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Wednesday night’s Niagara Falls City Council meeting was chaos as per usual.
The continuous discontent of Donta Myles was evident at every turn.
Council Chairperson James Perry tried and failed to control the rancorous debate, repeatedly seeking the counsel of acting Corporation Counsel Thomas DeBoy as, 11 months into the job after a 30-plus year career serving in military and in leadership positions in the public and private sector, Perry still struggles to speak clearly, understand Robert’s Rules of Order and control an admittedly unruly gallery.
Compounding matters Wednesday was a lack of police presence which kept Perry from being able to order unruly people removed from the podium or escorted from the chambers.
The meeting started with a hearing on delaying a change in the zoning law for one year to allow progress for Niagara University to create more student housing. The change will limit student housing in the city which has been a source of neighborhood complaints in DeVeaux for many years.
The council also voted to rezone a parcel on Colvin Boulevard stained by the Love Canal legacy to allow a solar farm or at least a feasibility study.
A speaker about the proposed development at a previous meeting lamented a wooded area would be cleared to create a blighted eyesore. Then she visited the site with a representative of NYSERDA, which still needs to determine feasibility, and discovered it wasn’t where she thought.
Wednesday it was Tanya Barone, who previously, while carrying her electromagnetic-radiation-emitting phone warned the council about electromagnetic-emitting solar panels causing cancer. She also worried about toxic chemicals leaching from the panels or the construction piercing the capped landfill below while wondering if the parcel could be used for residential development.
This time, the main concern for Barone was the mysterious death of sheep on a Bedell Road solar facility on Grand Island. She intimated the cause of death of the sheep was unknown but may have been toxic waste from the solar panels or excessive heat. The farmer carted away the dead animals.
There was even a Facebook thread on the topic that garnered more than 160 comments had photos of the dead animals.
The council voted 3-1 to rezone the property with Donta Myles against and a contentious, cantankerous gallery ignoring Perry’s attempt at control.
Channel 4 recently reported on the dead animals and attributed the deaths to coyotes. The Express suspects chupacabra or wolves. Solar panel radiation or coyotes seem far-fetched when we have the chance to embrace good old-fashioned crypto-zoology.
https://www.wivb.com/news/local-news/erie-county/grand-island/grand-isl…
