Niagara Falls Council Deeply Divided
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 capital projects during a special day after Christmas meeting, particularly on $8.03 million for construction of a pre-engineered Department of Public Works building. Myles had questioned whether it was the same building listed for $4.5 million in the capital budget but Perry couldn’t explain the difference in cost of $3.5 million after the meeting. And Restaino’s acting corporation counsel was no help before, during, or after the meeting about the cost difference, intimating Myles should have done his own research to get answers before the meeting.
Former councilmember and tax accountant Michael Gawel, a Republican who is running for council this year, said today that “I do not believe Jim Perry is the best choice for council chairman. The chairman should work with councilmembers and allow the public to speak. I believe the public’s right to speak before the council should not be limited.”
Gawel’s last comment is linked to the decision by the Coalition for Open Government which recently named Perry as a major offender of the effort to promoted government transparency for preventing a resident from discussing the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) at a recent meeting.
Coalition President Paul Wolf told this column recently that Restaino and Perry are in the forefront of conducting government behind closed doors which Wolf said is wrong but not illegal and flies in the face of government transparency efforts.
Candidate Gawel, who is a numbers expert and a CPA, said capital projects should be discussed at budget time and the council should “put together a long-term capital budget for the mayor.”
All this goes on as the council feuds within its ranks and seems unable or unwilling to lock serious horns with the mayor or his acting corporation counsel on important issues of the day, leaving the mayor to his own devices to promote his agenda which might include his $150 million unfunded Centennial Park plan which is still out there, the council a possible accomplice without a strong check to the mayor on anything he wants. Three seats on the council are up for vote this year.
