doing maintenance work at the jail.
Former city administrator and Anello campaign manager Dan Bristol fired Bivins for talking to the press after his near-death experience, which had been ordered by Anello flunky and Department of Public Works honcho John Soro.
PESH issued the city a raft of citations over the incident and state attorneys recommended Bivins be reinstated with back pay, along with an order that he not be retaliated against.
So Soro ordered Bivins to go up in a bucket truck with another worker and trim branches near unprotected power lines. In the rain.
After being moved to duties at the jail, Bivins said he was ordered to work near exposed asbestos and clean up blood spilled by inmates with HIV/AIDS, again without any sort of protective gear.
"Forget retribution,"Bivins told the Reporter last month. "They're trying to kill me."
Whether intentional or not, Anello's failure to address the asbestos danger at the public safety building shows a wanton disregard for the health of the scores of police officers and other city employees who report to work there every day, as well as the hundreds of residents who pass through the doors every week. His foot-dragging has exposed Niagara Falls to hundreds of potential lawsuits, a liability that could bankrupt a city already teetering near the constitutional taxing limit.
Then again, it would be hypocritical for him to start caring about city employees and taxpayers now, with barely 10 weeks to go until they change the locks on his office at City Hall.
The warning signs never would have been put up if Anello had not done everything in his power to drag out the process of building a state-ordered courthouse for as long as possible. The original timetable called for the new structure to be finished by mid-2007.
For those who haven't been keeping track, that was more than three months ago, a projected completion date long since forgotten.
Instead of moving forward with the project, Anello first tried to rig the process of selecting a developer in favor of a shadowy company with no track record of building anything, then dug in his heels when he didn't get his way.
Then he became enamored of the concept of turning construction into a mammoth public-works slush fund that he could use to bolster his fading re-election hopes, or at least score a few no-interest, no-payback "loans."
So Anello set out bad-mouthing the selected developer, Ciminelli-Largo, at every turn, and ordering various ethically conflicted attorneys paid by the city to find or make up reasons to keep stalling.
Finally, the City Council, state legislature and Gov. Eliot Spitzer steamrollered his ceaseless objections, creating a local development corporation that removed him from the equation. Appropriately enough, though, construction won't begin until after he leaves office on Dec. 31.
So while Anello relatives and appointees party at City Hall, those unfortunate enough to work at the public safety building will have to step lightly and avoid breathing deeply until long after he's gone.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Oct. 23 2007 |