The inattentiveness of Mayor Paul Dyster to the rapidly deteriorating racial situation within his Department of Public Works is likely to come back and bite him in 2009, courtesy of state Supreme Court Justice Ralph Boniello.
Boniello has ordered that all depositions in the case of six black DPW workers who sued the city on charges of discrimination in 2003 be completed by March, and that jury selection for the trial itself begin no later than July 13.
The six men -- Emmett Cox, Hugh Leftwich, Joe Paulk, Richard Hill, William Wilson and Bruce Palmer -- allege that a systematic pattern of institutional racism pervasive in the DPW has grown increasingly worse since Dyster took office, and said that the problem has grown particularly acute since the mayor replaced Bill Bradberry with Donna Owens as his city administrator earlier this year.
"The way it's set up now, if there is a problem with a supervisor, you have to go through that supervisor in order to see the city administrator to make a complaint," Cox told the Reporter. "In other words, you've got to ask permission from the man who wronged you in order to report what happened."
The men have talked about conditions within the DPW to investigators working for state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who became involved in Niagara Falls earlier this year after a white DPW employee -- James Curtis -- hung a hand-lettered "Whites only" sign over a drinking fountain in the department garage.
At the time, the men agreed that Curtis' ignorant attempt at humor was nothing new.
"We've had hangman's nooses hung in front of our lockers. We've been called 'nigger,' 'jungle bunny,' and everything else you can think of. This has been going on constantly for a very long time, and it's a little bit amazing that it's now coming out in public," Cox said.
Last week, Parks and Public Works Coordinator Clarence Bradley -- the lone black in a management position at the DPW -- put in for a leave of absence after being told by DPW Director David Kinney that he was forbidden from talking to certain individuals in the department, or from going to particular locations in the city where work was taking place.
Bradley, who has also talked to state investigators and is planning his own lawsuit against the city, said that he was repeatedly referred to as a "nigger" by his subordinate, Assistant Foreman Willie Santiago, who is best known to Reporter readers for his guilty plea in connection with the theft of more than $20,000 worth of city property in 2001.
Hugh Leftwich, a 26-year DPW veteran, said the situation in the department -- never good to begin with -- has never been worse than it is today.
"It's in the air. You can feel it," he said. "We're all alone in there because they feel they can get away with this stuff without any consequences at all."
The lawsuit filed by the six details scores of incidents, from the use of racial epithets to clear-cut instances of blacks being passed over for jobs that were given to unqualified white workers instead. In the five years since it was originally filed, it has been amended on numerous occasions -- most recently in September -- in order to document additional outrages that have occurred.
But Cox said that, even if they prevail in court, he worries that the underlying problems won't be addressed until a full investigation of the department's practices is undertaken.
"Somebody's got to come in here and take a look at what's going on," he said, "because the people running City Hall aren't going to do a thing."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 9 2008 |