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Council Decision May Have Helped NACC in the End

The battle to use city money to fund some people's idea of art waged furiously last February when the council majority chose to pull the plug on the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center (NACC).

Over the last 10 years, NACC has received $825,000 of public money from the city of Niagara Falls.

The NACC, occupying the old Niagara Falls High School building, with a paid staff of six, has 70 tenants in studios that once were classrooms.

NACC is supported by donations and rents from the tenants, many of whom operate businesses there.

At the February council meeting where the council made the cut, an angry parade of NACC employees and tenants came to chastise, cajole and threaten the council into giving the NACC yet another $30,000 in 2013.

The council voted 3 to 2 against, with the mayor's rubber stamps, Grandinetti and Walker, voting to spend more public money on the NACC.

The council majority, Choolokian, Fruscione and Anderson voted against it and at the end of the day, they were right.

Executive Director Bob Drozdowski told the Reporter that the NACC redoubled their efforts to raise money from donations and because of that effort the NACC raised more than the $30,000 they did not get from the city.

In fact, the controversial Art of Beer fund-raiser, headed by Mayor Dyster’s wife which normally was funded by taxpayer money, went off as planned on Feb. 22 and, according to published reports, it was not only well-attended, it had the additional advantage of being an event that did not require taking public money.

In short the council majority made an "honest woman" out of the NACC.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter - Publisher Frank Parlato Jr. www.niagarafallsreporter.com

SEP 03, 2013