Grandinetti defends her mayor by targeting “disloyal, disruptive, unproductive” employees for removal

Goodness gracious what was councilwoman Kristen Grandinetti thinking as she put pen to paper, or cursor to screen, to write her Gazette January 11, guest view titled, “The resumes are in”? The column heartily defended Mayor Dyster’s pre-Christmas call for a review of department head resumes. Dyster’s demand for his top people to submit resumes and letters of intent was first reported on by the Reporter and later used without attribution by other media. No matter, the Reporter sees this sort of story “borrowing” as the highest form of journalism flattery.

We’ve gone to bat for councilwoman Grandinetti in the past. Most recently we supported her by calling upon her council comrades to select her as 2016 chairwoman. Our call failed to turn turn the heads of the men on the council. Sadly our efforts also failed to nudge Ms. Grandinetti to nominate herself for chairwoman two weeks ago as the 2015 chairman, Andrew Touma, was chosen to remain as the 2016 chairman.

While the councilwoman seemingly had little confidence in her ability to snare the chair her guest view expressed tremendous confidence in the ability of Mayor Dyster to guide Niagara Falls in his third term. Although she wrote glowingly of the mayor’s leadership ability we are hard pressed to recall the mayor as ever having publicly recommended Ms. Grandinetti for chairwoman. God bless the councilwoman, she doesn’t understand that politics is a blood sport where fair play is never seen as a political asset. It’s seen as a sign of weakness that leads to invisibility. Invisibility that translates into being denied the council chair three years in a row.

All of that being said we wish to draw attention to the third paragraph of her guest view: “There are changes that can and should be made. There are people whose value should be made known to them and there are others who are disruptive, disloyal and unproductive.” It would seem that the councilwoman has specific city employees in mind who deserve termination. Exactly who are these bureaucratic foul balls in Paul Dyster’s city hall? And what’s going on here with her call for disruptive, disloyal,and unproductive heads to roll? After all the council isn’t supposed to engage in personnel management.

We believe the mystery becomes somewhat less mysterious when you view Kristen’s Gazette column of January 11 in light of Mayor Dyster’s remarks in a Gazette January 10, article headed, “Mayor Dyster says he’ll make decision on department heads at end of month.” It almost looks as if the councilwoman’s column and the mayor’s remarks were coordinated.

A cynical political observer would be tempted to conclude that Grandinetti’s remarks about “disruptive, disloyal and unproductive” employees were written to provide cover and credibility for the mayor. Did the mayor order up the Grandinetti editorial in order to lend justification to his soon to be announced terminations? After all, if city hall is rampant with “disruptive, disloyal and unproductive” employees then who could blame the mayor for rolling a few highly paid heads?

The councilwoman’s harsh assessment of unidentified Dyster administration employees has made it difficult, if not impossible, for the mayor to now terminate anyone without said termination appearing to have been made because the employee was a disruptive, disloyal or unproductive…bum. One of those foul balls that should have been hit out of the park well before now. Which prompts a couple of basic questions: If city hall is loaded with such low performing and untrustworthy individuals how did they get there in the first place and how have they stayed for so long?

In any event, and if Mayor Dyster and Kristen Grandinetti are to be believed, the city hall slackers will be identified and removed by the end of the month.