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The Express watches so you don’t have to
(Editor’s note: Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino deigns upon his minions a weekly missive about each week’s happening in his kingdom. The Express watches so you don’t have to. This was published Friday but drone for 18 minutes mostly to blame Councilpersons Donta Myles and Brian Archie for not voting for better pothole repairs.)
Kudos to Mark Scheer
I want to express our appreciation. I
It seems Mark Scheer of the Gazette is a frequent listener to this as well as to appearances of radio show of Hall of Famer Tom Darro. Appreciate the fact that Mark Scheer gathers information and spreads it out to the people who either subscribe to the extent that they do or purchase the local newspaper.
Celebration is beginning
“We started last weekend, next year in July will be the 250th anniversary of our independence and really the celebration kicked off last Saturday with the reenactment of what’s been called the shot heard round the world both in Lexington and Concord so what will now go on is a series of events throughout the rest of this year and into next year leading up to the celebration in July of the city’s 250th birthday.
“We will obviously be participating in the state planning for the event and look forward to being able to provide you with information about what will be going on here, at Fort Niagara and throughout the region, a lot of different places that will be involved.”
Streetlights
The project is nearly 2/3rds completed some of the areas that remain under construction are major thoroughfares like Buffalo Avenue
On chaos and responsibility
It seems that public bodies whether school board meetings, legislative meetings, city council meetings, we’ve even seen it in the House of Representatives where we have seen it erupt into chaos. If you just simply were to Google city council chaos you are going to see chaotic meetings from coast to coast.
“I raise that because our own city council meetings have become just that. The funny thing is those proponents of that, members of the council body who believe that somehow or other, that’s just business as usual or normal and choose or refuse to do nothing to maintain order or avoid inciting more of it.
“They seem to think somehow or another that kind of chaos is enshrined in the First Amendment, again that is kind of a misconception. The First Amendment gives you the right to say some things that some other people might not like to hear.
“The First Amendment would give you Freedom of Speech to say those things that might otherwise be objectionable. But the First Amendment doesn’t provide an opportunity to avoid civility, to avoid decency. To express your opinion as objectionable as it may be, in a civilized and orderly manner. That’s the First Amendment. Your right to say what you think. And the sort of conduct that goes on, you can see any time you want to view one of our city council meetings, that kind of conduct isn’t what the drafters or the framers of our Constitution would have thought in terms of one’s freedom of speech.
“So I think what that does is it chills the opportunity for reasonable people to attend meetings. It also impedes the opportunity for common, logical discourse. Things turn into shouting matches, screaming from the folks who are sitting in the public seating, that is not civil discourse. It is more akin to what might happen on any given Sunday during the football season. That is no civil discourse. . . .
“So it is unfortunate that chaos, and as I said, it appears to be from coast to coast, there is really less of a desire on the part of reasonable minds to engage when that is the environment that they are in. It also makes it hard for public officials to participate.
Transitioning to last week’s car crash
“This past week, it seems as those some members of the council aren’t interested in taking care of those things that are critical to you and to me.
“No. 1 on the list is potholes. What is most remarkable to me is that the items that are on the agenda, they are made available for certainly council members and the public well in advance of the meeting and enshrined in the charter as well as in terms of administrative rules that predate our arrival in city hall, there is a methodology to get information.
“You know, my job certainly is not 9 to 5. It certainly isn’t 1 or 2 days a month and it certainly isn’t an opportunity for me to try and jam everything in in just a few hours before I have to go and make decisions on certain things.
“And so, if certain elected officials think that that is the best approach to their work there, then they are really depriving you of good representation.
(Editor’s note: This appears to be direct commentary on Donta Myles, though not mentioned by name.)
“The idea that somehow, and I think one of the council members, who attempted to bring some order and civility to the discussion on the agenda item that referred to how the city, how the administration was proposing we address potholes had it right.
“It was really about doing something to see which would be the most cost effective and we only have so many people in our crew at public works. Those public works people work hard when they are out there patching holes and then obviously will pivot to road repair where we will be doing reconstruction of certain roads.
“When they are doing reconstruction of certain roads, there isn’t a separate group out there to go and do pothole repair. All of that information, which by the way, was shared by one of the council members, I believe during the course of the discussion but more importantly, could have been made available by any council member who wanted to inquire if they had questions about why are we paying overtime, we aren’t paying overtime as they patch streets today.
“They are doing it because we are not ready yet to start doing the road reconstruction. That crew that is doing the pothole patching today is going to have to pivot to road repair. And so, the only way to get them back to doing some potholes will be to provide for this overtime all of which is merely a method to determine can we utilize both this contract for machinery as well as our own personnel to try and cover more of the problem that plagues you and me on the streets.
“But apparently it was more important for some of the council members to avoid getting additional information to claim that they need to have people at the meeting, and I don’t know how you can go to a meeting that is chaos, that would be nothing more than the continued shouting, jeering or whatever else goes on there.
“No individual should be subjected to that. Unless and until council members choose not to contribute to it, as well as council members working to prohibit it, it is going to be difficult to get people in the community, as well as department heads or administration officials to attend those meetings.
Final shots at Myles and Archie
“The meetings aren’t opportunities to examine, at length, proposals that are on the agenda. There is an opportunity for that for elected officials to interact with the administration. A choice to not contact the administration, to not learn more about agenda items is just that, a choice.
“It is a choice to want to remain with little knowledge, with limited knowledge. It is a choice to say I am going to come to the meeting and just complain or to obstruct things because I choose not to spend more time on the job that I was elected to do.
“So again, you know, I would love to tell you that my work ends when I walk out of here at 5:30, 6 o’clock, 6:30 whenever but it doesn’t. I think anybody who has responsibilities that public .
officials have, especially with regard to a $100 million enterprise, should realize that the work doesn’t end. After hours if you want to call it that, I don’t have after hours, there’s things that can be done.
“There’s emails that go out, there are messages returned, there is review of documents. When you make a commitment, make a commitment. It is unfortunate that that is a choice these council members have made but just remember as potholes continue to be a problem you have a couple of council members that you can thank for that.
“And a couple of council members who had information available to them but elected to avoid it. It is easier to avoid it when you are more interested in projecting an image than achieving the task for which you were elected. So on behalf of all of us in the administration we believe the presentation on the agenda this past Wednesday with regard to addressing the road issues was both logical and potentially very productive.
“But we won’t know. We won’t know because there was really a lack of concern on the part of some of the elected officials to make sure that they understood before they cast votes. So again, that’s too bad.”
Food Truck Thursdays lives
“A few weeks ago I mentioned that Food Truck Thursdays might go on hiatus. I am happy to report that that may not be the case. We now have a new director of business development, and the new director is working to make sure that we reestablish food truck Thursdays for this season. More on that as it begins to unfold.
“I think you will join me in saying Food Truck Thursdays were very, very, popular. I enjoyed it. It was a good time to get out at our train station, hear some local entertainment and enjoy some great food. I will give you more information as that also begins to develop.”
Parks work
“We continue to address the needs of all of our parks. I had a chance to be out with the Buffalo Niagara Waterkeepers this week and talk about what we are doing along the Hyde Park shoreline to improve the water quality as well as work toward a more environmentally friendly Hyde Park.
“So we have also gotten underway with some of our other projects, improving picnic shelters, as well as doing some other work improving playground equipment throughout the city. “Throughout the spring and summer, residents will see work going on in a number of different parks throughout the city and most especially Hyde Park so we will continue to provide the updates as that goes on.
SUNY Niagara baseball rocks
Also, I didn’t take a look this morning but I know that the SUNY Niagara Men's Baseball Team is having quite a season and so if you get a chance and you want to go on the team’s Website to see when they are going to be playing again at Sal Maglie Stadium you want to get out there and watch them.
They are a pretty good group of athletes. Nationally they are pretty well respected.
About the weather and driving
“We’ve enjoyed warm weather and more warm weather will be coming. Last night my wife and I were out and about and saw some State Troopers conducting traffic enforcement.
“As the weather gets warmer, please avoid the urge to become a bit more reckless on the road. It is important that you obey traffic controls, obey speed limits.
“Do the simple things. Signal your turns because we have pedestrians, we have bicyclists, we have scooters we have all kinds of things on the road. We just had an incident a few weeks back with regard to an individual on a scooter.
“Let’s not make that what this summer will be defined by. Let’s make this summer be defined by operators on the road being respectful of the rules of the road so we can all enjoy a good spring, summer and fall.
“Trails are open as the weather gets nicer we will see more and more people out there. Be safe”
