The World According to Bob

(Editor’s note: Most weeks, the Express takes the time to transcribe Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino’s weekly Youtube proclamation so that his plebescites don’t have to watch. Here goes something.)

DPW has now fixed 1,500 potholes

Our Department of Public Works, our street crew, since the opening have repaired approximately close to 1,500 potholes. Now, that sounds like a lot. I am sure there is a pothole out there that you and I are going to think “OK, when are you going to do that one?” But if you think about the fact they have done this in just this one several week period, we have a few more months before we start doing the active street paving.

I really appreciate their hard work. It isn’t easy doing what they do. They are out there every day repairing the roads and eventually, we know that they will get to many if not all of the difficult spots and roads around the city. We should all recognize the fact that they are working very hard. That doesn’t even count whatever Pothole Killer is also addressing. They are out there, they are working hard. Remember, they live in the city as well and they drive on the same streets and I think they are probably very interested as well in making sure the streets are repaired as best as they can do.

Lobbying the governor

This past week, I spent a day in Albany talking about the governor’s proposal to lower auto insurance rates, something that I think all of us would really appreciate happening here in New York State regardless of the age of the driver, the number of automobiles in the household, whatever it is that impacts your auto insurance, compared to other states we are paying significantly more.

Now there are a lot of reasons for that and so, what I have reviewed in the governor’s policy is some really common sense approaches that can help turn down that increase that is happening. So we spent the better part of Wednesday talking with legislators for their support of this proposal.

So hopefully, as the budget sort of grinds its way to conclusion that that policy proposal will be included.

We need a hockey rink

The other thing that I had the chance to do was to speak to the director of operations for the State of New York Becky Bray and we had a very good conversation about the event center, about the critical nature of that development for the city. She then asked me to follow up with some documents which I have had a chance to provide to her. So getting the conversation going, both on the legislative end and the executive end in Albany is important for the progress of the project.

Hey Bridgette, he’s lookin’ at you

Back home here, we still continue to have the same kind of challenges with um sometimes elected officials ignore the fact that they are city government. They ignore the fact when they talk about holding the city government accountable. Well I know this might be breaking news for some of them but they are city government and they get regular reports, monthly budget performance reports, they get reports on checks issued.

Reading those documents, spending some time with them helps public officials take a look at the finances which, by the way, under the terms of the charter, that is one of the principle elements of our council’s duties is to provide budgetary measures to finance city services and so when they analyze those things, they are going to be able to take a look at where in any given month, they are going to be able to look at what expenditures are happening, where is it year to date, how does it compare to the adopted budget etcetera.

Whether they do that or not is truly anybody’s guess. I suspect that if that is happening, then this idea of having to hold city government accountable, they are city government, by petulantly holding back on agenda items presented, some of which, like the sterilization equipment for our senior citizens, have nothing to do with tax dollars, seems to me to be a little bit of forgetting what the tasks would be for our legislative branch. In addition, you know the ability to want to provide, you know media attention to what things media members think are critical needs, you know it isn’t as though all of us in government aren’t aware of the things that are being pointed out. We are certainly

aware. We are not working to sensationalize them. We are trying to accomplish results but we are also constrained. As I have explained repeatedly and you may all have heard this before, we are also constrained by the level of staff we have.

Want change? Draft legislation

That brings me to the next element under the charter of what our legislative branch can and should do. If you see these things, and you believe legislation needs to be drafted to tackle them because you believe that there is an ability through legislation to tackle the problem, by all means, prepare the law, prepare the ordinance, prepare whatever it is that you believe will help because that is also part of the task.

Stay in your lane, council

What isn’t part of the task is sending in requests to take care of this particular location or that particular location. You know, 40 years ago, the residents rejected that type of government. We used to have a government that had simply a city council and a city manager and at that point, the elected council members and the elected mayor sat sort of like a town board.

So you had departments really having all of these masters. Like who are we need this favor in this area this favor in this area. Voters rejected that way of governing which if you think about it started in 1916 when the city was much smaller. By the 1980s, it was clear that that wasn’t working so they changed it in this charter and for those who want to drag us back to the past, it’s these kinds of requests that come in that talk about wanting departments to do special favors in areas.

We try really hard to make sure the efforts of our departments, as they go throughout the city, whether it is paving streets, or taking out trees or repairing sidewalks is done fairly and objectively and so to go back in time to those kinds of things it doesn’t … it has already been rejected and it really doesn’t act as efficient government.

City council is wasting our money and not doing its job

I have shared with you that as a result of action by our legislative branch, the city now finds itself potentially in civil litigation over work done by a vendor in a street repair.

Recently, we all had our legislative group go outside of the areas of their effort in a way that has caused one of our public unions to file a grievance because of our legislative branches actions. And if all of that isn’t enough, the state of New York requires of all public entities to engage in certain education which is done either for workplace harassment, workplace violence and cyber security so the request to receive this education in cyber security went out to all of us on April 1. The finalization of it is required April 24, today by the end of business. All but one of our legislative branch personnel have not done it. In the event we don’t have it completed, the State of New York will cite the city for not having completed the education time.

Offering an olive branch

So I guess my invitation is to our legislative branch, concentrate on the things that are important for your role in the charter. That include helping the city government, of which you are a part, comply with those things that are necessary. Staying within the parameters of what your tasks are under the charter just as the executive branch needs to stay within its parameters and in that way, we can work together for the benefit of the taxpayers.

Current action really doesn’t bode well. You think about the atmosphere of council meetings and what that does to citizen participation, what it does to external observation of developers and others, sometimes that’s something too that I think legislative leaders should take a look at and try to correct.

So I am hoping that having had this conversation with them all earlier this week that maybe we can get to a better place in terms of voting. We need to do the best we can to accomplish what we can for the taxpayers while we are here.

Please remember we have seen some warmer weather be careful