Dyster is Always ‘Right,’ but Blame for Budget Gap is Wrong, Dead Wrong

W.C. Fields, as Mr. Micawber, gives advice to David Copperfield: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds, re- sult happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty-one pounds, result misery." It’s a simple philosophy Niagara Falls would do well to consider.

Mayor Paul Dyster is always “right.”

That’s not “right” as in correct, it’s “right” as in his use of the word.

While appearing on the Tom Darro radio show Tuesday, Oct. 14, the mayor punctuated his remarks 46 times in his 60-minute appearance by tagging his sentences with the rhetorical one word comment “right.”

As in “Tom, I’m sure you’d agree that we all want to get the deficit under control, right?”

Or as in “Tom, I believe the garbage totes have proven to be a big success, right?”

We highlight his repetition of “right” because we believe his use of the word is his way of drawing us into his mindset, of trying to persuade us on a given subject such as garbage totes or the city deficit.

His use of “right” at the completion of a statement is his invitation to the listener to get on board and sign on.

Right?

After hearing hundreds, perhaps thousands of “right" “right” right” over the years, we feel His Honor’s reliance on the word is particularly interesting when it comes to the city budget deficit.

While filibustering on the Darro show, Dyster laid the blame for the city’s large “budget hole” at the feet of three things, none of which are the fault of Dyster or his administration.

The mysteriously large (the mayor never named the precise dollar amount but said it was large) budget deficit is due to 1) personnel costs 2) the Niagara County IDA issuing too many PILOTS (where property taxes are waived) for construction projects in Niagara Falls, and 3) “the past actions of the city council.”

While no doubt these contribute to the deficit, when the office of the state comptroller issued their highly critical report on the city’s finances in June 2013, that report never mentioned PILOTS, personnel costs or past actions of the council.

It pointed to the simple fact that Mayor Paul A. Dyster's budgets spend far more money than the city has taken in.

Isn’t that “right” Mr. Mayor?