The World According to Bob

(Each week, Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino issues a missile from his office, letting his minions know about the actions of city government and the incompetent boobs elected to the city council. The Express transcribes it in case you don’t want to watch Youtube.)

Introduction

Hey everyone, it's Friday. And just a few things to go over with you.

Our waste systems operator, Casella, has indicated that this weekend they're prepared to go around and collect any items that were damaged as a result of last weekend's rain. So if you have items that were unfortunately damaged as a result of the rain, please put them out and Casella will be going around the city throughout to collect those.

So again, just please remember that if you put them out, they will be around to collect them.

Beatings will continue until morale improves

The other thing that I want to talk to you about is just kind of taking a look backwards. It is with great amazement the month of July actually saw the city council refuse to take action in so many areas that impact city services.

They refused to approve additional help for road paving, in part because of the, there's another way to describe it, the falsehoods of city union president (Editor’s note: Tim Huether lives rent fre in the mayor’s head) who decided to tell them things that were patently inaccurate.

But, you know, unfortunately, the city council is easily swayed, and that is unfortunately the way in which that particular item resulted. But also decided not to provide for additional help in cutting grass.

We all know that there are a lot of private properties that have not been well kept. And so, again, it's up to public services to get out there and try to do that. Our own team is limited in number and is working every day. And so it was an effort to try and get ahead of the problem, tackle it, and the city council refused that as well.

Good news despite the council

The good news is that state law in its own wisdom, has an opportunity or provides for an opportunity when this kind of craziness happens. And so, pursuant to the appropriate sections of the state law, we've gone about the business of getting those two items, additional street paving as well as additional grass cutting, accomplished.

Clearly, if the city council doesn't care about city services, we certainly do. We want to try and deliver as best we can for all the residents. So you will be seeing some additional work being done with regard to the cutting of grass as well as with regard to the road.

About that lawsuit settlement

In addition, notwithstanding the fact that they are staring at a contempt of court order determination by the New York State Supreme Court, this group of council members couldn't make a decision. First of all, they wanted to micromanage, which has really become, you know, they talk about oversight and all those other things.

It's really about trying to micromanage because they're putting no confidence in the experts in the area, the controller as far as finance is concerned, laws and the law department as far as laws are concerned.

And so, even though they approved an order to make payment for the land that the city obtained through eminent domain, and even though there was a squabble about what fund it would come from, not only our controller, the city council's fund balance policy, as well as instruction from the State Comptroller's Office indicating that unassigned fund balance is the proper way. They wanted to take the funding from the Tribal Revenue Account, trying to claim that there was some indication by the administration that we would do it that way. That's not accurate.

As a matter of fact, it's pretty accurate that there was at least a few council members who had indicated early on they did not want the money to come from there. And if put to paving to establish the accuracy of that, there are individuals who were present when council members conveyed that message. But notwithstanding that, they had an opportunity to even approve that, to take money from the tribal revenue account as they had wanted. Even then, they couldn't agree.

The definition of insanity

When you think about how crazy this is, they couldn't agree because they didn't want to do what the administration and its team had recommended. They didn't want to do even what they thought they should do. So that's just to highlight kind of the craziness of what is happening in the council chamber.

But in any event, the New York State Supreme Court settled the issue, and by court order, we will be making the payment pursuant to the court's order.

Again, it's funny. Here we are the first week of August. They knew that there was a pending potential to be held in contempt. Still, we're through the first week of August and there's not even a mention of

of a special meeting called by the city council. So it appears as though they really don't care about the law. They don't care about their commitments. You know, one of the council members, Council Member Cauley, in this grand Hollywood statement, my word is my bond. Yeah, okay. Except that, you know, when it comes down to having to accomplish what, you know, you had voted on, you and others just couldn't get out of your own way. And so not to worry.

Again, just as I said, state law allowed us to do things because of your confusion. The court system allowed us to accomplish things because of your confusion.

Using tribal funds would hurt police

As a matter of fact, we even warned the council that using tribal funds would impact our ability to provide new police vehicles for our department. But apparently it didn't matter because, as you can see, the council members don't even think that gun intervention policies and grants are a good thing. They have voted against it. It's clear to me that part of their problem is funding for the police department.

Law enforcement is something that, you know, people clamor, they need help, they need this, they need the other thing. And yet when this council has the opportunity to take the burden of what is mandatory for minimum mandatory manning levels based on the collective bargaining agreement, and the consequence of potential overtime costs. Instead of shifting that to a grant as applicable.

They prefer that taxpayers pay for it, which is exactly what's going to happen in July and August, because we hope, that the council will, excuse me, come to their senses and approve the GIVE grant.

Don’t forget Donta Myles

It's funny, most of this really centers around an inability for council members, and this even predates the previous council members when you think about former council member Donta Myles. It's an inability to admit. when you've made a mistake.

We all make mistakes. Making a mistake is not. It's really part of the human condition. Sometimes you think that you're doing something for the right reasons. You then discover that it isn't. Instead of admitting the mistake, what this bunch does is they try to find more excuses for why what they did makes sense. And in reality.

They keep on talking about things that they clearly have access to, choose not to access it, because it's easier to claim you've been denied than to take up the action of doing something to research what you want. You know, for those who think that there is something untoward,

In the GIVE grant, the Department of Criminal Justice Services reviews, the State Department reviews quarterly the activity and expenses of the grant. They certainly, as elected officials, could connect with them. The former council member indicated that he called on state agencies to take a look at at the work of this administration, and he's frustrated that they didn't communicate back to him.

Well, I remember. the groups coming, and I remember that we fully cooperated with whatever they were looking for. They also haven't communicated back to us, and I like to think that that's essentially because they came, they saw, and they determined that there was nothing wrong.

So, you know, this constant untrue narrative, that there's some lack of transparency or that there is something untoward going on. It's just a narrative that people who aren't getting their way want to try and label the hardworking men and women in this administrative team and the work that they're doing. We are doing, as a team, despite the obvious dysfunction in the council chamber.

City employees are doing good work

Our team continues to do exceptional work to the extent that another agency that sort of audits, reviews, finances, one of the bond rating agencies, has again improved their outlook of the city of Niagara Falls. Fitch Ratings has now put its outlook at positive for the city of Niagara Falls. Positive. You wouldn't know it based upon the council and their cheering section. But yeah, the city of Niagara Falls outlook is from Fitch Ratings, a bond rating agency, is positive.

The absurdity of Vincent

It's funny, Council Member Cauley, he actually said, well, I don't care about bond rating agencies. It's just absurd that an elected official doesn't care whether or not the city that he represents is or isn't favorably viewed by bond agencies when it comes to issues of investment, economic development, and improvement. But that just goes to show sometimes the limited sense of what this council is, you know, believes is important. Just as much as it's remarkable to me that despite the fact that they're doing all that they can, certain council members are doing all that they can to interfere with the development of the event center because they say that it's not a priority.

About that hockey rink

Well, if creating jobs, improving the work effort of hospitality workers isn't a priority, then I guess maybe they need to check their priorities. In any event, it seems as though paving roads isn't a priority, cutting grass isn't a priority, public safety isn't a priority, creating jobs isn't a priority.

So you have to ask yourself, what is the priority of these council members? Is it just to be chaotic? Is it just to be obstructionists? I don't know what it is. Actions speak louder than these videotaped words where we don't take responsibility for our actions. We try to double talk, which there's an awful lot of out there, double talk.

So, I just want to make sure I provide that information to you. All those facts are very easily obtained. So, none of this is conjecture or opinion, except as it relates to whatever is going on with the council. All I can do is provide an opinion, and I let everyone else provide the analysis based on what you see.

Be safe

So moving on to just a couple of other small things. Again, while the weather's a little bit crazy right now on a Friday, we expect it to clear up and we expect the weekend to, again, be clear. So if you're going to be out and around, and there's going to be an awful lot of things going on throughout the community, please make sure that you're safe.

As I always ask, please make sure you're safe on the streets and unfortunately, I still see individuals who are operating e-bikes and scooters and regular bicycles operating in a way that is dangerous both to them and to motorists. I see motorists who think that red lights and stop signs are invitations. Please don't break the law. Please obey the law. It's kind of crazy that we're even talking like this.

But in the end, you can make the road safer by just being safe yourself. Make sure that you operate whatever vehicle you're on in the street safely. We don't need any more injuries, fatalities, accidents, we don't need any more of that.

So I'm going to invite everyone to please pay attention to what you're doing, follow the rules of the road, and let's make this weekend another enjoyable one as we wind through summer. So, again, thank you so very much. Please be safe out there, and I look forward to talking to you again next week.