If you notice a dour look in the eye of your favorite Niagara Gazette reporter, ad sales representative or publisher, don't take it personally. Chalk it up to poor decision-making and godawful planning on the part of those who manage Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., the Alabama-based chain that bought the local daily a dozen years ago.
For the second time this year, the company is requiring all staffers to take an unpaid five-day furlough. If CNHI continues to teeter on the brink of insolvency, two more weeks of what company executives like to call "black time" will be imposed by the end of the year, making a job at the Gazette essentially a part-time position.
The furloughs affect all employees of the 88 daily and 48 weekly newspapers, along with those at various niche publications located around the country.
"It is difficult because by then we are knee-deep in vacations," Bob Grady, editor of The Press-Republican of Plattsburgh, N.Y., told Editor & Publisher. "We will get through it all right. People are giving us their lists of dates for the third quarter. It is tough because that is the preferred vacation season. It is also tough for people who are on the low pay scale."
Mike Casuscelli, publisher of The Record-Eagle in Traverse City, Mich., told the magazine that having a second furlough so soon after the first has sparked more concern.
"It begins to scare people a little bit," he said. "There were questions during the first furlough if that was the only one, and it was then."
The Gazette, of course, failed to report on the unpaid furloughs, though it is a certainty they would have reported on them had they taken place at some other Niagara County business.
The policy of not reporting on itself is nothing new at the Gazette, which also kept quiet when it let the state spend $35,000 on a river stone and wrought iron decorative wall to spruce up its shabby property at the corner of Third and Niagara streets three years ago.
In that case, the benighted daily acted as a cheerleader for the state's Third Street construction program, which it claimed would lead to a flourishing entertainment district along the strip from Niagara to Main.
Instead, the state's plan was a dismal failure that eliminated most on-street parking, which resulted in more nightclubs and restaurants going out of business than have opened.
It is uncertain whether Gazette employees are entitled to collect unemployment during the furloughs, but the paper's management has a long and disgraceful tradition of fighting unemployment claims filed by many of its cashiered former workers.
From the time I met him nearly a decade ago, I knew my friend Henry Wojtaszek was destined for bigger things. He had just been elevated to the position of Niagara County Republican chairman, and his youthful enthusiasm was infectious.
A great family, movie-star good looks, a quick mind and a military bearing picked up during a stint as a Navy JAG officer coalesced into a charismatic whole that made him a natural for public life.
So last week, when he announced he was resigning his position at the prestigious law firm of Harris, Beach & Associates in order to make a run at the state Republican chairmanship, I wasn't surprised.
His success as county chairman has been well documented. Most notably, he was able to engineer the complete takeover by the GOP of the Niagara County Legislature, where the party now enjoys a 14-5 supermajority over the luckless Democrats.
This and other victories -- particularly in the area of fundraising -- endeared him to party leaders in Albany, where he began to appear with increasing regularity.
When state Senate Republicans launched their coup last month to strip President Pro Tem Malcolm Smith and the rest of the Democratic leadership of their positions and perks, Wojtaszek was part of a Western New York contingent that also included Tom Golisano, Sen. George Maziarz and Barack Obama fundraiser Steve Pigeon.
Together, they ousted Smith, leaving state Sen. Antoine Thompson and other Democrats powerless in their wake.
So congratulations, Henry. The hometown crowd will be watching with interest.
I've about had it up to here with these city jail inmates and their cellblock-flooding hijinks. Vince Anello's $47 million Taj Mahal of a criminal justice center on North Main Street has been an ongoing debacle for the past six years, but no sooner do they open the joint than the incarcerated dirtbags in residence figure out how to play the fire extinguishing sprinkler system at will.
Anello and the rest of the wise men who lead our fair city spent so much time arguing about what color brick should be on the building's facade they neglected to look at the mundane sprinkler system. Now, if the problem is not addressed in a big hurry, mould-growing, rust-causing water threatens to undermine the building less than a month after it opened.
And don't look to Mayor Paul Dyster to do anything in a big hurry. After more than 18 months in office, his list of accomplishments remains a blank slate, despite the myriad problems faced by the city he allegedly governs.
But maybe doing nothing would be the appropriate response to this situation. Maybe, when some cretin turns on the sprinkler system, the jail guards should just chuckle and watch.
After a night of cold indoor rain, trying to sleep on soaked mattresses, then eating a sodden breakfast from a tray that floats by, I'd imagine that our more responsible and seasoned inmates would take care of the problem themselves.
There'd be the funeral expenses, of course.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 7 2009 |