City Council Chairman Sam Fruscione sent over a "news release" last week that was intended to defend the city's landlord licensing program in the wake of harsh criticism from the city's block clubs, the Pine Avenue Business Association, the Niagara Street Business Association, and pretty much everyone else in the city with a brain in their head.
Enacted in February 2010, the landlord licensing program was Fruscione's brainchild. Hardworking people who own rental property in the city, who already pay some of the highest real estate taxes in the country, are forced to cough up another $25 or $50 for a piece of paper. Failure to do so can result in fines of up to $2,500.
Has the condition of the city's rental housing gotten any better since the law was enacted? No. Has the law benefitted the citizens of Niagara Falls in any way, shape or form?
Well, kind of. It has been a boon for Randy Ubriaco, who was formerly an unemployed lackey of Fruscione's but was elevated to the exalted position of landlord licensing clerk shortly after the law was passed.
You remember Ubriaco. Back when former state assemblywoman Francine Del Monte was running for re-election in 2006, it was Ubriaco who masterminded the disruption of one of her campaign events in the city's North End, probably costing her opponent the election.
As a member of the Pine Avenue Business Association Board of Directors in 2009, Ubriaco was at the center of a criminal investigation that resulted when tens of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums paid by members seemingly vanished into thin air. No criminal charges were filed in the case.
At that time, Ubriaco was working as a part-time city parking lot attendant, and made news for his abusive behavior toward other attendants, citing the appointment Fruscione got him on the city's Tourism Advisory Committee as his authority.
Perhaps sensing that Ubriaco's parking lot attendant job might end up causing more trouble than it was worth following a heated confrontation between his friend and former city councilman Babe Rotella, Fruscione cooked up the landlord licensing program and placed Ubriaco at the helm.
At the time, the job paid $22,880 a year plus benefits. It was the most Ubriaco ever made in his whole life.
He promptly repaid Fruscione's patronage in July of last year, when he and some drinking buddies showed up at the municipal lot across from the ramp on Third Street in order to attend a city-sponsored performance by an obscure Canadian rock act from the early 1990s called Our Lady Peace at the Hard Rock Cafe. When the attendant tried to do his job and collect the $10 parking fee, Ubriaco laughed in his face.
"Don't you know who I am?" he said.
Some might have answered, yes, you are some sorry-ass loser who makes $11 an hour based on your scary political connections. The attendant was understandably flustered, however, since he had no idea who Ubriaco was.
Ubriaco brushed by the attendant, in order to show his big-shottedness to his pals.
Would any sane, rational individual think a clown like Ubriaco was just the man to represent the city to a community of hardworking businesspeople involved in what has become one of Niagara Falls' few growth industries.
Of course not. Only City Council Chairman Sam Fruscione would.
And why would our squeaky clean mayor, Paul Dyster, allow such an unqualified and incompetent lout to hold any position of authority in a city government he has described as consisting of the best and the brightest?
Good question. You can bet Dyster and Fruscione had a sit-down of the first order to ensure council bent over on behalf of one of the mayor's budget-busting proposals in order to sign off on the Ubriaco appointment.
Perhaps it was something as simple as agreeing to lay down for the two property tax increases Dyster demanded and got during his first four years in office.
There are currently around 3,500 individuals who own rental property in Niagara Falls, and the landlord licensing program has shaken them down for a cool $91,000 in less than two years.
And with the average income in the city hovering around $18,000 a year, and more than 60 percent of the population on welfare or some other form of government assistance, $91,000 is a lot of money.
At last week's council meeting, criticism was strong and sharp.
"That, my friends, sounds like a good old-fashioned tax," said city Block Club Chairman Roger L. Spurback.
Niagara Street Business and Professional Association Chairman Ron Anderluh agreed.
"What we thought we were getting, we're not getting," Anderluh said. "This was never supposed to be set up as an income source for the city of Niagara Falls."
And Marybeth Abramson, a Niagara Street resident and owner of four rental units in the city, said the entire program amounted to a scam.
"It is wrong for the city to fill its coffers on the backs of taxpayers," she said. "By hurting law-abiding landlords, the city is driving good-paying taxpayers out of the city."
So Sam Fruscione sent over a "news release," mostly because he's not quick enough on his feet to have defended himself when people were actually criticizing him. It actually contained no news whatsoever, but consisted instead of a tortuous rationalization of one of the most crooked programs ever enacted in a city famous for crooked programs, projects and politicians.
It was pure comedy gold.
He wrote it in the third person, as though it were already a news article, which gave him the chance to quote himself at length.
"When we initiated this ordinance we hoped it would pull its weight and be worth the effort," he wrote.
What effort? The effort involved in creating some make-work job for a political crony?
"Now that we're two years down the road in its enforcement we see that it has tremendous potential to assist city government across a number of departments and with a variety of initiatives," he continued.
To put it another way, then, Fruscione seems to be saying the purpose of the law was to make things easier for city officials at the expense of the taxpayers, who are already left holding the bag for everything from rock concerts to frivolous lawsuits here.
The reality is that if the landlord licensing program were worth the sheet of cheap copy paper it was printed on, the city would not have hired a nincompoop like Randy Ubriaco to run it. Fruscione knows it, Dyster knows it, and even Ubriaco himself probably knows it.
But undeterred, the esteemed council chairman chose to end his important and earth-shattering news release on an enigmatic note.
"This ordinance has a lot more to offer," he wrote. "I believe we can fine tune it to assist city government in ways that will yield additional benefits to our city and our residents."
Since the only resident who has benefitted by the ordinance thus far has been Randy Ubriaco, do you suppose Fruscione's fine tuning might involve an expansion of authority and a big fat raise for his formerly unemployable crony?
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Feb. 14 2012 |