16° and Clear
As we await Mayor Restaino’s weekly Youtube epistle which reveals more weekly about Niagara Falls Government than reporting here or in the Niagara Gazette, Niagara Falls Redevelopment spokesperson Jim Haggerty responded to an Express email query from January 8. Here is what he said. The court action is attached below.
“My apologies -- I totally missed your original email, then was a bit unclear about responding given the direct threat of litigation that cropped up after Mayor Restaino's initial ‘launch’ of his legal theory.
“But I do appreciate the depth of your reporting on this and other issues. I can tell you that, given the threatened litigation, we are not commenting at this point, except to note that, in sworn court papers less than a year ago, the City of Niagara Falls admitted to the Appellate Division that NFR owns the land (See the attached).
“A direct quote from the document is:
"Respondent, the CITY OF NIAGARA FALLS... [a]dmits that Petitioners [NFR] are the owners of the referenced parcels..."
Again, beyond this, we have no comment.
“More broadly, I would like to point out that just this week, the new administration and major tech companies announced an investment of up to $500 billion in data centers like the one NFR plans to build in downtown Niagara Falls (see this article for an analysis: https://www.forbes.com/sites/garthfriesen/2025/01/23/trumps-ai-push-understanding-the-500-billion-stargate-initiative/). It would be unfortunate for Niagara Falls to let this opportunity pass by."
Jim
