On behalf of the put-upon taxpayers of the city of Niagara Falls, we here at the Reporter would like to publicly thank Council members Candra Thomason, Babe Rotella, Bob Anderson and Glenn Choolokian for their display of intestinal fortitude in shooting down Mayor Vince Anello's pork-filled 2006 budget.
It was a courageous display of a kind rarely seen among politicians in this neck of the woods.
Immediately after taking office in January 2004, Anello began padding the city payroll with just about every politically connected vagrant who'd been smart enough to help in his campaign.
Fat paychecks, staffed offices and government perks like the use of city-owned vehicles were handed out like candy on Halloween. What the city got was a grants writer who never wrote a successful grant, an events coordinator who couldn't coordinate his own wardrobe, a risk manager who needed an outside consulting firm to do her job for her, and more.
Initially, a majority on Council supported Anello's extravagance. But the honeymoon didn't last long. Last week, the positions were eliminated when Thomason, Rotella, Anderson and Choolokian voted to override the mayor's vetoes of the cuts.
Twelve days from now, Chris Robins and Sam Fruscione will be sworn in as Council members. We wish them the best. But it is our sincere hope that their "rookie" status will not blind them to the ongoing problems Anello has created for the city and its citizens.
The disastrous giveaway of the Hyde Park Golf Course, the humiliating courtroom defeats surrounding the library debacle, the multimillion-dollar lawsuits filed by the former city clerk and employees in the Department of Public Works, the Water Department and the city jail would be bad enough, but Anello has also embroiled the city in a full-blown federal corruption investigation.
Developers once interested in investing with the city are now staying away in droves. City Hall employees now come to work every day worried about being served with a federal subpoena. Anello's opponents on the Council, in the media and even on the library board of directors are regularly smeared by anonymous poison-pen campaigns and worse.
Why Council Chairman Charles Walker continues to support Anello's corrupt regime remains a mystery. We can only hope that Fruscione and Robins choose the forces of light over those of darkness.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Dec. 20 2005 |