I've known him for years, a retiree from one of the shops. He doesn't have any children in Niagara Street School, but his granddaughter goes there.
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He's an easygoing guy, spends most summer mornings bass fishing on the Niagara River and his early afternoons at one or another Niagara Street watering hole, having a few small draft beers before going home.
But on this particular afternoon, he was anything but easygoing; in fact he seemed agitated. He'd lived in the East Side neighborhood all his life and raised his family there. And what was happening just a few blocks from his home and the school his granddaughter walked to every day bothered him a great deal.
"They better do something about it quick," he said. "Because somebody's going to burn the damn place down."
By "they," he meant the Niagara Falls city government. And the "damn place" is the Midtown Inn, a flophouse located just a few blocks from Niagara Street School, at 1967 Niagara St. Its residents include the highest concentration of registered sex offenders to be found anywhere in Niagara County.
The individuals living at the Midtown are sexual predators, and their numbers include an alarming percentage of repeat offenders. To make matters worse, a majority of them seem to prefer children as their targets. According to the Niagara County Sheriff's Department and the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, as many as 24 deviants currently call the flophouse home.
There's Timothy Faux, a 66-year-old white male who has been convicted of first-degree rape, second-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, second-degree sodomy and first-degree sexual abuse in various cases over the years. Or George Garbutt, who's just 34 but already has a record that includes two convictions for sodomy in the second degree and two more for first-degree sexual abuse.
Charles Hagen has a pair of convictions for first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy, while the hulking, 300-pound Thomas Wesley Harmon has a pair of sodomy convictions.
One of the scariest is Paul Thompson, convicted of sexual contact with a child in the first degree.
Other sexual predators who law enforcement sources say live at the Midtown include Vincent Duffy, Morgan Lee, Lester Losell, Mark Miles, Lyle Silversmith, Michael Soulvie, Gerald Tierney, Pablo Alvarado, Dale Ealy, Donald Harris, James Doll, Philip Morton, Howard Kyle, James Wainman, Kevin Kropp, James McKinney, John Fetter, James Liotta and Clifton Brown.
All of these men are a danger to the community and all of them are living at the Midtown in violation of city ordinance. A law passed by the City Council in 2006 makes it illegal for registered sex offenders to live within 1,500 feet of a school, park or childcare facility. According to city Inspector Dennis Virtuoso, who measured it last week, the distance between the Midtown Inn and Niagara Street Elementary School is 1,287 feet.
Furthermore, Virtuoso said, the Midtown is located just 870 feet from a non-profit youth wrestling center, another violation of the ordinance.
So why hasn't Mayor Paul Dyster taken action to have it closed? Until last week, when protesters set up shop in front of Niagara Street School and the Midtown, he hadn't even acknowledged publicly that a problem even existed.
Manuela Miller, who organized the protest, said the time for action had arrived.
"There's two mentally ill sex offenders living there," Miller said. "We need to get them out immediately. We can't take a year to decide what to do, something can happen to one of our children before that."
Unfortunately, the mayor's 18-month tenure thus far has not been characterized by decisive action.
When asked about the situation, Dyster boldly told the Buffalo News, "We think that there's a need for some coordination and maybe for some clarification of jurisdictions."
Clearly, the City of Niagara Falls is Dyster's jurisdiction. And while he may see the problem as one of "coordination" and "clarification," East Side residents and especially those with children attending Niagara Street School see it as one of a gang of perverts, rapists and sexual predators living a few blocks away from them.
Niagara Falls Board of Education President Robert Kazeangin put it succinctly.
"It doesn't matter if it's 1,500 feet or 1,000 feet away, it's in the same neighborhood as a school and that's unacceptable," he said.
Sources close to the problem told the Reporter that, in a private meeting with Dyster before the protesters took to the streets and began making headlines, the mayor told them that the dangerous sexual predators "have to live somewhere," and seemed unconcerned about the issue.
Former city councilwoman Candra Thomason said that that the situation has gotten completely out of control, and lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of the current administration.
"The East Side has always been a good neighborhood, filled with hardworking families, churches and a good school," she said. "There's a law on the books, and the mayor needs to enforce it. Why he's choosing not to do so is something he ought to explain."
Another official who might be on the spot is state Supreme Court Justice Richard Kloch, who decided to send serial child rapist James A. McKinney to the Midtown, rather than following the recommendations of defense and prosecuting attorneys in the case, who asked that McKinney be sent to live with his mother in North Tonawanda.
Kloch himself lives in North Tonawanda.
Clearly, the state has decided that the East Side of Niagara Falls, the old Polish neighborhood where generations have lived and raised their families, makes a swell dumping ground for the worst sort of vermin humanity has to offer.
Judge Kloch has shown by his actions that he doesn't want dangerous sexual predators living in his neighborhood, and we can only imagine what would happen if some private individual tried to open a facility similar to the Midtown Inn near Dyster's Orchard Parkway home.
The Midtown is a privately owned business that is currently in violation of city ordinance on two counts and Niagara County law on a third. If it happens to burn down one night while its occupants are asleep in their beds, or if a child is abducted, raped or even murdered while walking home from Niagara Street School, our city's do-nothing mayor will bear no small part of the blame.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | June 30 2009 |