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Since taking office in January, Mayor Irene Elia and members of her administration repeatedly have been caught playing fast and loose with the truth, as well as the law, though none of the incidents caught the public's imagination like the massive, 27 percent tax increase she proposed after repeatedly promising not to raise taxes.
Those familiar with her record as director of the non-profit Health Association of Niagara County (HANCI), however, haven't been as surprised.
Within days of taking office, Elia called for a secret meeting with the City Council. After being informed the meeting was in violation of the state Sunshine Law, Elia said she had obtained a ruling pronouncing the meeting legal. Subsequently, the state ruled the meeting had indeed been a violation.
Throughout the spring and into the summer, Elia and her advisors assured council members and city residents that no approval was needed from the Federal Aviation Administration for a hot air balloon ride proposed by developer David Cordish. As late as her Aug. 7 State of the City address, the mayor said the ride soon would be up and running.
But after the city allowed Cordish to get out of a contractual obligation to construct a building in exchange for establishing the attraction, the administration changed its tune, blaming the FAA for the fact the balloon never got off the ground.
Ironically, Elia's Aug. 7 address has been taken off the city's official Web site, even though the link leading to it remains. The numerous half-truths and distortions it contained were no doubt a source of discomfort for the mayor.
More mendacity surrounds the AquaFalls project, initiated during the administration of James C. Galie but for which Elia has taken full responsibility. As recently as last month, Elia said "we see exciting movement on AquaFalls."
The reality is that the project's developers ran out of money months ago, that local contractors remain unpaid and there has been serious discussion about refilling the 40-foot-deep hole at the corner of Niagara Street and Rainbow Boulevard South. The final nail in the benighted project's coffin came with the recent announcement of the development of two world-class aquariums in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
The administration's contempt for the rule of law was further demonstrated in its handling of the demolition of the old Acheson Graphite building on Buffalo Avenue. The demolition of the huge, asbestos-laden structure had been going on for weeks when area residents began complaining to City Hall about late-night explosions and layers of black dust descending on the neighborhood.
It was only after residents threatened to go to the media that Ontario Specialty Contracting, the company doing the demolition, applied for city permits for the work. Even then, the permits were issued without being paid for, in violation of city law.
The state Environmental Protection Agency now is reportedly looking into the matter.
It was the 2001 budget, however, that shined a bright light on the mayor's lack of credibility.
After promising for more than eight months there would be no tax increase, Elia submitted a budget containing an increase of 27 percent. She compounded this disregard for the truth by stating, in print, she had been working on the budget since last January and that the original increase would have been much worse had it not been for her diligent work.
But the outright lies and disregard for the law that have characterized Elia's first year in office seem par for the course to reporters and others who tried to get to the bottom of her role in the loss of the city's AmeriCorps program. As director of HANCI, Elia oversaw the program between 1995 and 1998.
While federal and state investigators cited fiscal mismanagement, false reporting and misuse of staff for the program's termination, Elia long maintained that no investigation had taken place.
"The program simply ended," she told at least two reporters in 1998. "It just wasn't a good fit for us."
It wasn't until April of last year, when confronted with reams of documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests, that she changed her story.
Sort of.
"We've been through all this and I really have no comment," she said. "People can make any kind of allegations they want."
It wasn't ordinary "people," however, making the allegations. One of the most outspoken was Allen Boehm, of the federal Inspector General's Office for the Corporation For National Service. Boehm was sent to Niagara Falls in autumn 1997 to probe alleged irregularities in the way Elia was conducting the AmeriCorps program here. An e-mail, dated Nov. 17, 1997, and written by Corporation For National Service staffer Brigit Beyand briefly described Boehm's findings.
"I spoke with (Boehm) of the IG's office. He's back from HANCI and says 'it's a mess,'" she wrote. "He will be contacting us shortly to brief us with his findings."
The findings were none too good. A Feb. 16, 1998, letter to Elia from William Murabito, chairman of the state Office of National and Community Service, threatened to terminate the Niagara Falls AmeriCorps program. Furthermore, Murabito accused HANCI of being more than $123,000 short following an auditor's review of the program.
Reviews conducted by John Beverly, a certified public accountant hired by the state to look into the matter, found missing state and federal tax forms, time sheets, information on Social Security and Medicare taxes, and summaries of expenses and information on in-kind expenses claimed by HANCI in its administration of the program.
Furthermore, Beverly found that HANCI officials were claiming far more in administrative payroll than could have been charged properly to oversee the program.
At Elia's direction, the HANCI Board of Directors then hired a team of lawyers from Buffalo in an attempt to get out from under the charges. While a settlement was ultimately reached with the state on the matter, the federal government has repeatedly refused to sign off on its investigation.
As for Elia, she remains a force at HANCI. No one has been appointed as director to replace her, and she has been silent on her status, which was last reported to be "on leave of absence" from the post.
Reams of government paperwork attest to the fact that her agency's mismanagement of the AmeriCorps program was responsible for its termination in the City of Niagara Falls.
Will her mismanagement of city government be ultimately responsible for something far, far worse?