Got a chuckle last week out of Mayor Irene Elia's self-congratulatory billboard over by Brian Mohkiber's liquor store on Pine Avenue. On it, the mayor thanks herself for creating 2,200 jobs at the Seneca Niagara Casino.
This would be the same Mayor Elia who was deliberately left out of the loop by state and Seneca officials during the entire negotiation process that led to the casino's opening. The same one who screwed up a $2 million-a-year deal to lease the city's moribund parking ramps to the casino, and tied the former Splash Park property up in litigation for so long that an entire construction season was lost to the Senecas.
The same one who was asked by casino officials to leave the premises.
Well, she's got to take credit for something, I guess, and it sure can't be the excellent condition of the city streets.
If she hadn't fired Paul Colangelo as her campaign manager, he might have told her that it's always better to take credit for things you actually had something to do with. And, in Elia's case, there are plenty of accomplishments to boast about.
Why, without the mayor, we wouldn't have all those metal poles sticking up out of the ground downtown. I don't know how many times I've heard tourists talking about them.
"What are all those metal poles for?" one will ask.
"I don't know," another will reply.
For that and so much more, thank you, Irene. €€€
Those ads run by the "Committee to Clean Up Government" attacking county Legislator Dennis Virtuoso prompted an angry letter from about 20 members of the Block Club Coalition, whose organization has endorsed Virtuoso.
While Virtuoso has yet to endorse a candidate for mayor, the ads refer to a recent promotion and raise he received in the city's inspections department and seem to insinuate he has made some sort of backroom deal with Mayor Elia.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that Virtuoso would get in bed with the mayor -- figuratively speaking, of course -- for the amount of money mentioned in the ad, but the campaign of his opponent, Beth Mazza, hasn't seemed to generate much heat on its own.
That in spite of the fact she has some pretty powerful backing, including Niagara USA Chamber CEO Bobby Newman, state Sen. George Maziarz and county Republican Chairman Henry Wojtaszek.
Also falling into the comedy category was a statement last week by Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority Executive Director Lawrence Meckler on the future of Niagara Falls International Airport.
"We need to pounce on the opportunity to tie the airport to the development of casino gaming and other economic activity that is starting to take hold in Niagara Falls," he told a presumably bemused reporter.
The casino opened nearly nine months ago, was under construction three months before that, and Meckler and every other state official knew it was coming more than two years ago. Exactly when did he discover this need to pounce? And what form will all this pouncing be taking?
He's launching a study, of course. Another study in a long list of about 150 studies that have been undertaken since the NFTA took over control of the facility more than three decades ago.
The study will find that the terminal needs to be expanded, that jetways should be installed so that passengers don't have to walk on the tarmac in the rain, and that a restaurant, or at least a snack bar, should be opened. It will also find that these improvements will cost millions of dollars. If they're really on the ball, it will recommend that somebody be around to unlock the restroom doors when the governor or some other big shot flies in.
These are the same things that all of the previous studies have found, so it's pretty much a no-brainer to predict the new study will find them too.
One thing is for certain. Completing the study and looking for funding to accomplish whatever it recommends virtually guarantee that nothing will happen at the airport for at least another year.
Apparently, that's Meckler's idea of pouncing.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 26 2003 |