Deep, dark and dastardly

For the last month or so, almost daily, I would open Facebook in the morning and find followers tagged on the Niagara Reporter Facebook page.

I freely admit, I assumed the postings were being generated by Ken Cosentino. I never asked and kept checking back as postings escalated. My assumption was wrong.

A few weeks ago it was one about the stray dog crisis in Niagara Falls. Some of it seemed serious. Then the comments, culled from other facebook conversation threads, strayed off the rails.

It was strange because the critics of Mayor Robert Restaino’s handling of the Niagara Falls dog shelter crisis had escalated comments alleging infidelity against the mayor and Keli Swagel. The Reporter regurgitated them.

The allegations were believable but only appeared on Facebook, which seemed odd. It is slanderous to make stuff up about people, and legally actionable, but truth is a defense. I never paused to consider the actionability of social media posts or how hard it is to verify.

Reporter postings also strayed into allegations of corruption, never with actual evidence but always salacious enough to be interesting. I wondered if Cosentino was off his rocker.

I have said in this space before that if there is anything untoward going on in city government it is likely so deeply buried it would take a serious investigation to find it.

For example, the dog shelter situation was mishandled, but that is at worst incompetence and arrogance more than malfeasance. It could have been handled with transparency and communication with the public with the same end result, Pit Chic handling about ⅓ of the stray dogs roaming the city at any given time.

Ditto how the mayor handled American Rescue Plan funds, hosting five public forums but ultimately allocating almost all of the $56 million to police, fire, building a dog shelter, fixing heating and cooling at City Hall and building a new DPW building. Important things for city infrastructure and to make sure police, fire and most employees still support the mayor.

The city council offered no pushback, aside from the occasional dissent from councilperson Brian Archie or Donta Myles.

A rumor yesterday was the auditors from the State were at city hall unannounced, never a good sign.

The Reporter fusillade bottomed out earlier this week with a piece about nepotism in the Restaino family and pointing out how many family members are on the city payroll. Again, it was Facebook only and even made reference to Cliff Scott leaving before that news appeared in the Gazette this morning.

Then Monday, came an apology posted to the Reporter Facebook page from LATO House, apologizing and stepping back from further publishing because of threats received.

Cosentino had nothing to do with any of it. He told me he freelances for the Reporter but he always uses a byline and never makes things up even if some see him as a conspiracy theorist.

It turns out LATO House is a content creation entity closely associated with Dantae Richardson, an entrepreneur working to fix Niagara Falls by exposing corruption.

Those Niagara Reporter posts were likely generated with artificial intelligence. The reason they only appeared on Facebook is likely plausible deniability. If no one can trace the slanderous, libelous allegations to a specific person, it is hard to find someone to sue. AI is effective for content creation but not journalism.

At the heart of this, things are complicated. The Mayor, as a judge, was used to being in control and being above criticism. I believe it is why he won’t attend council meetings. He doesn’t want to be present when people insult him “for the good of the community”. It is also why in his weekly address via Youtube, he drops bombs. For example:

• Referring to “you people” rather than naming Arlene Doss.
• Referring to the the “sunshine council member” rather than naming Donta Myles.
• Referring to “minor media outlets” rather than mentioning the Niagara Reporter.

The Reporter is still owned by Frank Parlato who now lives in Florida. Parlato used to own One Niagara, but if he has economic interest in the Falls beyond that I don’t know what it is.

So this brings us to the end of the tale. Draw your own conclusions but a full-on artificial intelligence assault on the mayor and his family only makes sense if Richardson had a motive. Fixing Niagara Falls could be a motive but it could also be something else. We can only speculate but it could be possible the real motive behind the attacks was to knock the mayor off course so the Centennial Park project never happens.