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Lawyers for both the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority and local hotelier John Prozeralik agreed in state Supreme Court last week that numerous relationships between Judge Amy Fricano, her staff, and one side or another in the case did not hamper Fricano's ability to rule.
It was about the only thing the attorneys would agree on during the proceeding, which lasted about an hour.
Fricano said she knew Prozeralik socially, along with City Councilman John Accardo and County Legislator Renae Kimble, who have joined Prozeralik as plaintiffs in the case. At a social function approximately one year ago, she said, she discussed the NFTA's proposed 99-year lease agreement for the Niagara Falls International Airport with the Spanish company Cintra SA.
Additionally, Fricano said, a top member of her staff is related by marriage to an NFTA official.
State Supreme Court Judge Ralph Boniello recused himself from hearing the case last month on the grounds that he had represented the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, which lost out to Cintra in the NFTA's bidding process.
But both Prozeralik's attorney, Richard Sullivan, and Benjamin Zuffranieri, the lawyer representing NFTA, said they believed Fricano could render a fair judgment in the matter and allowed the proceeding to continue.
At issue is whether Prozeralik, Accardo and Kimble have the legal standing to sue the NFTA for breach of its 1968 airport operation agreement with the city. Sullivan is arguing that the plaintiffs, all longtime residents of Niagara Falls, are "intended third-party beneficiaries" of the agreement.
Prozeralik, whose hotels, the Days Inn Riverview and the Inn on the River, and restaurant, John's Flaming Hearth, are largely dependent on tourism, has stated repeatedly that the NFTA's mismanagement of the airport over the past three decades has personally cost him tens of millions of dollars in lost business.
Likewise, Accardo and Kimble maintain that lost bed tax, sales tax and other revenue has hampered both the city and county governments here.
Predictably, attorneys for the NFTA take the opposite view. Zuffranieri argued that, since the 1968 contract was meant to benefit all of Niagara County and not the plaintiffs specifically, they are "strangers" to the agreement, without standing in the case.
The NFTA's stance in the case has many in the legal community here scratching their heads. "They've said repeatedly that all they want is for someone to take the airport off their hands," a source told the Reporter. "Now the Cintra deal's the target of a lawsuit, the subject of an investigation by (Congressman) John LaFalce and 20,000 area residents have signed petitions opposing it.
"What's the NFTA's interest in this? Why are they prepared to spend public funds to defend a foreign corporation?" he asked.
The proposed 99-year lease -- which has yet to be signed -- contains no mandatory performance standards and doesn't require Cintra to put any money into the operation of the airport for the first 13 years.
Additionally, the NFTA is required to actually pay Cintra $3 million during the first years of the lease to help get the operation going.
Prozeralik has suggested the county Industrial Development Agency take over ownership of the facility and hire a private airport operator to run it. Several international airport operators with considerable experience have expressed an interest in such an arrangement, he said.
Sources in Washington told the Reporter last week that the Federal Aviation Administration -- currently swamped with work in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- is taking a wait-and-see attitude on the lawsuit before issuing its ruling on the airport deal.
But America's new wartime footing makes it much more unlikely that the federal government will sign off on a deal to hand the airport -- which is home to the Air Force's 914th Tactical Airlift Wing and the Air National Guard's 107th Air Refueling Wing -- over to a foreign corporation.
While Fricano has 30 days to render a decision on the NFTA's argument, a staffer said the judge is expected to rule relatively quickly in the matter.