The World According to Bob

(Editor’s note: Each week, Mayor Robert Restaino issues a Sermon on the Mount, sharing his vision of city happenings via Youtube. Today, he rips on the city council for failing to approve a court-ordered lawsuit settlement, or a paving contract, or a mowing contract, or a grass cutting contract or even a grant the targets gun violence. The mayor also goes off on Councilmember Vincent Cauley for talking about protecting taxpayer dollars when he doesn’t really understand what taxpayer dollars are. In that, the Express disagrees with both. Any dollar that rests in city coffers, for even one moment, is a taxpayer dollar. Anyway, the Express transcribed it so you don’t have to watch. Unless you have paint that needs to dry.)

Magic Rocks

Here's the week at City Hall, and there are a number of things I'd like to share with you.

First, let me start by saying you remember that last week I talked to you about the opportunity to go to The Magic Show that is downtown, available on their website (https://www.magicrocks.com/).

I had the chance to be there this past weekend, and I can tell you that, illusionist Leon Etienne, puts on an absolutely fantastic show.

So if that is something that you enjoy, if it's something that you find entertaining, you will not be disappointed going to see his performance.

I cannot speak to others who may stand in while Leon is traveling, but I can tell you that if you check the calendar, and I think when he's performing you will not be disappointed.

Nice weather. Use common sense

Also, uh, today and tomorrow promise to be nice weather.

So if you're out there again, please be careful on the streets, be careful, uh, biking, uh, with your scooter, your e- vehicles, your motor vehicles.

Uh, please be mindful of pedestrians.

Beatings for the council

But I want to talk about a couple of things that are pressing. First, I want to talk about the council's,decision to allow the city to be held in contempt of court.

What's remarkable is that, contrary to the noise that you hear, and you hear a lot of noise, media outlets, let's say that it was 80 page documents and they didn't have enough time. That's incorrect.

The City Council sat with trial counsel for the action, a full, I believe, two weeks ahead of the June meeting where they approved it, had the opportunity to speak to trial counsel individually if they wanted to, after trial counsel met with them collectively to explain the entire document and answer all questions that they might have.

So any council member who wants to say they didn't have enough time isn't telling the truth.

Anyone who believes that the council was being asked to review and approve an 88-page document without having had sufficient time is also incorrect because for, I think it is at least a couple of weeks before the meeting the council was invited to come and sit with trial counsel and discuss it, review it, ask questions, and then after that meeting have direct contact with counsel if they had further questions.

So that is simply and flatly false.

Vincent Cauley is ignorant about the city budget

To have some council members, specifically Council Member Vincent Cauley talking about taxpayer funds. “Taxpayer funds,” hardly create a fund balance.

As I've explained several times the tax collection, in full would amount to a $33 million collection, $33 million as part of a $101 million budget.

And as you know, because so many of the council members were decrying, the fact that we did a foreclosure.

We talked about 3,000 properties. So we're not even collecting the full amount.

So for council members to suggest that it's taxpayer funding that creates fund balance means that they have no idea what the revenue streams, parking, sales tax, HRU, which by the way is hotel, restaurants, and utility tax are.

Those things also assist in building up the revenue for our budget.

So no, it's really, again, untrue to suggest that it is taxpayer funding, even beyond that, not only our local controller, uh, whose office I have great confidence in, but the state comptroller, that some want to come in and do investigations, and quite frankly, we've had a number of audits that have indicated that all of our books and records are in order.

But even the state comptroller says that court-ordered payments or one shot acquisitions are best addressed through fund balance.

And I will say this now: I have never, recommended tribal revenue to be used for this acquisition.

In fact, one council member indicated that they didn't want tribal revenue used at all.

There were two other people in the room when this council member said that. Now this council member's flip-flopping.

Another council member, who seemed to indicate that was the best way, was the same council member that wouldn't listen to trial counsel and wanted to hire an independent attorney at the cost of thousands of additional dollars to taxpayers, only to have that separate attorney say exactly what trial counsel says.

So It's remarkable how they waste money.

And you would think that council members who've had the opportunity to review budgets, like Council Member Cauley would know better than to make the kinds of suggestions and to represent, uh, falsely, information to the public. It's really, too bad.

Here comes then judge

In the end, we're now gonna be faced with having to go to court, and I'm hoping that the judge requires every council member to attend.

After all, you know, the one council member said that he wants to talk to Justice Deborah Chimes. Well I can assure you that the court isn't gonna want to have a conversation.

The court made an order, and that order needs to be respected.

So I'm looking forward, uh, to finally getting that behind us.

More beatings for the do-nothing council

I know that this is another example of council micromanaging, not trusting the law office, not trusting the controller's office.

They do that quite a bit. In fact, so much so that.

They wouldn't trust engineering, the Department of Public Works, or the Law Department relative to issues of public health and safety.

They complained and want to pop off in front of television cameras about high grass and things that need to be cut.

They voted no for additional help in grass cutting. They complained about streets and street conditions.

They voted no.

About paving: Huether has his own issues

On street repair, even though the Department of Public Works, the street crew indicated that the maximum amount of streets they could do was 10. Forget about what the union, uh, president said. He's got his own issues.

But in the end, this person was honest with the administration, and we even conveyed that to the union leadership as well as their business agent in June before this matter came before the council in early July, and still they voted no. We never heard from the union leadership.

About those sidewalks

Finally, as recently as a few days ago, they actually voted no on the repair of sidewalks. Now think about all of the people who are disabled or elderly.

We have sidewalks throughout the city that need repair.

We know that. To say that for a season, we're not going to do it, it's remarkable.

I also think that all of those votes are callous and spiteful.

You know, you really can't run government that way, but it appears as though that's the way certain members of the council want to do things and then of course there's the final insult to this public.

GIVE denied? You kiddin’ me?

You know, headlines are what headlines are, and we talk a lot about all throughout Western York.

The problem with guns and violence.

And so we have a program um, can help us address that.

And the program that we've been using and has been working.

Is any program foolproof? Of course not.

But this program has helped. It has reduced guns in the community.

And yet the GIVE grant, which one council member was so excited to have come back again, only to flip flop and result in the grant not being approved.

Can you imagine? We'll we'll listen to Facebook posts about sadness and vigils and all that other stuff. But when these members had the chance to do something about it. They don't support it.

And they'll give you these kinds of crazy opinions like, oh, I support the GIVE grant, or I support reducing gun violence.

Well, you had something you could do about it.

Okay, and talk about needing more information again, just garbage.

Because one of the coordinators spent time with two council members, the very council members that chose not to support this, and explained things extensively to them.

What Chief Faso likely thinks

You know, coordinator was kind enough not to comment on the council vote, but allow me to comment.

He spent an inordinate amount of time with one of them, came to the council meeting previous to this one earlier and explained the program to them.

One of the council members who voted against and said, “Good, now at least the state can use this money to reduce debt” whatever that means.

So, you know, in the old words the old saying, rather, if you're explaining, you're losing.

These two council members have gone on the explanation tour.

They want to talk out of both sides of their mouth.

“I support the GIVE grant, but I vote no.”

It's really remarkable.

And also, again, another callous, spiteful, and trite determination made by council members who you can obviously see they couldn't agree that today is Friday because they have personal agendas.

They wouldn’t even hire a mowing contractor

They have things that they want, uh, to achieve.

Other than what's good for you, most of the people in this community would like to see the high grass around cut down.

They would love to see more streets paved.

They would also believe that a program like the GIVE Grant is good for the community.

And they said no to a Brownfield grant

Do you know this bunch also voted against a brownfields opportunity initiative?

Now, in the current climate.

Something that would help explore brownfields, improve opportunities to improve them.

Don't you think it would be great to take advantage of that grant?

They also voted no on an environmental planning grant.

Now these are grants, folks.

These are, this isn't money that's coming out of taxpayers' pockets.

This isn't money that the city's general fund has to address.

So why would you vote no?

To find out more about, again, how do you address brownfield sites to improve them, remediate them in a way to allow for development?

And why would you vote no against a grant that would allow us to take a look at the waterways that we have that roll all through the city of Niagara Falls to improve their quality?

But no, they have their own personal agenda.

Listen to the experts

They have their own spitefulness that puts itself behind the idea of “we need more information.”

Well, you know what? If you start trusting the experts, department of engineering, comptroller's office, these people have been dealing with fiscal issues.

Some of them have been in there for decades. Or the law department is never gonna steer you wrong.

The law department's obligation is to make sure that we're all doing the things we're supposed to be doing.

I'll be honest, you know, folks may think that the decisions that come out of the executive office are done in a vacuum.

They're not.

We rely heavily on the department heads to give us their best advice, whether it's DPW, engineering, the assessor's office, you name it. That's why they're here.

But the council seems to want to micromanage.

They seem to want to roll this back.

To when the confusion of council members deciding what has to get done and what doesn't, that's what you're seeing happen right now.

You're seeing it happen because there are council members who have little regard for the best interests of the city.

They rather play to a small group, uh, that is vocal.

That really doesn't have the interest of the entire city in their focus, but rather more interested again on an agenda that they may have.

So we'll continue to pull ahead with the things that we are looking to try and accomplish.

I know that I am working right now with our law enforcement partners to see what we can do relative to the GIVE Grant.

I've advised, uh, the council chairperson on what I think would recommend should happen.

We'll see if the council has the courage, to do that.

I hope that they do, because the GIVE grant alone, let alone all of the other public health and safety issues, but the GIVE grant alone provides us an opportunity to work collaboratively with other law enforcement agencies, allows our law enforcement personnel to engage in community activities.

It really puts our law enforcement personnel back into the community doing things in a way that doesn't strain, uh, the taxpayers.

Bridgette Myles and Vincent are clueless

You know, it's funny.

One of the council members, uh, decried the payment of overtime through the grant.

Well, my friend, if the grant's not paying for that overtime, then the taxpayers you claim to want to protect, they're the ones that are gonna pay for it.

Just when you say some things, try to do your best to try and think before you say them.

You can't talk about the settlement order and say, Well, we have to protect taxpayers.

That in itself is not accurate, but then vote to impose any overtime costs for certain activities on taxpayers.

Then again, my friends, that's the council that we're all dealing with.

So we'll continue to work, uh, with our partners and have conversations with officials in Albany.

To see if we can't get this across the finish line.

In the meantime I just want you to know that the administration is working to get as much activity done throughout these summer months with regard to roads and grass cutting, as well as sidewalks as we can. We'll continue to try and deliver services to the public, notwithstanding the obvious confusion that the council has.

Good weather coming

So again, um, we're looking forward to a couple of nice days, both today and tomorrow, perhaps a little changeover on Sunday, but be careful if you're gonna be out and about. Safe streets start with us.

So let's make sure that we're all mindful of the road rules and traffic signals. Again, I want to remind everyone: there's a new stop sign over at the corner of 68th and Buffalo Avenue.

Please be mindful of it.

We have several senior citizens who live in some of those apartment buildings. They have trouble crossing the street, crossing Buffalo Avenue, when they need to go pick up a few little things at the 7/11 that's out there.

So let's be mindful of that.

We should be respectful of that and recognize that it's up to all of us to really make the streets safe. With all of that, I wish you all a great weekend, and I look forward to talking to you again next week.