The Empire fights back

With all the nonsense going on regarding the garden on Ontario Avenue removed by the city, a few observations:

1. Stop taking the Gazette seriously. Their print circulation, once over 30,000, is now likely 2,000 or less. You can’t get it home delivered unless you trust the mail. You can’t read their reporting online unless you pay $39.50 monthly for a subscription. Last August, I renewed my Buffalo News subscriptions for $136.50 for 12 months of digital access. Lee Enterprises sucks. Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. sucks more.
2. Mark Scheer remains a friend but he tends to be negative and suspicious and doesn’t trust the government (neither do I). He is also reasonable. If someone from the administration had spoken to him rather than panicking, he would have written a more balanced story.
3. With all the rancor over that issue this week, we lost sight of potholes. Pass the killer already. And pay for the overtime. And, Mr. Mayor, show up at the darn meeting even if the people can be mean. We know you are sensitive and don’t take criticism well but it comes with the territory.

Here’s the release City Administrator Anthony Restaino sent out Wednesday afternoon.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE CITY OF NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK

PRESS RELEASE REGARDING CLEAN NEIGHBORHOOD ACTION

TAKEN BY DPW ON APRIL 21ST AT 2627 ONTARIO AVE.

In the last 48 hours, there has been much interest and concern expressed by some local media and members of the public as to how the City addresses the issue of protecting the health and safety of the public relative to illegal uses of public rights of way, as well as the health hazards caused by accumulation of debris, garbage (including organic waste, refuse, and animal feces), junk, rubbish, and weeds on private property. These problems are not new. Looking at the City’s legislative records, Niagara Falls City Council adopted Chapter 738 of the City Ordinances on November 30, 1987. Entitled the “Clean Neighborhood Ordinances,” it made the Department of Public Works largely responsible for enforcement actions against owners and occupants of private property.

While Chapter 738 has been amended over the years, there has been no change in the process of how any Director of DPW between 1987 and today issues an Order of Cleanup to owners and occupants of property that itemizes the violations to be corrected “within a reasonable time…not to exceed 10 days from the date of the Order.” [§ 738.06(d)]. Nor has there been any change in the Ordinance’s procedures controlling what actions DPW takes when owners and occupants ignore an Order of Cleanup. Quoting directly from the 1987 version of the Ordinance, which still reads the same way today:

(e) The Order of Cleanup shall also state that, should the violating condition not be corrected within the time specified, the City shall remove the offending condition on or after a date and time specified in the Order.

(f) The Order of Cleanup shall also state that, should the City remove the violating condition, the cleanup costs, disbursement and handling fee and administrative penalty will be payable by the owner or occupant and, if unpaid, shall be assessed against the real property as provided in this section.

(emphasis added). [§ 738.06(e-f)].

The owner’s front property line follows the edge of the concrete public sidewalk that is closest to the front of the home. That means the City’s right of way extends from the centerline of Ontario Ave., over the curb and what should be a grassy margin and includes the entire width of the concrete public sidewalk. Even the grassy margin between the curb and the concrete sidewalk is considered part of the sidewalk, meaning that the grass must be maintained for the safe travel of pedestrians – for example, people exiting the passenger side of a parked car and trying to walk to the concrete portion of the sidewalk.

In a recent Gazette article, the occupants renting 2627 Ontario claim they have been growing a garden in front of their house for the past five years. But whatever garden they may have created as far back as 2020, there is no evidence of it on the City’s right of way or even on the front yard in September of 2022, when Google took the following image at that address:

There is certainly no evidence of raised garden beds bordered by logs and cinder blocks. Nor has the property’s front walkway from the porch steps to the sidewalk been extended yet to the curb. What this means is that the image published by the Gazette (below) is not representative of whatever gardening was being done during the growing seasons of 2020, 2021, and 2022. Logically, the Gazette photo could only have been taken during the growing season of 2024, or 2023 at the earliest.

Regardless of whether someone sees this cinder block and log garden as attractive or not, the occupant’s decision to take over the City’s right of way – specifically, the grassy area in the foreground which, by definition, is part of the sidewalk and therefore intended for pedestrian use – represents multiple violations of City Ordinances, as well as federal law known as the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Having said that, the condition of the garden as depicted in the above image is not what led neighbors to complain to at least two Council Members, and file complaints on the 311 system starting in December of 2024. The most recent 311 complaint was received on March 21. It led a Clean Team inspector to visit the address on April 3rd to take photographs of violations and attach an Order of Clean Up to the front porch. The same day, the Order of Clean Up was mailed to both the owner of the property in Amherst, as well as to the occupants. All this was done in compliance with the relevant portions of the Clean Neighborhoods Ordinance as they have existed since 1987.

Here is a sample of the inspection photos taken on April 3rd –

Note that the driveway shown on the left side of the photo above belongs solely to the neighboring property. In fact, 2627 Ontario Avenue has no driveway or shared driveway. Also note the tripping hazards posed by orange and painted bricks and the variety of cinder blocks placed on the grass margin, as well as on top of the concrete sidewalk.

This photo depicts the walkway extension that the occupants created by placing red-colored mulch, brick, stones, and logs over what was previously all grass as late as September of 2022. These features, with or without the log border, are not ADA-compliant and present a tripping hazard.

Note the debris encroaching into the neighbor’s driveway, as well as the bricks that are sitting atop the concrete public sidewalk.

Note the construction debris, logs and bricks encroaching on the neighbor’s driveway to the right of the subject property.

Now here is a sample of the inspection photos taken on April 21, just before the Clean Team started the cleanup. They document little to no efforts by either the occupants or owner of 2627 Ontario Avenue to remove the violations that were noted eighteen days earlier in the April 3rd Order of Cleanup.

After carefully reviewing this matter, the Executive Office has concluded that the Director of DPW and his staff properly applied and followed the Clean Neighborhood Ordinance relative to the recent enforcement action at 2627 Ontario Ave. One of the occupants was recently quoted as saying “I get what they are trying to do with this new ordinance against us, but there’s some flaws in it.” Yet, there is nothing new about the provisions of Chapter 738 that were enforced on April 21 at this address. Nor do we agree that there are any flaws in those provisions. The public should also know that every workday, the Clean Team performs between six to twenty clean-ups on private property under Chapter 738 with no complaints being registered.

In closing, much of the reporting to date has been both sensational and misinformed, which has had the unfortunate effect of feeding the anger of some of our citizen’s lesser angels. The administrative staff of DPW have now started receiving phone calls threatening their safety based on a belief that the City has targeted a family rather than the unsafe and unlawful conditions that the family created both on public property and the private property that they rent. The Clean Team has one of the toughest jobs in the City, and they should never be vilified for doing their jobs and following the laws and the ordinances that were passed on the local and federal level.