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FOIL REQUESTS FAR FROM FINISHED

By Joseph F. Donovan

"Begin at the beginning," the King said grimly, "and go on till you come to the end and then stop." -- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

Several weeks ago the Reporter printed a number of Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests that were made of Niagara Falls City Hall.

That article, by Frank Parlato, showed the exact requests of each FOIL cutting across a number of governmental items such as spending, Underground Railroad Interpretive Center, the salaries of the "best and brightest," the anonymous Building a Better Niagara Falls Fund, and more.

One week later, I wrote about what had been received from City Hall in reply to the FOIL requests. We received some of what we wanted, were given almost nothing in entirety, and were skunked in part, as reported.

And yes, as I was warned when the Reporter set out on this little trip, the powers that be at City Hall make FOIL requests not unlike pulling teeth. But that's OK, because we have all the time in the world, an overabundance of patience and pages that yearn to be filled weekly.

So we will be repeating a number of our FOIL requests.

The Underground Railroad Interpretive Center records, including all details of how the $350,000 in casino money has been spent. We received nothing on the expenditures of the cash and nothing to detail the consultant's report on the Underground Railroad that, interestingly enough, was released on April 16.

How could that be? I guess someone doesn't want the taxpayers to know where the money went.

We're still seeking the legal document that absolves the city of any conflict of interest charge regarding Motherland Connextions, which, amazingly enough, is a for-profit tour company that gives tours of supposed Underground Railroad sites in the area founded by Kevin Cottrell, the same man now employed at City Hall to develop the Underground Railroad exhibit.

We're also repeating our FOIL request concerning the details of the 2011 salary payout to John Chella, chief of Police.

We're still looking for the letter of hire installing Craig Johnson as the city's Corporation Counsel. We asked once and got nothing.

And we're not going to give up until we get all the details of the Building a Better Niagara Falls Fund. We're going back to that subject because, based on what we were given the first time around, we've learned that the account was definitely managed through City Hall. We think there's good reason to believe that the devil is in the details as to how that account was operated.

And we're going to be making some new FOIL requests. Such as:

The pothole killer contract from 2008 to present, with special emphasis on the doozy of a contract for 2012, where payment is deferred and the city could be paying for food and accommodations for the pothole killer operators from out of town.

All fees paid to all lawyers or legal consultants since 2008. We think you'd like to know how much City Hall has spent, for example, to keep One Niagara in court or to repeatedly lose in their attempt to enforce a poorly administered employee residency law.

The Hope VI plans, contracts and paperwork. We'd like to find out exactly what went so wrong for so long to leave our residents in the dark and at the mercy of costly, noisy portable lighting generators.

LiRo Engineering's record of work with the city from 2008 to the present, beginning with their consultant work on the Municipal Building at over $14,000 per month for approximately 18 months, and extending to a wide variety of other engineering projects.

The Legends Basketball Courts designs, plans and costs, which didn't go as planned and now need a do-over at a cost of as much as $50,000.

A record of all the repair work performed on the Municipal Building with regard to the now-legendary flooded jail cells. We'd like to find out how much that particular construction fix cost, who's to blame and who ultimately ended up paying the price: the taxpayer, LiRo or the contractor.

We want to know what the NFC has been doing with your money for the past year. Who did they give loans and grants to, aside from the producers of the film "Crimson," who walked out of City Hall with $10,000.

We are seeking pay records of former Economic Development chief Peter Kay, including his final paycheck and rumored hefty severance package.

A list of all officially authorized city employees who are empowered to execute the city's banking: deposits, withdrawals and financial transactions.

We're not done, not by a long shot. We have a lot more to FOIL, a lot more questions to ask and a lot more answers to nail down.

We're filing all these requests and we're asking these questions because these are your dollars, this is your city and you deserve answers.

We started at the beginning with the first group of FOILs, we've circled back to re-FOIL the documents we were denied, and we've filed new requests for important documents.

With a nod to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and upon the advice of the King, the Reporter will not stop until it reaches the end.

Contact Joe Donovan at info@niagarafallsreporter.com.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com April 24 2012