Dyster’s 2011 Promises to LaSalle Residents Recalled Here

Talk about prescience: Paul Dyster spoke of the tip of the iceberg in 2011,

“I’m so happy this is finally happening.”

According to an October 25, 2011 letter to voters in LaSalle from Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster, these were the words of one John Mikula when the city broke ground on the LaSalle Waterfront Park back in August.

“When it’s finished, the park will be a crown jewel in the LaSalle area,” Dyster added.

The park’s cost to the taxpayers is uncertain, but what is certain is that the restrooms have been repeatedly vandalized since its’ 2012 opening, there are no security cameras anywhere and that it is closed for much of the year because city crews don’t bother plowing the parking lot when it snows.

“Building up LaSalle has been one of my top priorities as mayor,” Dyster’s 2011 campaign letter stated. “From paving and reconstructing streets, to investing in the library and neighborhood parks, to attracting new businesses, we’ve worked hard for LaSalle. ”

“But that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Dyster continued, as he described the paving and reconstructing of 72ndStreet, 77th Street and Royal Avenue.

Little did the LaSalle residents of those streets know in 2011 that the “tip of the iceberg” was going to come right down their streets, freezing them out of water for two consecutive winters as the mayor hid the engineering report that laid blame for their frozen pipes at the feet of the Dyster administration.

Now, large sections of the newly paved street will have to be torn up to allow contractors to go back in and do the job like it should have been done in the first place.

Perhaps things would have gone better for LaSalle over these past four years had only the voters given Dyster all of what he wanted.

But he got some things done.

The mayor’s support of Covanta Niagara’s plan for expanded garbage burning, a plan that would swell the onsite garbage dump and touch off a LaSalle rat population explosion in 2012 led him to tell residents, not so diplomatically, that their properties, and not Covanta bringing in hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage, was the rat attractor.

“Of course, there’s much more to be done,” Dyster concluded. “That’s why I am asking for your vote on November 8th. I need your support so I can keep fighting for LaSalle. Yes, LaSalle is finally getting its due. If you’re ‘so happy this is finally happening, please vote for … me so we can continue the progress.”

If Dyster gets four more years to continue what he’s started in LaSalle, perhaps even more residents will be without running water and another park that’s closed seven months out of the year will be dedicated and the rats will be eating out of his hands.

Think of it!