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By Tony Farina It may not be another world wonder, but the idea fomenting these days about the Niagara Aerospace Museum for Niagara Falls, N. Y., is important because it is another way to connect tourism with education, workforce development, and regional identity. With long, cold winters, the reality is that indoor attractions matter, encouraging overnight stays, supporting nearby restaurants and hotels, and creating educational opportunities for local students. Western New York has a long history in aviation, engineering, and manufacturing, and an aerospace-focused attraction fits naturally with this history and is extremely worthy of serious discussion, which we heartily

By Tony Farina The City of Niagara Falls has land, location, and market potential, but unfortunately, city leadership is unpredictable, adversarial, litigious, and strategically incoherent, making it a poor city for long-term investment possibilities. Investors who might be willing to commit to Niagara Falls in effect are turned off by the city’s unwelcoming posture and preference for using lawsuits rather than collaboration to manage public policy disputes. What has happened is that the city’s developmental pipeline—a steady flow of projects in planning, construction, and financial backing stages—is deteriorating and getting worse the longer the city manages the process unprofessionally, and

On paper, the City Court race wasn’t a contest. Two open seats for Niagara Falls City Court judge. Two candidates – only two: Chief Judge Danielle Restaino running for reelection and attorney Jason Cafarella making his transition from lawyer to the bench. Both were sure to be elected—as long as they got at least one vote, since there was no other opposition. Both were cross-endorsed by every party — Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, and Working Families. Both were guaranteed to win. Out of roughly 9,000 voters of this small city with the famous name, Cafarella received 5,457 votes. Restaino got 3,517 — a difference

Mayor Robert M. Restaino financed a mailer for City Council candidate Bridgette V. Myles. The proof is in the corner, printed in plain type—the mayor’s name like an artist signs a canvas. Paid for by Restaino for Mayor.      The mayor is financing his very own personal pet council. The executive financing the legislature. Forget that under New York Election Law, a mayor’s campaign committee cannot directly fund or coordinate campaign materials for another candidate without reporting it as an in-kind contribution and adhering to contribution limits.   Forget about how by financing a council candidate’s mailer, Restaino blurred ethical boundaries intended

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — On Tuesday, voters will decide whether the City Council becomes an independent check on Mayor Robert M. Restaino—or continues to be an extension of his office. Five seats. Three are on the line. Mayor Robert Restaino’s slate — John Kinney, Noah Muñoz, and Bridget Myles — is running as a team. If they win, Restaino continues to run the council. The chairman, Jim Perry, is supposed to run the council, but he follows the mayor’s directives. He keeps meetings quiet, cuts people off, and leaves the room when the questions get awkward or hard. Restaino has

By Tony Farina It’s time for Niagara Falls voters to elect a council that will be more than just a rubber stamp for the mayor!  Mayor Restaino and his administration have been actively campaigning to “vote in his own slate of politically beholden candidates” and is even paying for many of their campaign mailers from his own political coffers! It is a bad idea, both legally and politically, for a sitting mayor to underwrite or fund campaign mailers! But that is a topic that can be addressed at another time. Now that Election Day is upon us, it is more important

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. This past Wednesday, Niagara Falls City Council majority voted against awarding the operating contract for the Hyde Park Ice Pavilion to Legacy Hospitality & Entertainment Group. For the past 13+ years, local vendor Mike Carella’s company Niagara Sports Tournaments (NST) has held the contract rights to operate the rink; but for the past four years, there has not been an actual operating contract for the ice pavilion due to gross incompetence exhibited by the City Administration. Christopher McKendrick, the general manager of the Sheraton Hotel on Third Street, spoke in favor of

By Frank Parlato Most U.S. cities are rolling out the red carpet for AI data centers. Niagara Falls is trying to turn one away. Across the United States, governors and mayors are courting developers and operators of data centers with incentives of land, discounted power, and tax abatements. Thirty-six states have enacted laws to attract developers, including exemptions on equipment sales taxes, construction materials, and job-creation credits. Local governments are adding abatements and fast-track permitting. So what does Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino know that these other municipalities do not? He does not want AI or data centers. He is

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. The contested Hyde Park Ice Pavilion operator contract was not on the City Council agenda last Wednesday. According to the current operator of the pavilion, the agenda item is presumed (though not confirmed) to have been moved to the council meeting on Wednesday, September 17th. If passed, the council resolution will award the operating contract to Legacy Hospitality & Entertainment Group, Mayor Restaino’s choice for operating vendor; according to its terms therein. Local vendor Mike Carella’s company Niagara Sports Tournaments (NST) has held the contract for the past 14 years. Among

By Frank Parlato Mayor Robert Restaino will do anything to stop artificial intelligence from coming to Niagara Falls. It’s a crusade. He wants an arena — badly. But more than that, he wants to kill the competing vision: a state-of-the-art AI-powered data center campus that could put Niagara Falls on the map for 21st-century innovation. Mayor Restaino His latest complaint? Noise. Not traffic, not emissions — just the phantom menace of server hums and imagined disruption. Never mind that modern data centers operate more quietly than the arena crowds he envisions. The truth? It’s not really about noise. It’s about

By Frank Parlato A city on the edge of debt. A mayor with a vision. The feasibility report came. It said: Build it.   It did not say how. Or who would come. Or what would happen if they didn’t. So, the good people of Niagara Falls now entertain Mayor Restaino’s $200 million arena dream. Based on a report that avoids every hard question. Feeble Report The mayor dreamed of a grand arena in Niagara Falls, seven thousand seats. The report failed to explain how to pay for it. No assessment of risk. It was not a report, not really.

Niagara Falls, NY: Mayor Robert Restaino addressed the public via YouTube, promoting his Centennial Park project—a proposed $200 million arena. The vision was compelling—ice rinks and concerts, a city reborn under bright lights. A mayor. A vision. A rink in the middle of a town. He appeared on screen, earnest, poised. He talked. I listened. The Mayor said, “We continue to move forward with our efforts relative to the event center and park.” Centennial Park, he called it. A two-hundred-million-dollar ice box in the middle of a broke city? It looked like progress. But something in the back of the

By Nick Del Vecchio Niagara Falls Redevelopment’s proposed $1.5 billion data center adjacent to downtown Niagara Falls has been temporarily derailed by Mayor Robert Restaino’s administration. The mayor and his attorneys have invoked eminent domain in order to claim NFR’s property planned for its Niagara Digital Campus. Restaino has other plans for the property and is determined to prevent NFR’s project from becoming a reality. NFR’s planned 1.2 million square foot data center will house tens of thousands of servers and is a project suited to support the booming era of Artificial Intelligence. NFR anticipates 5600 construction jobs will be

The following is Part Four of an ongoing series by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. Part One, Two and Three recap: Niagara Falls Department of Public Works (DPW) invaded a privately owned home sensory garden, which occupied both public and private property; and removed just about everything. The family whose garden was destroyed were fined $2,300 by the City for expenses incurred during the clean up. Some of the sensory garden was on public property which violated Ordinance 738, but it is unclear as to whether or not any health hazards which may have been discovered on private property prompted the

The following is Part Two of an ongoing series written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. Part One recap: Niagara Falls DPW removed a sensory garden owned by a family whose 15 year old son has come a long way since he was originally diagnosed with low functioning, nonverbal autism. The sensory garden occupied both public property (sidewalk/easement) and private property; its removal was conducted during Autism Awareness Month. The City then slapped the family with a $2,300 fine. Local journalist Mark Scheer first reported the story on Friday, April 25th; three days after the incident occurred. The Niagara Gazette article

The following is Part One of an ongoing series written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. THE INCIDENT Monday, April 21st – just one day after Easter, a Niagara Falls family’s sensory garden was confiscated and unintentionally trampled by Niagara Falls Department of Public Works (DPW) employees. The sensory garden occupied space on both public and private property. Adding insult to injury, they were then slapped with a $2,300 removal/clean up fee.  An uproar on social media led to two Niagara Gazette articles written by local investigative journalist Mark Scheer, who was then publicly dressed down by Council Chairman Jim Perry.

By Tony Farina A night of very exciting music is in store for folks looking to be entertained come Saturday night, May 31, when the creative rock band SoleTurn will be on stage at The Caz on Seneca St., in Buffalo, to perform their debut album The Soundtrack of Our Youth. It will be my pleasure, along with former world number one heavyweight boxer Joe Mesi, to co-host the program which includes a music video that features Baby Joe called The Contender. SoleTurn leaders Vik Bhargava and Zachary Michael are putting the final touches on their work and the word

This is Part 3 of our investigative series on the battle between the Town of Tonawanda Police Chief and the Union. Part 1 Chief Stauffiger vs. The Police Union: Inside Tonawanda’s Fight for Control Part 2 Chief Stauffiger vs. The Union: The Lie That Started It All There are towns where the trains run on time and people leave their doors unlocked. Tonawanda, New York, is almost one of those towns. It has trees and neighbors and a sense that nothing truly bad will happen, except it already did. James Stauffiger was the man they brought in to clean up the mess—old

By Tony Farina This may come as no surprise to local residents, but the average salary in Niagara Falls, N. Y., is roughly $41,430 per year or less than $20 per hour, placing the city in the lower half of U. S. cities when ranked by average salary. Local government workers make much more but things could change for the less fortunate if the leadership of the strong mayoral-form of government decides to move forward by embracing data center technology and all that it can bring to boost the local economy and help workers earn more. For now, with eight

This is Part 2 of our investigative series on the battle between the Town of Tonawanda Police Chief and the Union. Part 1 Chief Stauffiger vs. The Police Union: Inside Tonawanda’s Fight for Control A Broken Window on Irene Street The fight in Tonawanda between the Chief of Police and the Police Union seems to have started over the conduct of officer Bikramjit Singh and what Chief James Stauffiger did about it. It began with a call on Nov. 1, 2024 to the Town of Tonawanda police. It was a broken window on Irene Street. Criminal mischief. Officer Bikramjit ‘ Bik’

This is the first part of an investigative series about the fight between the Chief of Police in the Town of Tonawanda, and the men and women of the Police Club.  There are men who hold a title, and there are men who hold a line. In the Town of Tonawanda, a place of low houses and trimmed lawns, of flags on porches and small-town Sundays, the business of policing had, for years, been its own closed circle. The kind where secrets lived longer than truth. The kind where loyalty outranked law. And the quiet understanding, like an old marriage,

The Ten-Acre Battlefield This is a story about ten acres in Niagara Falls, New York. Ten acres of grass and trees called Parcel 0. Niagara Falls Redevelopment LLC—NFR for short—owns Parcel 0, along with 130 other acres it bought over 25 years. Billionaire brothers, Howard and Edward Milstein, own NFR. NFR has  a plan. A $1.5 billion data center called the Niagara Digital Campus. Nine buildings. All steel and fiberboard. No windows. And inside machines. Not machines like the old days — wheels, levers, and pulleys. These were new machines to store the memory of other machines. Why would anybody want

The Conflict “Parcel 0” is a 10-acre parcel of land on the south side of downtown Niagara Falls, NY. Two projects want it for development. Only one project, at best, will be developed. Because of the fight, no one might develop at all. Parcel 0 might end up as it is now – just trees, grass, and brush. The Owner Niagara Falls Redevelopment LLC (NFR), owned by billionaire brothers Howard and Edward Milstein of Manhattan, has owned Parcel 0 and 130 contiguous acres for more than 20 years. The company has plans for a $1.5 billion data center on 53

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park has always been more than just green space—it’s a cultural crossroads, a weekend escape, a playground for generations of New Yorkers. It was built for the World’s Fair, became a stage for the U.S. Open’s brightest stars, and has long served as an unofficial backyard for Queens’ immigrant communities. But the park is changing. Developers eye its edges, community groups clash over preservation, and a new class of visitors is arriving, phone cameras in hand, eager to transform the park’s faded glamour into TikTok gold. “There’s always been tension between keeping it a people’s park and turning

Opal Senior Living: Redefining Affordable Senior Care with Innovation and Heart With a focus on adaptability, individualized care, and financial accessibility, Opal Senior Living has developed a model that challenges the industry’s traditional approaches. Operating over two dozen senior living communities across multiple states and regions, the company has positioned itself as a distinct presence in the senior housing sector. Unlike many senior living providers that adhere to a fixed pricing and service structure, the organization tailors its offerings to meet the specific needs of each community. Whether a facility primarily focuses on an affordable care model catering to lower income

By Frank Parlato The land fight between Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino and Niagara Falls Redevelopment LLC (NFR), a privately owned corporation headed by Manhattan developer Howard Milstein, is an extraordinary matter and deserves consideration by all Americans interested in government reach or overreach, property rights, and taxation. Mayor Restaino’s Ambitions Mayor Restaino, elected mayor of a small city – some 47,000 people, down from 102,000 sixty-five years ago – wants ten acres of land owned by the aforementioned NFR. He claims he wants the land – 10 acres with a street address of 907 Falls Street, for the good

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. A.I. IS A-OK For a long time, many of us have held out hope that the City of Niagara Falls, NY could once again become a “City of the Future.” Niagara Falls provides power to roughly half of the East Coast, including New York City. Genius inventor and “Father of Electricity” Nikola Tesla gave the world alternating current; born from the hydropower generated by the mighty Niagara River. Once dubbed the “Power City”, Niagara Falls is positioned to become a global leader in a new era of technology… if elected officials

On Long Island, Shalom Maidenbaum has made a name for himself in the field of property tax law, leading a firm that specializes in tax certiorari services. Their work revolves around helping homeowners and businesses challenge property tax assessments, ensuring they align with fair market values. Beyond his professional endeavors, Maidenbaum himself has become a quiet but impactful force in philanthropy, contributing to causes that span health, security, and education for children with special needs. Leveling the Playing Field in Property Taxes The Maidenbaum Property Tax Reduction Group (MPTRG) has built its reputation on the belief that property tax challenges

The Eastern District of New York’s (EDNY) prosecution of wellness company OneTaste has ignited controversy, not only due to the conspiracy allegations but also because of the government’s attempts to conceal the identities of key witnesses. This effort, recently rejected by the Judge assigned to the case, Diane Gujarati, has reopened debates about balancing witness protection with a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront their accusers. It is important to delve into the procedural issues surrounding witness anonymity in the OneTaste case, emphasizing constitutional protections against secret testimony and the broader implications for due process, especially as defense attorneys allege

By Tony Farina Bill Yuhnke, an entrepreneur who is always looking for new talent for his many enterprises, has struck again, this time is bringing in Buffalo radio veteran Brad Riter who has held numerous important jobs in the local radio market and on Monday, Jan. 27, will begin his new gig as the live local talk show host on WLVL 1340 AM from 10 a.m. through noon weekdays. Yuhnke, the president and CEO of Liberty Yellow Cab who owns WLVL and WEBR Radio 1440 AM and 105,3 FM, is excited about the new addition to his radio entertainment staff

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. [Author’s Note: Several days after this article was originally published, this reporter was contacted by Michael Bagley who said that the emails containing my requests for an interview were lost in his spam folder. Mr. Bagley suggested edits regarding company roles. This article has been edited and corrected accordingly. Ultimately, the omitted information does not impact the overall story.]. MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS A new technology firm called “9 Lives Digital Group” appears to be busy at work in the old Globe Metallurgical factory, located at 3807 Highland Avenue. Locals are saying

By Tony Farina The Niagara Falls City Council continues to squabble with Jim Perry winning a second consecutive term as chairman in a 3 – 2 vote at the annual reorganizational meeting while defeated challenger Donta Myles vowed to continue his fight for a return to “checks and balances” between the council and Mayor Robert Restaino. The city has become a “dictatorship” under the mayor with the council failing to be a co-equal branch of government, said Myles who was brazenly mislead by Perry, who later conceded as much, on a key capital projects vote on $9 million worth of

By Tony Farina Will the Buffalo Bills finally bring home a Super Bowl title to their diehard fans who have loyally supported the team for generations, win or lose?  Well, many believe they will and to add a little musical magic to the dream the rock group SoleTurn has delivered the music video “This Is Our Year,” another of their creative endeavors featuring a tail gate party and many local familiar faces proclaiming this will be the year the dream comes true (let’s hope it does). The group’s song with music written by lead vocalist Vik Bhargava with lyrics by

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. Picking Up Where We Left Off: Another Round of Smokescreens Last Thursday the Niagara Falls City Council voted in approval of Mayor Restaino’s $9 million+ budget items during a special meeting. After city council originally tabled these items several weeks ago due to a lack of information from the administration, Mayor Restaino released an unsettling video boasting about how he tricked the council members into voting against an RFP for the scandalous dog kennel contract. Three days before the special meeting, the Reporter exposed the smokescreen tactics Mayor Restaino was using to

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. Last Wednesday’s Council Meeting In a surprising turn of events last Wednesday night, the majority of Niagara Falls City Council voted against several of the mayor’s budget line items. Local activists including City Councilman Donta Myles, Arlene Doss, Tanya Barone and others have worked hard to amplify those voices, which until now have been suppressed by the current administration. Just yesterday the Niagara Gazette reported that Council Chairman Jim Perry followed in Mayor Restaino’s footsteps when the New York Coalition for Open Government added him to the naughty list. Perry violated

Open Government Coalition Cites Perry for Bad Behavior By Tony Farina “All too often, government wants to conduct business behind closed doors, which is wrong, and despite New York’s Freedom of Information Law, that’s what happens all too often across the state,” says Paul Wolf, the president and founder of the New York Coalition for Open Government. I sat down with Wolf, a Buffalo attorney and head of the non-profit, non-partisan Open Government group, after the recent decision by the Niagara Falls Council not to conduct a special meeting to possibly consider overriding Mayor Robert Restaino’s six amendments to their

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. MAYOR RESTAINO FIDDLES WHILE ROME IS BURNING As 2024 dwindles down we find ourselves staring into the abyss that is Niagara Falls politics. On a grand scale, I have hope that 2025 will rank better than all four years of Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency. Speaking of disastrous administrations; we still have three more years of Mayor Robert Restaino’s unhinged antics, lies and unchecked wanton spending. Here’s a look back on some of this year’s most notable local issues and where Mayor Restaino stands with each one. The first major local issue

By Tony Farina Now that Mayor Robert Restaino has moved to have Niagara Falls go fully into the development of north Main St. and the Rapids Theater with the purchase of 38 Blue Cardinal properties and the theater, what’s next? No one really knows and it is unlikely Restaino knows because there is no real plan in place and much of what is going on is being done pretty much in the dark as transparency is not a hallmark of the mayor’s administration. But one is left to wonder how will the city get anything done with no sign of

By Tony Farina The popular rock band SoleTurn made their musical contribution to the Buffalo Bills tailgate partying last Sunday before the game against the San Francisco Forty-Niners as the Bills fans were gearing up for another big NFL contest on the home turf.  The Bills rewarded their fans with another exciting win in a field covered in snow to push their record to 10 – 2. As the fans warmed up for the game, SoleTurn took to the stage to infuse their magical music creativity to all with their cover version enormously popular songs, Mr. Brightside, a tune that

By Frank Parlato I saw Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino in one of his out-of-control states. Restaino appeared at a fundraising event for Glenn Choolokian between when the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct kicked Restaino off the bench in 2007 and when he was elected mayor in 2019. I attended the Choolokian fundraising event at Chick D’Agostino’s old Nifty Fifty restaurant on Buffalo Avenue. Sam Fruscione was there, Bob Anderson and a lot of old timers. It was a good turnout. I remember it was the last time I saw my old friend Babe Rotella. When Restaino saw

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. It’s been two years since the former director of the Niagara University’s Global Tourism Institute, Pat Whalen, warned us about the looming tax burden Mayor Restaino’s Centennial Park and event center will inevitably create for us. Despite these warnings, our mayor is forging ahead with his plans which are founded upon loose and lofty sentiments.  In 2022, Niagara Gazette’s Mark Scheer reported, “Restaino, representatives of his administration and members of the city council who have agreed to pursue eminent domain for the purposes of acquiring land for Centennial Park, all acknowledge

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. Rats! It’s like a scene from a horror movie, except it’s all too real for hundreds of residents living in the LaSalle area where giant hungry rats have invaded homes, cars and trash cans. In September, City of Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino held a public meeting at the LaSalle branch library. Also in attendance were County Legislators Chris McKimmie and Chris Voccio. None of the five members of City Council were able to attend because the meeting was scheduled for the exact date and time as the council meeting; a

By Frank Parlato Escalating Costs of the Bills Stadium On November 15, 2024, the Buffalo Bills management confirmed the new Bills stadium will cost more than $2.1 billion, 50% higher than the original estimates in 2020 of $1.35 billion. The $560 million increase is primarily due to inflation, which has driven up labor costs and prices of materials, including structural steel. Additionally, expenses related to the Bills stadium may rise, as only about 35% of the stadium is complete. Construction is expected to continue until June 2026. Just north of Buffalo, a mayor of a city with 48,000 residents faces

By Tony Farina Even if you believe Mayor Robert Restaino’s heart is in the right place when it comes to rebuilding Niagara Falls, his vision on how to get it done is unfortunately an old, worn path that has not delivered in the past and is not likely to prove successful today. There may be a better path available today that wasn’t there in the past that doesn’t rely on hit-or-miss developers counting on taxpayer money no matter the source, city or state.  The money just isn’t there, and that includes for the mayor’s legacy events center project in the

By Tony Farina New York State has a structural budget deficit with a three-year budget gap of $13.9 billion projected and it is expected to increase further as stop-gap tax measures phase out and public education and health care costs continue to grow. Many experts see the problem as state spending which they say continues to spiral out of control and the heavy reliance on federal aid may be cause for concern with Donald Trump in the White House come next year. In short, given the budget gaps and a new president, it is unlikely the state will be in

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. The fight continues between (38 year) US Army veteran/community activist Arlene Doss and cowardly bully Mayor Robert Restaino over the Beech Avenue Project. Despite Arlene’s larger-than-life moral stature, it would be misleading to label this a “Battle of the Titans” due to the stark contrast between Mayor Restaino’s petty impish character and Arlene’s formidable abilities/community support. For those who are just now catching up: While campaigning, Mayor Restaino promised the good folks living in the North End of town that the City would build the Beech Avenue park and event center.

By Tony Farina The real measure of the economic benefits that would accrue to the city of Niagara Falls across the board with the development of a nine-building, $1.5 billion South End digital campus as proposed by Niagara Falls Redevelopment is now becoming much clearer and even beyond the wildest expectations one could imagine.  The numbers are staggering and the benefits mind boggling. According to a former National Grid expert, as reported in the Niagara Gazette, the tax gains for the hard-pressed taxpayers of Niagara Falls, and that includes the school district, are just almost overwhelming in every respect.  We’ll

By Jacob Tierney  The developer, which owns more than 140 acres in downtown Niagara Falls, plans to construct nine buildings – totaling 1.2 million square feet – over five phases on 53 acres of undeveloped or underdeveloped land between Falls Street and Rainbow Boulevard. “We’re talking right now about undeveloped downtown land,” said John Horn, partner with the law firm Harter Secrest & Emery LLP, who represents Niagara Falls Redevelopment. The developer recently submitted a Planned Unit Development application to the city, seeking zoning changes that would allow the project to move forward. Niagara Falls Redevelopment has partnered with Urbacon,

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. The Amtrak Train Station located at 825 Depot Avenue is an early polling location for voters in and around Niagara Falls, NY. Early voting began on Saturday, October 26th and “since then, every single day, at least one, and sometimes several elderly voters have violently tripped and fallen in front of the Train Station” an election machine operator at this location told the Reporter. The cause of these falls is a huge bump and sudden drop-off in the street in front of the entrance to the City-owned Train Station which runs

This is Part Two of a series on the eminent domain fight between Mayor Restaino and NFR. Read the first article here. Niagara Falls’ mayor Robert Restaino is a lawyer and formerly a city court judge who famously was removed from the bench for an unfortunate episode where he locked up 30 plus innocent citizens present in his court because a cell phone purportedly went off when he was talking. Though he has never developed any projects in his life, there is a tradition in this city of mayors building a legacy project that invariably is overbuilt and costs taxpayers

An incredible battle is underway in Niagara Falls, NY. The battleground is a 10-acre piece of vacant land. The fight is over what the 10 acres will be used for – the entranceway to a sprawling AI digital data center built without taxpayer funding, a project that will contribute millions of dollars per year to the city’s budget, or a taxpayer-funded municipal arena that supposedly will boost the tourism industry by a larger amount than it will cost taxpayers annually to run. Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR), a private development company, owns the 10 acres. NFR has the funding to develop

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino. “We have been deceived on the North End of Niagara Falls. We have been defrauded,” Arlene (Jackson) Doss told WKBW earlier this month while referring to Mayor Robert Restaino’s refusal to write a letter of support for the Beech Avenue project; so that Arlene and her nonprofit Niagara United Vision can submit for grant funding from the Niagara River Greenway Commission. Mayor Restaino shook hundreds of hands, took countless photos and made all kinds of promises during his campaign trail. He showed support for the Beech Avenue project which includes plans

Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR) announced Thursday that it has filed a full application with the City of Niagara Falls for a Negotiated Planned Development District, more commonly referred to as a Planned Unit District (PUD). The new district would be known as “Data Center at Niagara Digital Campus PUD,” and would further NFR’s efforts to develop the $1.5 billion Niagara Digital Campus data center in downtown Niagara Falls. The nearly 500-page PUD application was submitted to the City on Monday October 21, 2024. It is the next step in the development of the innovative, state-of-the-art data center, which is anticipated

By Tony Farina There are no takers so far to invest in Restaino’s dream project, including New York State, leaving Niagara Falls taxpayers the most likely borrower in a project that most economic experts predict won’t deliver much in the way of jobs or anything else, especially given the competition in the area for entertainment and sporting events already in place. A federal bond floated on the backs of taxpayers is among the possible financing options on the table for Centennial Park, Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino’s $150-million plus events center arena that he wants the city to build on

Michael S. Gawel, JD, CPA Beneficial Ownership Information In 2021 Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act. As of 2024 the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) requires most domestic and foreign businesses that are registered to do business in the US to report their Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) to more effectively reduce fraud and financial crimes. If you own a business that is a LLC, S Corporation or a C Corporation you are required to file a BOI report on beneficial owners. A beneficial owner is anyone who has a stake of 25% or more in

By Tony Farina After nearly 20 years as mayor of Buffalo, Byron Brown is getting acquainted with his new environs, Western Regional Off-Track Betting at Batavia Downs. In a bright and classy news conference in City Hall last week, Brown said he was looking forward to the next chapter of his life and thanked the people and his staff for their support during his years as the city’s leader. The longest serving mayor in Buffalo’s history will now head WROTB, taking over for longtime President and CEO Henry Wojtaszek who officially leaves at the end of the year. Brown will

By Tony Farina Entertainment begins at 4:30 this afternoon (Monday, Oct.14) at Wilbur’s Bar on Cayuga Dr., Niagara Falls, where former councilmember Michael Gawel will formally announce his candidacy for city council next year. Gawel, a CPA, pledges to run hard for a seat on the council to help bring a better financial mind to the table in city hall with many irons in the fire at this time on numerous development projects. Today’s announcement will feature Don Anderson and his Fusion Guitar followed by Elvis and The Tailgaters and then the Bills game against the Jets. Beer, hot dogs,

By Dennis Elsenbeck If you’ve followed the debate over the proposed $1.5 billion Niagara Digital Campus, you know that the project is estimated to generate more than 5,000 union jobs during construction, and approximately 500 jobs when fully operational, with expected annual wages to exceed $29 million. You also may know that the overall economic spinoff benefits to the community are estimated to exceed $850 million during construction, and $250 million annually, with more than 1,700 permanent jobs created in support and ancillary businesses. Perhaps you’ve followed national news coverage of the incredible need for data centers due to the

By Tony Farina Well paying high tech jobs or low tourism industry bottom-feeder pay? High tech vs. more of the same for poor Niagara Falls.  The contrast is stark and the time to step into the future with hope for a better tomorrow is now. We’ll take a look here at the road ahead and nudge the city to embrace a more forward looking agenda. The pieces appear to be in place to make something happen after years and millions of taxpayer money going over the falls to nowhere. Niagara Falls Redevelopment is still anxious to build a $1.5 billion

By Tony Farina No matter where you look in Niagara Falls, there is a failed or under water investment development plan that has come up empty.  Whether sponsored by the city of Niagara Falls or USA Niagara it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Outside of the Welcome Center developed by private investor Frank Parlato on Rainbow Blvd. or the Dicienzo family with their most recent balloon attraction which should be interesting because of its closer proximity to the gorge (both without taxpayer money), there is a string of broken deals and promises that litter the city of Niagara Falls