Niagara Falls – The Underground Railroad Commission has been receiving $350,000 per year in dedicated casino revenue since 2009. At $350,000 per year for seven years that’s a total of $2,450,000. The money is set aside annually out of the casino revenue account to support and promote the Underground RailroadRead More

While great attention has been paid to the condition of the city’s casino revenue account, virtually nothing has been asked, much less revealed, as to how the city is using the interest earned by the many millions of casino revenue dollars that have been received and banked over the years.Read More

What do tree stump removal, police overtime, engineering consultants, penguins, pothole patching and the train station all have in common? They were all supported with casino revenue over recent years. It’s strange, but true, that every one of these things – and a whole lot more – were deemed byRead More

    Niagara Falls – With the city’s new train station and Underground Railroad Heritage Museum ready to open by the end of May, a couple of questions linger. How do you open a history museum when not a single artifact has been acquired or display fabricated? Despite the factRead More

      It was the summer of 2013, almost three years ago, and the city of Niagara Falls was in the midst of a crisis. According to the Buffalo television stations and local newspapers quoting Mayor Paul Dyster, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Sen Kirsten Gillibrand, one man wasRead More

Whether exposing the crooked Glynn Maid of the Mist monopoly, criticizing the Niagara Falls State Park “Landscape Improvements” plan which ruined Three Sisters Islands, sounding the alarm on the Parks Police barracks which was slated for the edge of the scenic Niagara Gorge, rallying the public against the demolition of the 1864Read More

The Reporter was pleased to see freshman council member Ezra Scott decline to support Mayor Dyster’s attempt to walk on a surprise resolution at the recent council meeting. The resolution aimed to tap the city till for up to $75,000 to support the hosting of a meeting of the GreatRead More

  There’s a mystery brewing on historic Chilton Avenue and several community activists have expressed interest in getting to the bottom of the puzzle’s particulars at the January 13 Planning Board meeting. The city, under the guidance of Seth Piccirillo, director of Mayor Paul Dyster’s Community Development Department, sold 631Read More

Vince Anello is a former Niagara Falls mayor and a current radio talk show host. He is also, by the nature of his time as mayor and councilman, a consummate student of municipal government. And for that reason he has  become persona non grata with the Dyster administration. On hisRead More

  For some, last weekend’s torching of the Midtown Inn on Niagara Street brought to mind the Moonglow Hotel fire of November 1957. But while the destruction of the troubled Midtown may even be seen as something of a public service, the catastrophic Moonglow fire – which left 18 peopleRead More

  By Mike Hudson Last week, our colleagues at the Niagara Gazette ran a thought provoking and largely sensible editorial calling for the hiring of a city engineer. That is a sensible position. Paying vast sums of money to outside engineering consultants from Buffalo – as Niagara Falls Mayor PaulRead More

The Reporter, in its December 30 print edition, stuck the proverbial fork in the hind end of the Hamister hotel project as we called it “deader than dead.” The very next day council chairman Andrew Touma appeared on the Vince Anello radio show to say, during his one hour visit,Read More

  One hundred thousand dollars. It’s a lot of money anywhere, but in a place like Niagara Falls, where money’s tight and jobs are scarce, it can be considered a fortune. In a city where the per capita income for all residents is just $20,327 and the average household scrapesRead More

We’re looking, we’re listening, we’re paying attention. The Reporter is watching the moves of Mayor Dyster as his re-election fades in the rear view mirror and the post-election city hall gears get greased with quid pro deals that were made pre-election. The mayor cobbled together a clumsy but ultimately effectiveRead More

  The local construction company suing the state over its termination as the Canalside contractor in July of 2013 has won a major victory in the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court. In a unanimous ruling handed down last week, the court reinstated DiPizio Construction’s claim that the president ofRead More