back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
Ah yes, there's a new level of trust and communication between the city administration and the council these days, you can feel it in the air. As sure as October turns into November, things are about to get chilly, and if you don't believe me, just read the following memo, sent by City Administrator Al Joseph to all city department heads Sept. 15.
"Effective immediately when you are requested by any city council member to provide information; it is required that your response be routed through the City Administrator, who will then forward it on to the council member. As before, if the request requires extensive manpower to prepare, it must be pre-approved by the City Administrator.
"If council members request a meeting with you and/or your staff, it must be coordinated and approved by the City Administrator in advance.
"Questions from council members that require readily available information or a short verbal response or are routine in nature, are exceptions. Exercise good judgment and keep the City Administrator informed on anything he needs to know about."
Wow. One thing he should probably know about is that a copy of his memo found its way to my desk about an hour after he passed them out over at City Hall. Another thing is that he should never talk about himself in the third person, because it makes him sound like a pompous ass. And still another thing is that Jimmy Galie tried this exact same stunt at budget time once, although it took him until his third year in office to become so desperate.
Then as now, the attempt to monitor and control speech by public employees was widely seen as evidence of a regime that was itself out of control.
He's no Hemingway, but Joseph's brief paragraphs illustrate better than I ever could the fact that "open government" and "cooperation with city council" are meaningless platitudes when mouthed by members of the current administration.
It will be interesting to see how the administration's cheerleaders on council, Tony Quaranto, Fran Iusi and Paul Dyster, react to this one.
Maybe it all has to do with mendacity and duplicity. During the mayor's Aug. 7 "State of the City" speech, broadcast ad nauseum on Adelphia cable for what seemed like weeks afterward, Elia vowed "no tax increase."
Last week, less than two months later, Joseph announced what he said would be a "substantial" tax increase, something in the neighborhood of $4 per $1,000 of assessed value.
The city's financial fortunes did not radically change during those 51 days. Either the mayor was ignorant of the fiscal realities on Aug. 7 or she simply lied. There are no other explanations.
Either way, the result is unconscionable. Tapping beleaguered homeowners for another $250 or $300 a year will serve to drive some more away from the city and some more into the in rem auction. For senior citizens living on fixed incomes, it will mean more bologna sandwich dinners, something a lot of them have far too many of already.
In the meantime, we can expect the city to continue to publicly humiliate those who have fallen behind on their water bills, harass people who can't afford to fix up their property and ratchet up fees for anyone foolish enough to try and get something done here.
That's what we're paying for, isn't it?
It is to our great misfortune that we find ourselves in the first year of what is certain to be another one-term administration. And, as bad as the Palillo and Galie administrations were, they didn't go so badly so soon.