It looks fabulous. Kind of like the Festival of Lights without the hype.
From Lackey Plaza on down the promenade of Old Falls Street, tiny white lights festoon the trees, creating a tasteful and pleasing effect.
And it wasn't the city or county governments, or even a special commission dunning us for dollars to pay hefty salaries that put it up, it was our new neighbors, the Seneca Nation of Indians.
We're all going to have to get used to it. There are some new kids in town. They do what they say they're going to do, when they say they're going to do it. Having grown up with the Irene Elias and Dan Mocniaks of the world, this is an entirely new concept.
When Hillary Clinton spoke to the New York State Teachers at the Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center back in 1999, they had to hang black plastic garbage bags from the ceiling because the roof leaked so bad she would have got soaked that rainy night. The city didn't have any money to fix it, the county didn't have any money to fix it and the state didn't have any money to fix it.
Guess what? The Senecas came in and fixed it in about a week.
The old "can't do" days are over. The tawdry old convention center has become the gleaming new Seneca Niagara Falls Casino. If the mayor would get the hell out of the way, the Senecas would cut a deal with John Bartolomei and Niagara Falls Redevelopment for the former Splash Park property, which would pave the way for convenient parking for casino patrons and provide a construction site for the permanent casino.
Is it too much to ask of our elected officials that they, at least, try not to screw things up? County Legislator Dan Mocniak, who allegedly represents the district where the casino is located, wrote a self-serving op-ed piece for one of the daily newspapers last week, arguing that -- while not one cent of the county's $42 million in tobacco settlement money came to the city of Niagara Falls -- he's a really competent individual and knows what he's doing.
We're here to say he's a jerk and should be voted out of office at the earliest opportunity. Maybe when former Seneca president Cyrus Schindler moves into the district we can vote for him and have some effective representation.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 10 2002 |