"What this city doesn't need is more divisiveness or lawsuits. ... Our situation is so critical that a lawsuit could really drive us into bankruptcy." -- Vince Anello, April 18, 2001.
While running for City Council in 2001, and again when running for mayor in 2003, Vince Anello repeatedly brought up litigation filed against the city as a major campaign issue.
Now, as mayor, Anello seems to enjoy the courtroom atmosphere. And the city could lose millions if lawsuits filed on behalf of Niagara Falls Redevelopment, employees of the public works and water departments, golfers from the Hyde Park Golf Course and the library board of directors result in adverse rulings.
NFR attorney John Bartolomei filed the most recent suit on Nov. 23. In it, he alleges the city conspired with the Seneca Niagara Gaming Corp. to strip the developer of easements granted for access and utility service at the Fallsview Splash Water Park.
The park, which successfully reopened last year, is currently the target of an eminent domain proceeding brought by the state, which wants to turn the property over to the Senecas for casino expansion. Bartolomei believes the city's attempt to take away the easements -- on Sixth and Falls streets and in the former Niagara Falls Convention Center parking lot -- represents another example of government contempt for private property owners.
"These easements were granted by the city when the splash park was being built in 1986 and 1987," Bartolomei said. "Without them, buses can't get into the park, and there's no access to our west parking lot."
The suit alleges that four city officials -- Anello, City Administrator Daniel Bristol, Assistant Corporation Counsel Richard Zucco and City Engineer Robert Curtis -- are guilty of official misconduct under state law. It seeks $4 million from them individually and an additional $3 million from the city.
Also heating up is a $26 million lawsuit filed on behalf of six African-American employees of the city's Public Works Department alleging a pattern of institutional racism, harassment and intimidation.
Last month, the six attended a City Council meeting, they said, to see whether the members would go on record to condemn such behavior. The Council declined, citing the pending litigation as the reason.
One of the men, Joe Paulk, said he is disappointed with the way black community leaders -- particularly Council Chairman Charles Walker, county Legislator Renae Kimble and the Rev. Jimmie Seright of the New Jerusalem Church -- have not joined with the city's Ministerial Council in supporting their cause.
"The so-called black leadership needs to be standing up," he said. "This ain't 1963, this is 2005."
Paulk charged Walker, Kimble and Seright with putting their loyalty to Anello ahead of concerns about justice for the men.
"Charles (Walker) could be our next mayor," Paulk said. "He's got to start thinking for himself instead of doing what the mayor tells him to do."
Other current and former employees suing the city include six jail matrons who allege sexual discrimination at the Public Safety Building and are seeking unspecified damages, former city Clerk Cynthia Baxter, and 14 workers at the city's water and wastewater treatment plants, who are seeking $1.4 million and allege the city violated its contract with them.
Baxter, the DPW workers and the water workers are all being represented by Richard Wyssling, a top Buffalo labor attorney. The city has hired a high-priced Rochester law firm to deal with the threats.
Two other lawsuits present a highly unflattering picture of the mismanagement of City Hall by Anello and Bristol.
The Niagara Falls library board had to sue City Hall in order to get the money promised the city's two branches in the 2005 budget -- $254,537 as of Nov. 29. The board predictably won a clear-cut decision, with state Supreme Court Justice Vincent Doyle issuing a clearly worded, easily understandable ruling ordering the city to make good on its budgetary promise.
Just as predictably, city attorneys filed an appeal in a rather pitiful effort to save some face for Anello and Bristol, who City Hall sources say ordered the budgeted funds withheld in the first place in the sort of petty power play that typifies his management style.
So board attorney Ned Perlman filed a motion asking Doyle to find the city in contempt and repeat the order that the geniuses running the city claim they didn't understand the first time around. Maybe explaining things in single-syllable words -- "Give cash to book place" -- would help.
Last week, Perlman also filed a motion with the state Appellate Court asking it to expedite the city's drag-it-out appeal, so that the libraries receive the money they're owed for 2005 while it's still actually 2005. A decision on that motion is expected this week.
Perlman also represents Save Hyde Park, a taxpayer group that sued City Hall and Greater Niagara Sports over a deal between the administration and the company that ceded control of a steadily growing portion of the citizen-owned golf course to a group with no track record of running anything.
That perfect ledger remains unblemished by any achievement nearly 19 months after the deal was consummated.
Required to invest $350,000 in Hyde Park's Red Nine course this year, GNS didn't even bother with routine maintenance, to say nothing of making improvements. Instead, city crews were forced to keep those holes remotely playable, siphoning off scant resources.
Save Hyde Park is appealing a decision by state Supreme Court Justice Richard Kloch, who ruled that the portion of the city's charter passed in 1919 supersedes a state law passed three years earlier.
The state law requires public notification and open bidding precede any alienation of city-owned land. The charter includes similar wording, but allows a loophole should City Hall decide a deal is in the "best interests" of the city.
Perlman said the case is one of "first impression," meaning that no precedent exists to guide the appellate judges. Evidently, no other city in New York had founding fathers who wanted to give themselves and their ancestors the ability to do whatever they damn well pleased with public land without bothering to open the process to the public. Until Save Hyde Park, no one was willing to challenge such governmental audacity in court.
Attorneys for the city and GNS have until Friday to file their answers to the appeal. That's no sure thing, since they weren't able to make the original deadline last month and were forced to ask for an extension. Since GNS made no attempt to live up to its required $350,000 investment this year, or even reinflate the former Adelphia Golf Dome, which collapsed in April, there's also some question as to how the company could continue to pay the fee of big-name Buffalo attorney Richard Sullivan.
If neither the city nor the company files an answer, only Perlman would be allowed to argue before the Appellate Court when the case is heard in late February.
Sitting this one out would be a smart move for City Hall, since it would provide an escape from a putrid deal that's clearly in the best interests of no one, with the possible exception of GNS.
But then, we're talking about the administration of a mayor who won his job in part by portraying his closest challenger as being too smart.
The impact of a victory by Save Hyde Park could ripple far beyond the golf course, since every deal that circumvented the state law by invoking the "best interests" clause could then be challenged, including the controversial leasing agreements on both the East and West pedestrian malls connecting the state park to downtown.
Apparently not satisfied with the already-imposing workload facing the corporation counsel's office, Anello last week threatened to sue City Council for the cuts it made in budgeted overtime for the city police department.
In other words, the same guy who couldn't find a single job or line to cut in a $78 million budget, instead opting to saddle taxpayers with the maximum rate allowed by the state constitution, now wants to sue the representatives of those same citizens for doing the job he refused to even attempt.
Somehow, it makes a sort of perverse sense -- the city that can't seem to do much of anything without triggering litigation may wind up suing itself.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Dec. 6 2005 |