A couple of hundred people showed up at City Hall last week to protest Mayor Irene Elia's public safety cuts, the beginning of a grassroots movement that will see Elia unseated come next November.
Over the past three years, Elia has managed to alienate nearly every sector of the city's populace with an administration characterized by lawsuits, flagrant disregard for the city's residency requirements and massive private sector job losses.
Top Republican sources say Vince Anello's their man next year, meaning that Elia won't even have the backing of her own party.
Many of her strongest supporters in 1999 now concede her election has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.
County Legislator Sam Granieri's still in the hunt, as is former city administrator and current county Human Services Director Anthony Restaino and school Superintendent Carmen Granto. For Granieri, the $30,000 mayor's salary would be a step up from the $18,000 he makes as a Legislator, while Restaino would be taking a major pay cut. Anello has positioned himself to be able to get along on the pittance and Granto could use the stipend to tip waitresses.
The Election Day failure of the City Charter and its mayoral pay hike makes a Restaino candidacy less likely, but Granto said recently that no dollar figure would be adequate compensation for the ultimately thankless job.
"If you're doing something like this for the money, you shouldn't be doing it," he said. "It's about public service."
Elia's plan to cut 11 positions in the fire department, 13 in the police department and 15 in the water and sewer departments is guaranteed to touch off a firestorm from the city unions that will make the firefighters' campaign against former mayor James Galie several years ago look like kids' stuff.
Union officials have contacted the Reporter concerning anti-Elia advertising during the coming year.
During the 1999 campaign, the firefighters spent tens of thousands of dollars on newspaper advertising designed to unseat Galie, and the former mayor now believes the campaign was the single largest factor in his primary election loss to John Accardo.
But Elia's draconian budget cuts dwarf anything put forth by Galie, and the reaction of the unions will likely be proportionate.
The cuts were proposed earlier this year by the anti-union Buffalo Niagara Partnership, a business group with close ties to the administration. Prominent Partnership members here include Niagara USA Chamber CEO Robert Newman and Niagara Gazette Publisher Steve Braver.
Joining the union members to protest the cuts are the city's block clubs, which represent more than 18,000 city residents. Block Club President Roger Spurback and former president Cheryl Wagner managed to get 20,000 signatures on petitions opposing the cuts in less than a week.
Police Chief Christopher Carlin has also been a vocal critic of Elia's plan.
"The only reason any government exists is to provide safety and security for its people," Spurback told the Reporter.
Both the city workers and the block club members are particularly incensed about Elia's proposed pay raises for department heads, the hiring of new administrative personnel and a $100,000 line item for the continued retention of James Roemer, an Albany attorney who has thus far specialized in losing cases brought against the city by the unions.
In addition to Elia, the terms of Council members Paul Dyster and Fran Iusi will end next year. Since both have acted as little more than rubber stamps for Elia's policies, their political fortunes will be tied to those of the mayor.
Which is too bad for them.
Dyster once entertained thoughts of running for mayor himself, but his lackluster performance on the council over the last three years will make even re-election an uphill proposition.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 12 2002 |