Falls Hierarchy At Odds With Outside Assessments Of Falls Sorry Condition

There are two sides to every story, so they say, and if you want to hear the side that completely goes against the grim portrayals of Niagara Falls that regularly appear in the national media or the statistically based rankings that show the city to be at the top of the heap when it comes to crime, taxes, poverty, heart attack deaths and many other bad things, you need look no further than the pronouncements of our elected and appointed officials, who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, it seems, to say that everything’s OK here.

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster is a case in point.

“In the last few years, we have managed to push aside our doubts and fears long enough to lay the foundation for a brand new beginning in Niagara Falls and the surrounding region,” Dyster said in 2015. “The change that we said we wanted so badly, the change that we feared would never happen in our lifetimes, well, guess what? That change is happening now in our community.”

He never got around to saying exactly what that change was, whether it was for the better or for the worse, but he seemed to be absolutely convinced of it.

“Right here, right now,” he said, “the dollars are flowing and the projects are advancing that are going to transform this community.”

And then there is Seth Piccirillo, the city’s youthful Community Development Director.

In 2012, Piccirillo introduced his Downtown Housing Incentive Program, a city funded program meant to attract college educated people to live downtown by paying off up to $7,000 in student loans. The program, which has been rebranded Live NF, has been an utter disaster despite initial hoopla.

According to Piccirillo, Live NF would transform the city’s Third and Fourth Street district between Niagara Falls and Pine Avenue into a kind of “Elmwood North,” referring to the Elmwood Avenue section of Buffalo, which is allegedly “cool” and “hip.”

“We’re following some of the things that [Elmwood Village Association] did, but also we have some other tools and a lot of that is marketing,” Piccirillo said in an interview with “Good Morning America.” “The graduating class of 2013 will be our first real swing at it.”

Piccirillo said the program would start out small.

“We’re not talking city-wide. We’re taking acres,” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that getting even 100 to 150 people could revitalize the neighborhood.”

It turned out that even his modest expectations were wildly optimistic. By 2014, the program had but five participants, yet Piccirillo remained buoyant.

“I think for something that was just an idea on paper just a few short years ago,” he said, “it’s working and it’s accomplishing the type of personality change for our city that we’re hoping for.”

Councilwoman Kristen Grandinetti was an enthusiastic proponent of the Piccirillo plan to pay recent grads to come and live in Niagara Falls. She imagined a burgeoning arts and entertainment district that would rival the Champs de Elysee in Paris, France.

“Because of their lifestyle, They’ll create a demand for restaurants and coffee shops,” Grandinetti said of the new arrivals.

And Grandinetti would brook no criticism of city government when things didn’t work out as expected.

“If you don’t like where you are, MOVE. You are not a tree,” the crabby council woman posted on a public Facebook forum.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has twice endorsed Dyster for reelection as mayor, also thinks Niagara Falls is in the middle of a historic comeback. Recently, he waxed eloquent about the opening of a new hotel here, a hotel not that much different from 20 others already here.

“Niagara Falls is one of New York’s greatest tourism destinations and with the construction of best-in-class accommodation amenities, we are making it easier for the region to showcase its beauty to visitors from all ends of the globe,” Cuomo said. “This project is an important step forward in the city’s ongoing revitalization and one more reason why Western New York is a region on the move.”

In 2013, he launched an open ended competition to attract entrepreneurs to the city in an effort to find the “best idea” anyone has to turn Niagara Falls around. Dyster was so enthusiastic about his powerful political ally’s promotion that he agreed to help fund the contest with $4 million of your casino cash revenue annually.

“With the launch of this competition, we are challenging talented designers and developers to dream up and propose grand ideas to transform the Downtown Niagara Falls area into a premier destination that will attract tourists and fuel private investment,” Cuomo said. “This competition is a real opportunity for champions in the development and investment industries to face off right here in the Falls with the best ideas to be turned into reality. We are looking for creative and innovative projects that will spur private development and at the end of day, entice visitors to the area so that they will stay longer and spend more in the community. So while this competition is just beginning, we already know who the winners are and that is the people of Western New York.”

The competition was launched in 2013 and, thus far, there have been no results whatsoever.

But still, nobody does cheerleading like John Percy, head of the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp. and a man who is clearly at home with pom poms and tumblers.

When asked about the proposed dewatering of the American Falls, which resulted in a tourism disaster the last time it happened in 1969, Percy was wildly optimistic.

“I really do believe it has that appeal that people will want to see it,” he said. “It just shows you that this has that mystique behind it that I think will garner worldwide attention,” he said.

Dyster, Piccirillo, Grandinetti, Cuomo and Percy are all invested heavily in making the people of Niagara Falls feel good about where they live. The national magazine and newspaper writers and the statisticians who produce the rankings lists are not.

See yourself as others see you?

It’s sometimes difficult when you have paid shills trying to get you to look the other way.