City Administrator Donna Lisa Dowhite-Owens remains "way overpaid" and "underproductive" despite multiple attempts by the City Council to oust her by slashing her salary.
Owens, 54, was appointed by Mayor Paul A. Dyster following a nationwide search conducted with private money from secret funds, and continues to draw a $110,000 salary (approximately $150,000 with benefits) despite public outcry.
For a brief salary comparison, Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz makes $103,428 in a county population of 919,040, according to Mark Cornell, Erie County associate deputy comptroller.
Cornell said that the salary for Erie County executive is "static," and is set forth in the county charter.
Niagara Falls has a population of 50,193, down more than 50 percent from 1960 as the population continues its downward spiral, according to recently released 2010 census figures.
Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown makes $105,000 in a population of 261,310 residents, said Mike DeGeorge, spokesman for the mayor and director of communications.
"Wow," DeGeorge said, when told of Owens' salary.
In the wealthy suburbs of Erie County, Amherst Town Supervisor Dr. Barry A. Weinstein makes $75,100, according to the adopted 2012 budget. Amherst has a population of 122,366 as of the 2010 census.
In Cheektowaga, Town Supervisor Mary F. Holtz makes $79,140 in a population of 88,226 residents, according to town officials.
And in Tonawanda, Supervisor Anthony F. Caruana makes $63,775 with an additional $13,277 for acting as budget officer, for a total of $77,052, in a population of approximately 80,000 people, town officials said.
So how can Dyster justify the salary of his appointed "mini mayor"?
Most, if not all, City Council members say Owens isn't worth it.
"I don't think it's the salary. I think it's the performance that has to be the key," Councilman Charles Walker said.
The unsuccessful decision to cut Owens' salary by $20,000, which was vetoed by Dyster last month, "was based upon job performance," Walker said.
"There needs to be more oversight," he said, adding that "everyone has different opinions about what's going on in City Hall. She's basically doing what (Dyster) asks her to do. She should make sure follow-up is done."
"I have not seen one significant attribute that Owens has (exhibited) since the mayor hired her," Councilman Robert Anderson said. "This woman has no history of the city at all. The bottom line is that this young lady was hired because they wanted someone who had no idea about the geography or history of the area at all."
Anderson, 70, added that former city administrator Daniel Bristol "was a thousand times more productive than Owens. She's pushed us further back. I don't even think she speaks good English."
"She's pretty much the mayor's tool," said Councilman Steve Fournier, whose seat on the board was replaced Jan. 1 by former councilman Glenn Choolokian.
"We want to remind people what the job is," Fournier said. "I don't dislike her. I talk to Dyster, and he listens."
Council Chairman Sam Fruscione said, "She's way overpaid for the position. We want somebody who's hands-on, in the streets. In general, she's not producing the quality of work that you'd expect at $110,000."
"If 1,000 people passed her on the street and she was holding a tin cup, not five of the 1,000 would recognize her," Anderson added.
You might catch a glimpse of her at The Giacomo on First Street, one of her local hangouts, sources say.
Nonetheless, Walker and Councilmember Kristin Grandinetti (practically Dyster's next-door neighbor on Orchard Parkway) voted last month to uphold the veto and keep the salary at $110,000.
Grandinetti did not return a phone call seeking comment.
After her return from vacationing at "home" (out of town), Owens last week declined an interview via e-mail or phone. A call was placed to her secretary's phone, and Owens picked up.
"I have no comment about any of the criticisms, and I was in the middle of a meeting," she said bitterly. "Thank you (click)."
"She is brutal," Fruscione said. "It's sad."
"It's not about the money to me," Owens told the Gazette when she was first hired. "A salary helps you survive and live a quality of life, but nobody's ever paid what they're worth."
"She makes as much as congressmen. Is she suggesting she should be paid more?" one source quipped.
Dyster, when contacted about Owens, said, "This is my city cell phone. ... I'm waiting for somebody here. Gotta run."
Dyster told the Gazette last week that he is "keeping her around because I think she's doing a great job," and that he and Owens make a "great team."
That may be, but the City Council isn't impressed.
Fruscione said Owens regularly leaves a trail of unfinished business in her wake. It's just one thing after another, he said.
Most recently, Fruscione said he sat down last week with city officials -- excluding Owens -- and finally "hammered out" a plan that will light up the streets at the Hope VI housing development at the city's North End.
"Those (streetlights) should have been installed two years ago," Fruscione said, adding that under the plan he helped develop, "the streetlights will be installed in approximately 60 days."
He added, "That was not my job" to help oversee the project.
Four major positions are currently vacant in city government: Fire chief, police chief (pending the uncertain retirement date of Superintendent John Chella), community development director, and human resources director.
"It is the responsibility of the city administrator to fill those positions and to run the operations of them until they are filled," Fruscione said, adding that he had high praise for former city administrator Daniel Bristol.
"He would be out at the work sites, checking up on the workers, with the contractors, making sure things were getting done," Fruscione said. Council members were alarmed last month when it was revealed that the city budget contained yet another no-bid contract with Modern Disposal to continue their garbage pick-up.
The city pays Modern, which makes significant political contributions to the campaigns of local political leaders, an average of $2.7 million per year for garbage and recycling services.
"The administration should be investigating whether there's a better deal out there," Walker said, adding that "no background work was done" before the city was presented with a two-year contract to follow the five-year contract that recently expired.
"There are other companies out there," he said.
Allied Waste Service and Covanta Energy have been mentioned.
"We want to make sure that the city is getting more bang for its buck," Walker said.
"Our city looks like Hooterville, and garbage has a lot to do with it," Anderson said. He said he is pushing for garbage totes, like the big blue ones with wheels that are used in the city of Buffalo and its surrounding towns.
It's interesting that Owens didn't appear to oversee research of the issue, as the majority of her career has been devoted to garbage.
She served as a solid waste analyst in Baltimore's Department of Public Works in the 1990s before moving on to Washington, D.C., in 1999 for a job as chief of the city's Street and Alley Cleaning Division.
Starting in 2003, she served for five years as a deputy commissioner for the Atlanta Department of Public Works.
Before her garbage career, starting in 1988, Owens worked eight years for then-Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke. She was his liaison to the community before landing the job at Baltimore's DPW.
The City Council has repeatedly tried to slash her salary. In December 2009, the Council voted to cut $40,000 from Owens' salary.
Dyster, in a rambling six-page veto statement, said, "The cut in salary is very substantial, and would É (threaten) her continuity in office."
But that veto was upheld, as was last month's.
According to the 2012 adopted budget, Owens' secretary got a $2,101 raise, up to $36,605.
Before Owens was hired, the salary for the city administrator's secretary was $28,500 -- $8,105 less than the salary for the current secretary. Dyster will make his usual $78,000 salary. His secretary got a $2,102 raise, up to $37,356.
Since taking the job at $110,000, Owens has required city employees to wear name tags, required City Hall visitors to sign in with a uniformed city police officer upon their arrival, and installed security cameras at City Hall.
Bill Bradberry, former city administrator, said, "I consider Donna Owens a friend and I believe her to be competent. She has a management style that may not be a perfect fit for the organizational structure in this city."
He added that "generally, the municipal workforce takes a while to warm up to outsiders."
Bradberry, who served as city administrator (at a $60,000 salary) during the transition from former mayor Vince Anello to Dyster, was "there to make sure the day-to-day management for the city could be carried out efficiently and effectively. The city is fortunate to have a good solid workforce, (but) people need to know what is expected of them."
Three city charters?
Believe it or not, the city is functioning under more than one active city charter. Fruscione said there are actually two charters under which the city operates, plus one that is incomplete.
Revising the city charter would be helpful in "defining the roles of city administrator," Bradberry said, adding that "chemistry, management style, and disposition," are necessary for success at the job.
Of Anello and Dyster, Bradberry said, "I didn't have any problems working with either. I was too busy (for problems)."
Harvey Albond served the city under a different form of government, before the city charter was revised around 1986.
Under the old charter, there was a city manager who was the city's chief executive officer and made the staff appointments, said Albond, who served as city manager from 1979-80, and again from 1985-86. He also served as city planning director for 13 years.
Under the old charter, the mayor had a vote, equal to that of the city councilmen, while the city manager held CEO status.
Under the new charter, Niagara Falls operates under a "strong mayor" form of government, where the mayor is the city's CEO and "the city administrator serves at the mayor's pleasure," Albond said.
Back in the day, "we hired professionals that had the background to do the things that needed to get done," said Albond, who currently owns a business that does consulting for governments (including the Town of Niagara) and private businesses.
Going back a few years ...
Donna Owens was hand-picked for the job as city administrator by Dyster using a secret fund to conduct a nationwide search through a Baltimore-based recruiting company.
Former economic development director Peter F. Kay was also selected in the search. He was canned two years later after making "zero progress." It was announced by Dyster that $35,000 of Owens' $110,000 salary -- nearly double that of then-city administrator Bradberry's $60,000 -- would be paid by the fund every year for four years, and that an extra $15,000 would be pulled from a city contingency fund specifically designated to hire new staff.
So all was well in the spring of 2008. Taxpayers wouldn't have to worry about the six-figure salary or the fact that nobody in the northeast United States had ever heard of Owens.
"She was everyone's first choice," Dyster told a reporter at the time. "There's nothing scary happening."
Dyster claims he does not know, or want to know, the identities of the donors.
The funds passed through Buffalo Niagara Enterprise and the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo.ÊBNE specializes in regional economic development and research, marketing and business attractions, sources say.
Dyster's transition team and selections committee included, among others, Maid of the Mist Vice President Christopher Glynn; Attorney Craig Touma, Dyster's campaign manager; City Planner Thomas DeSantis; Niagara Falls City Court Judge Diane L. Vitello; and Daniel Boscarino, senior vice president of human resources at M&T Bank.
Of the candidates, including Owens and Kay, "none of them were qualified," an insider told the Reporter. "Owens is not qualified for the position, simple as that. She should never have been hired."
It has been suggested that Christopher Glynn and his father, James Glynn, owner of the Maid of the Mist, along with others from Buffalo and Niagara Falls, donated as much as $1 million to the fund through BNE, according to published reports.
So Dyster appointed Owens that spring, and the City Council -- while questioning the secret funding -- approved the $50,000 pay hike for city administrator.
After consultation with attorneys and the state comptroller's office, it was decided by the City Council in November 2008 that the city, after accepting more than $100,000, must part ways with the fund due to its obvious clash with political ethics, and public outcry. Which way the rest of the money went is unknown.
Regarding Kay, $40,000 of his $100,000 salary was to be paid from the fund. The City Council approved the new position and the salary by a 3-2 vote.
In November 2009, the Council tried to oust Owens by voting to reduce her salary by $40,000 and to eliminate Kay's position.
The Council wanted both of them out.
But Dyster vetoed the changes, and then-council chairman Chris Robins, along with Fournier and Walker, flipped and voted to uphold the veto. In late 2010, the Council voted again to eliminate Kay's position, which Dyster again vetoed, but this time the veto was overturned by a unanimous vote and Kay was fired.
Even Grandinetti voted against the mayor's veto.
"I don't think he was a good fit for Niagara Falls," Grandinetti told reporters at the time.
Fruscione said at the time that there had been "zero economic development under his leadership," which lasted about two-and-a-half years.
And behind all of the controversy lay the secret "Building a Better Niagara Falls Fund." The fund was established through the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, whose mission is, "Connecting people, ideas and resources to improve lives in Western New York."
The CFGB is a public and philanthropic organization that holds "more than 700 different charitable funds, large and small, established by individuals, families, nonprofit agencies and businesses to benefit Western New York," according to its website, and "most charitable gifts qualify for maximum tax advantage under federal law."
Nothing against the CFGB, on whose board sit three doctors, two lawyers, and which claims U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott as its vice-chair, but it allowed the donors to remain anonymous, even when the fund was tied directly to city government, effectively adding an anonymous element of privatization.
More anonymity was added because the funds are said to have passed through BNE, sources say.
Others tried the same thing, trying to add privatization to City Hall in Buffalo, but then-Buffalo city comptroller Andrew SanFilippo, now executive deputy state comptroller, put his foot down, and a similar fund was rejected.
Owens has a bachelor's degree from Hood College in Frederick, Md., and a master's certificate in public management from George Washington University.
E-mail Ron Churchill at ronchurchill@yahoo.com.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Jan. 3 2012 |