I don't mean to be critical, but sometimes I just can't help it.
Returning this week from my beloved Cleveland, I was amazed to read that Mayor Paul Dyster took it into his head to squirrel away $500,000 in order to defend the gaming interests of the Seneca Nation of Indians here, should they be dragged into court following the odious decision of U.S. District Court Judge William Skretny that seems to conclude that gambling is illegal in New York state, even on Indian reservations belonging to tribes that have signed contracts with the government.
That Dyster not only was able to find the money, but was able to convince our gullible, um, great City Council to earmark it for a court action that may never come -- and to do it in the five days I was away -- seems like a major accomplishment.
I mean, the Niagara Falls telephone directory, which you can get free sometimes if you look on your front porch, contains a full 47 pages of listings under the heading of "Lawyers." And yet, after seven months of what he's called a diligent search effort, the mayor has been unable to find a single one who might adequately serve in the vacant position of corporation counsel here.
I like the mayor, I really do. And despite my best efforts, I can find no evidence whatsoever that he's taken any bribes, shown up for work with beer on his breath or is being investigated by any federal, state or local police agency. After four years of the Anello administration, it's been great not having to write about that kind of nonsense.
And I love the Seneca Niagara Casino. Looking at it out my bedroom window is far preferable to looking at the abandoned water park we used to have. I've been there six or eight times since it opened, lost around $25 playing craps or blackjack and dropped a couple hundred on food.
The Redhead and I saw Etta James there recently -- thanks, Vince and Debbie! -- and she was great. Plus, if I have friends coming in from out of town, I can tell them I live right across the street from the only big building in town with lights on it.
But city taxpayers are already getting hosed big-time under the agreement with the state signed by former mayor Irene Elia. And the casino rakes in a half-million every day before lunch. As far as I know, the Senecas haven't asked us to defend them in court, and while perhaps Dyster is motivated purely by altruism and love for his fellow man, the whole deal smells kind of fishy to me.
The mayor said in the paper last week that he was shrouding the whole thing in secrecy to discourage unwanted speculation about what he's actually doing. But I'm speculating.
And I bet you are too.
According to a recent article in the Niagara Falls (Ont.) Review, the fabulously wealthy Ripley's Entertainment Corp. wants to take over the Maid of the Mist tour boat operation when the lease currently held by James Glynn here expires in November 2009.
Tim Parker, manager of the Ripley's attractions in Niagara Falls, Ont., says he's been rebuffed by the Niagara Parks Commission, which has awarded the no-bid contract to Glynn for the past 37 years, and charged that even though the lease agreement is awarded by the government, no one is allowed to see it.
On July 1, the Niagara Falls Reporter ran its own expose of the highly lucrative contract, which is estimated to gross Glynn's Maid of the Mist Corp. upwards of $45 million a year. According to the Review article, the corporation pays the commission a paltry $5.8 million a year in land rental to dock the boats.
"We would have thought that having two options, rather than just one, would benefit the Niagara Parks Commission and tourism in Niagara Falls," Parker said. "There's no reason they shouldn't put it out to (bid), just to see if someone else could offer something that the steamboat company has not offered."
One member of the commission, Bob Gale, has resigned over the furor.
"I want the process to be fair, and it wasn't," he told the Review. "The Ripley's issue was the most unfair I've seen. I started wondering, 'Why am I a commissioner?'"
Parker said he plans to ask the Ontario cabinet to intervene and stop the awarding to the lease to Glynn's company.
Ripley's owns the Believe It or Not museum, the Moving Theater, Louis Tussaud's Waxworks and the Guinness World Records Museum in the Clifton Hill area, along with the Great Wolf Lodge, built at a cost of $130 million, on Victoria Avenue.
"We're always interested in something in the attraction business," he said. "But here we don't even know what the process is."
True to form, no one from Glynn's Maid of the Mist Corp. was willing to comment for the Review story.
The Reporter story discussed the reported frustration of the Seneca Niagara Gaming Corp., which would also like a chance to bid on the lucrative lease. Sources pointed out that, while the entertainment and tourism industries have undergone massive changes in the past 50 years, the Maid of the Mist boats are the same as they were half a century ago.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 22 2008 |