Local News

Mainstream Media Gets Wise To Smoke And Mirrors Hamister Hotel

Niagara Falls April 14, 2016 at 8:38 am

While some media outlets still cling to the fantasy that do nothing Buffalo developer Mark Hamister will one day build a boxy, truck stop style hotel on one of the choicest pieces of property in the Niagara Falls tourist district, more are coming to the realization the Reporter reached onRead More

Hamister May Need More Taxpayer Money to Revive Failed Project

Hamister May Need More Taxpayer Money to Revive Failed Project

Niagara Falls April 14, 2016 at 8:33 am

According to informed sources in the Buffalo development community, Mark Hamister is about $6 million short of the mark in financing for his much-hyped $35.7 million Niagara Falls hotel project on Rainbow Blvd. that was trumpeted by state and local officials more than three years ago as the city’s bestRead More

Robert Warshaw was hired by Mayor Paul Dyster to oversee policy for the Niagara Falls Police Department. Sources say trouble is brewing over some of his policies.

Sad History Of Warshaw Here Points To High Level Administration Bungling

Niagara Falls April 14, 2016 at 8:30 am

You’ve got to hand it to Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster. He chose a city engineer, Ali Marzban, who was unlicensed to practice engineering anywhere in The United States. And he picked as his preferred hotel developer Mark Hamister, who not only had never built a hotel before but lackedRead More

Potholes abound on Third Street, on what was once hoped to be a tourist magnet.

Neglected Third Street Tourism District Casualty of State Park

Niagara Falls April 14, 2016 at 7:57 am

As you read this, work on the state’s $50 million upgrade of Niagara Falls State Park, expanding parking, food service and gift shop facilities, is being rushed to completion in anticipation of the estimated eight million tourists who will come to visit Niagara Falls this summer. Meanwhile, the city ofRead More

Gawel to Seek Chairmanship of City GOP Committee

Gawel to Seek Chairmanship of City GOP Committee

Niagara Falls April 13, 2016 at 11:34 pm

Former Councilman Michael Gawel says it is time for new leadership at the helm of the Niagara Falls City Republican Executive Committee and he will be challenging current GOP Chairman Vince Sandonato for the top job at the reorganization meeting in September. Gawel, who has been a highly visible figureRead More

Ranking Has Niagara Falls Among State’s Worst Places to Live

Ranking Has Niagara Falls Among State’s Worst Places to Live

Niagara Falls April 13, 2016 at 8:38 pm

  It was nearly four years ago that people flocked to Niagara Falls and watched from around the world as aerial daredevil Nik Wallenda made his historic wire walk over the roaring waters of the Niagara River and put the cataract city on the world stage for a brief moment. Read More

In Niagara Falls, under Council woman Kristen Grandinetti’s proposed legislation, someone who left an open can of Friskies on the back steps at night would be risking fines and jail time.

Council Tables Grandinetti’s Anti-Cat Amendments To Animal Law

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 8:29 am

This week the Niagara Falls City Council tabled legislation introduced by Council member Kristen Grandinetti that would have tightened regulations for cat owners in the city, and made feeding a stray cat a criminal offense. Grandinetti’s bill seeks to amend Chapter 701 of the Codified City Ordinances, which governs ownershipRead More

Mayor Paul Dyster spent more than $700,000 of public money on a series of Hard Rock concerts. Happily, he got to emcee many of those concerts.

Mayor Dyster Talks For 90 Minutes Says Absolutely Nothing At All

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:45 am

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster is a man of many unique abilities. Just this past Monday, for example, he spoke before the city Council for an hour and a half without saying anything at all. “It really was astounding,” said one awestruck witness. “He just went on and on!” Ostensibly, theRead More

A small mistake - not putting up support beams in the attic led to this Centre Ave. home's collapse. Thankfully the Isaiah 61 students had left the building before the home fell down.

Isaiah 61 Struggles Despite More Than $1 Million In Public Funding

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:43 am

  Although the city, state and various charitable organizations have thrown over $1 million at the Isaiah 61 Project since its’ inception in 2012, little has been accomplished to date. Isaiah 61 is a not for profit which receives local and state funding to rebuild rather than tear down vacantRead More

How curious: When Mayor Paul Dyster campaigned for reelection his motto was "moving forward together' and he used a fast forward button symbol. Now that he has been reelected Dyster suggests that his department heads have been holding him back.

City Hall Morale Plunges As Dyster Misses Own Deadline For Reevaluation

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:39 am

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster suggested last week that employees might perform better with a veritable sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. Despite running on a platform that touted his leadership skills in assembling a team of the “best and the brightest” during last year’s election, once he wasRead More

Writer Ginger Strand penned an entirely different view of Niagara Falls than the elected officials described.

International Journalists Help Us See Ourselves As Others See Us

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:33 am

In our effort to see Niagara Falls as others see it, we’ve examined both the statistical rankings that regularly appear on internet websites devoted to such things and the views of community leaders whose livelihoods largely depend on making people think things are good or at least getting better (SeeRead More

As one can see from the aerial picture, much of downtown Niagara Falls is being utilized for parking. Oddly, parking is in demand for only three months of the year, during the tourist season; the rest of the year, the lots are mostly empty.

See Yourself As Others See You? In Falls, Parking, Crime, Taxes, Health Problematic

Featured, Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:28 am

Niagara Falls, already Number One in so many categories – is now poised to take the top spot in a competition to see which American city has squandered the most valuable real estate for use as surface parking lots, which often sit empty for large parts of the year. StreetsblogRead More

Gov. Andrew Cuomo [center] promised in 2013 a new Niagara. It was tied in part to the tipping point Hamister hotel which has not been built largely because Cuomo's campaign contributor and developer Mark Hamister [left] does not have the financing to build it.  Hamister has inflated the price of the proposed hotel by 100 percent in order to falsely qualify for more taxpayer funding.
The new Niagara is much like the old Niagara.

Falls Hierarchy At Odds With Outside Assessments Of Falls Sorry Condition

Niagara Falls April 7, 2016 at 7:26 am

There are two sides to every story, so they say, and if you want to hear the side that completely goes against the grim portrayals of Niagara Falls that regularly appear in the national media or the statistically based rankings that show the city to be at the top ofRead More

Press Release: Preliminary Statement Brief Regarding Plaintiffs: Jean Bridenbaker and Garry K Connors, the Estate of Matthew Connors, in opposition to the Defendants: City of Buffalo, Buffalo Police Department

Press Release: Preliminary Statement Brief Regarding Plaintiffs: Jean Bridenbaker and Garry K Connors, the Estate of Matthew Connors, in opposition to the Defendants: City of Buffalo, Buffalo Police Department

Community News, Erie County April 6, 2016 at 1:33 pm

  The Niagara Falls Reporter makes no comment on the actual case, however are posting as we received as a press release.

Vacancy and blight and not spin off greet the visitors approaching the Seneca Niagara casino 

What Were They Thinking? Seneca Casino Sucks Life From City

Featured, Niagara Falls March 31, 2016 at 10:54 am

What were they thinking? Back in 2002, when the state of New York, under the leadership of then Gov. George Pataki, handed 50 prime acres of downtown Niagara Falls real estate to the Seneca Nation of Indians to settle the Grand Island land claim and allow the Seneca to openRead More

When the Robert Moses Power Plant opened in 1961, the generation of electricity by private industry in Niagara Falls became a thing of the past. What were they thinking?

Urban Renewal, State Park, Power Project:, What Were They Thinking?

Featured, Niagara Falls March 31, 2016 at 10:53 am

Stupidity and corruption of the part of city officials in Niagara Falls isn’t a recent development. It is a tradition that goes back to even before the founding of this great metropolis, on March 17, 1897. In fact, things started going downhill as early as 1885, with the creation ofRead More

Mark Hamister is an extremely well connected businessman who has donated to a plethora of local and state wide politicians.

What Were They Thinking? Hamister Hotel Shows They Weren’t Thinking At All

Featured, Niagara Falls March 31, 2016 at 10:50 am

The Hamister Hotel deal is exactly the sort of fiasco that makes Niagara Falls such a special place. Choose a politically connected “developer” who apparently doesn’t have any money, hand him a parcel of prime real estate for pennies on the dollar, along with tax breaks and other incentives, thenRead More

From soup to nuts, the 72nd Street water main project that left residents there without running water for two winters in a row. Politicians ignored the problem until it became an issue in last year’s election. What were they thinking?

Water Board Creation Leaves to Wonder What Were They Thinking?

Featured, Niagara Falls March 31, 2016 at 10:45 am

At the behest of the Niagara Falls City Council, the New York State Legislature created the city Water Board back in 2002. Locally, the primary cheerleader for spinning off the city’s water and wastewater treatment services was Paul Dyster, then a freshman Council member and now mayor of the city.Read More

Will tourists be prohibited from experiencing Terrapin Point this summer?

Terrapin Point….Off Limits

Featured, Niagara Falls March 31, 2016 at 10:43 am

By Emma Gibbs As another tourist season approaches, the New York State Parks Office is trying to fine tune a sale pitch explaining to some eight million annual visitors why the American side viewing area of the Horseshoe Falls is off limits. Terrapin Point, located at the western end ofRead More

Ezra Scott

Tompkins, Scott Seek To Wrest Water Board Control From Albany

Featured, Niagara Falls March 31, 2016 at 10:39 am

In addition to calling for the termination of Niagara Falls Water Board Executive Director Paul Drof, city Councilman Ken Tompkins has introduced a resolution with Councilman Ezra Scott asking that all five members of the Water Board by approved by the mayor and the Council, so as to regain cityRead More

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