Front yard garden story gets exposed

By Jim Perry

Niagara Falls City Council Chairperson

I was always one who was very much in support of my hometown newspaper. I always thought it was necessary to bring real news to the community. People who pointed to the news and said it was biased were just disgruntled, but a recent articles in the Niagara Gazette has me on the verge of cancelling my subscription.

I know it is no big deal, just one more person deciding not to buy the local paper, but now that I am in the government and I see the facts and then see the one-sided articles being written, I can’t sit quietly without saying something. Case in point is the story Mark Scheer wrote recently in the Gazette about this house on Ontario Avenue. This is not a news story. It is a blatant twist of facts.

First, let me point out a few discrepancies; in one part of the article, the lady said she called the city to inquire about the notices, but later she claimed she never received a notice of noncompliance. Well, anyone with a brain would have picked up on that right away, next, the photo that was published in the Gazette was in no way representative of what the house looked like. How do I know? Well, because I received many complaints from neighbors who also sent me photos of what the yard looked like. I am going to post an actual photo I received weeks before the city took any action on that property. The workers can’t speak out but many of them are outraged at the story. The article itself was a total misrepresentation of facts.

The lady in the article was quoted as saying it was something that made her autistic son happy. I was told by a couple of the city workers that there was a refrigerator in her backyard with the door still attached. Now if I had a child and was concerned about his welfare, autistic or not, isn’t that something to be concerned about?

One of the neighbors wrote to me that these conditions have been like this for over two years, and it was time something was done. They told me the condition of the home was attracting rats due to feces in the yard being left there and not being disposed of. One of the other council members, whose name I shall leave out of this because I did not get permission to use it, went to the City Administrator and asked me to bring this complaint forward because he, too, received complaints.

By the time I had done this, the city was already in the process of serving the homeowner. There were also so many other factors involved in this story that I will not get into because I don’t want to bring anyone’s dirty laundry into the story that I don’t have to, but the actions the city took were justified.

So all I have to say is Mark Scheer, if you are going to do the community right, if you cover a story, be accurate. I have always thought the hometown newspaper was a good thing, but if you are going to start running articles like that online gossip column, The Reporter, your credibility has gone down the drain. I can respect a person who has more liberal views than I do, but I can’t respect a person who twists the truth.

Are you trying to make the Gazette something along the lines of the National Enquirer of the 1970s? I’ll wait to hear the story of the child who was raised by wolves at Devils Hole. Please, start writing your articles with some credibility.