It's starting to look like there were three successful candidates for the Niagara Falls City Council last month.
Democrats Lewis "Babe" Rotella and Bob Anderson won the two seats formerly held by Chairwoman Fran Iusi and Paul Dyster, guaranteeing mayor-elect Vince Anello a working majority come January.
Anello gets to increase that margin to 4-1 when he appoints a new occupant for his old Council seat on Jan. 1.
Word is that he won't have to look any farther than November's ballot to find his replacement.
James Stewart, who finished a close third behind Anderson, will get the appointment come New Year's Day, when the new mayor and Council hold their annual organizational meeting, several Democratic insiders told Citycide.
"He's a smart guy, he's an honest guy and he's a good party guy," said one. "Vince couldn't have picked a better candidate."
Stewart would join Anello, Anderson and veteran Councilman Charles Walker to give Anello as strong a base of legislative support as any mayor has enjoyed in the city's modern era.
The three newcomers bring a unique mixture to the Council.
All three are new faces in city politics, yet familiar names around Niagara Falls. So while they don't bear blame for the mistakes of the past, they saw the impact of those bad decisions first-hand.
In addition, Stewart lived and worked in China for several years, giving him a broad real-world perspective too often missing from the Council's deliberations.
As for the remaining Council member, Candra Thomason, well ... it's the holiday season, so never mind.
In the interest of full disclosure, scholars in the Ancient History Department here at the Niagara Falls Reporter tell Citycide that Stewart ran against Publisher Bruce Battaglia in the Democratic Primary for a New York State Assembly seat waaaay back in 1978. Joe Pillittere emerged triumphant in a three-way race and went on to win in November and serve the 138th District until his retirement in 1998.
This being Niagara Falls, there has to be one goofy aspect to the process of filling Anello's seat.
According to the deservedly maligned city charter, Stewart or any other appointee would have to run for the final year of Anello's term next November, then run again in 2005 for his own full four-year term.
While there's been no shortage of good ideas on how to spend the city's pending influx of cash from the Seneca Niagara Casino -- not to mention some really lousy ones -- there's one area where some of that money has to be spent.
Before someone gets killed.
For years, the intersection of John B. Daly Boulevard and Falls Street got used slightly more often than the United Office Building. There was little reason for anyone heading toward Niagara Street from the Robert Moses Parkway to turn right onto East Falls Street and absolutely no cause for turning left, unless you were a fan of abandoned water parks.
The only people with any reason for turning off the former Quay Street and onto Falls were downtown workers or residents heading for lunch at Gadawski's, Sunday Mass or a trip to the soup kitchen. And even those destinations, the last three on the once-busy street, are just as easy to get to by way of Portage Road.
But now, an increasing number of regular casinogoers are coming off the parkway and avoiding the traffic lights and turning lanes of Rainbow Boulevard and Niagara Street completely by turning left onto the isolated nub of Falls Street that connects Robert Daly Boulevard to the Seneca Niagara parking lot.
This creates a tremendous hazard from either direction. Drivers heading for downtown from the Robert Moses don't expect the car in front of them to stop abruptly and turn left. Motorists leaving downtown have no reason to anticipate a left turn in front of them from the oncoming lane.
The very nature of Daly Boulevard -- a mini-parkway plunked between two normal city streets for reasons only the brilliant civil engineer who designed it could possibly comprehend -- only compounds the situation. Drivers leaving the Robert Moses treat it like an extension of the parkway, especially if they get the green light at Rainbow Boulevard. Those departing downtown treat it like a runway for their flight to Grand Island and points south. Either way, the real speed limit is more like 50 than 30, making a dangerous situation even worse.
Normally, it takes several years of study and a handful of fatal accidents to get a traffic signal installed. It should take about two minutes for the appropriate authorities to realize something needs to be done. And finding the money shouldn't be any problem.
For anyone who thought the newly created Niagara Falls Water Board was anything more than a bit of creative accounting meant to free elected officials from a politically sensitive responsibility, have fun paying your next water bill.
The board, unfettered by accountability to the public, jacked rates nearly 12 percent last week. If you'll recall, outgoing Mayor Irene Elia pitched the body as an additional layer of government that would somehow keep costs down.
Ho, ho, ho.
The indictment of outgoing Steven A. Gerhart on charges that he misused money meant for prepaid burials while running the Gaul Funeral Home in Lockport ranks as one of the creepier criminal prosecutions in recent memory.
It also raises a question to which Citycide has never gotten a remotely decent answer -- what possible reason could there be for making the job of coroner an elected position?
The job description seems pretty straightforward. Feel for a pulse, then say "he/she is dead," and go home. Were the job a civil service position, it might be filled by someone who actually has some manner of medical background. Better yet, it wouldn't go to someone not completely skeeved out by the idea of campaigning for it.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 16 2003 |