Niagara Falls
THE
NIAGARA FALLS REPORTER
LOCAL NEWS  •  LOCAL VOICES  •  LOCAL MATTERS

TWO PEAS IN A POD: Can Dyster or Piccirillo Answer the Tough Questions?

S
Staff  ·  March 13, 2019
TWO PEAS IN A POD: Can Dyster or Piccirillo Answer the Tough Questions?
SharefXin

Please click the link below to subscribe to a FREE PDF version of each print edition of the Niagara Reporter

http://eepurl.com/dnsYM9

 

 

 

 

If people understood that Paul Dyster is the Albany – Buffalo mayor, they would know how to vote in the coming election.

Not that Dyster is running again. He is being retired and his Buffalo/Albany replacement is Seth Piccirillo.

Piccirillo is the man who will abide by the rules that Albany/Buffalo sets for Niagara Falls.

Want some proof?

The City of Niagara Falls was left out of negotiations for casino funds with Seneca Nation of Indians and somehow Gov. Cuomo “forgot” to put in the contract that the Senecas should pay anything at all for their tax free casino, gas stations, stores and restaurants.

Meantime, Mayor Paul Dyster treats the Senecas – not as neighbors  – but as a liability to his friendship (business partnership) with Governor Andrew Cuomo. 

This past December when Mayor Dyster represented the city of Niagara Falls in a Christmas tree lighting ceremony with the Seneca Nation of Indians, Dyster stated publicly “I want to make it very clear to our friends at New York State that we’re lighting a Christmas tree in conjunction with the Seneca Nation of Indians and our other partners downtown is not an attempt on our party to start a back-channel negotiation,” Dyster said. “We remain confident in the state’s position in the arbitration.”

Dyster’s position is that he cannot negotiate directly with the Seneca Nation of Indians in state matters, however critics of the mayor have pointed out SNI’s willingness to negotiate directly with the city of Niagara Falls. This is how the hustle goes.

As long as the city remains broke, New York State will always be able to provide dirt cheap prime property that borders a natural wonder, to their business partners such as James Glynn, owner of the Maid of the Mist, or Mark Hamister, who was paid millions of dollars to build a low quality hotel on one of the most valuable properties in the city.

 

Seth Piccirillo by noted cartoonist Gerald Skrlin. The artist also offers readers a recipe for Piccirillo Toasties: One molded apple; Roll to some dough; Cap of phrases; Determine to convince oneself they are the best; Starry gaze; Razors.

 

Cuomo wanted it so Dyster pimped it – claiming the crappy Hamister hotel was going to be a tipping point for the city’s development.

Piccirillo likes to claim he is not the beholden to Albany- Buffalo interests like Dyster.

Ask him the hardball question: Will he break from Cuomo and negotiate directly with the Senecas to get payments from them?    

Ask him if he will oppose further development of the Niagara Falls State Park, that over-commercialized, Delaware North driven monopoly of concessions. Would he work to end the acres of paid-parking lots, deforestation, the barricading of Three Sisters Islands- and drive business back into the city?

Paul Dyster even supported a Goat Island lodge when Cuomo wanted to build one for Delaware North. No one ever heard Seth speak out against it. Will he now?

Will he call for NYPA to help fund the city’s deficit? And put pressure on them? Or let them continue to steal our local hydropower and give it to Albany – like Dyster did? 

Call him out. 

He can’t respond because he is beholden, like Dyster, to Albany/Buffalo. 

It was the conscious balancing of the city budget with casino money by Mayor Dyster that led to the city going broke.  What will Seth do? Will he break from Cuomo and negotiate? 

Niagara Falls has a history of crime and corrupt politics; illegal businesses; the piracy of a natural wonder; the manufactured poverty of a city; the extortion of taxpayers; money laundering from a state park which has been obvious to locals for years.

Elite Albany-connected Buffalo businessmen have benefited financially from the monopoly in Niagara Falls and strategic partnerships with the state, Cuomo’s cabinet, Olmsted Conservancy, and select politicians. Dyster has been their poop boy.

These are the manufacturers of poverty in the City of Niagara Falls. These drive property value as low as possible on prime property bordering a national treasure.  They bled the city of Niagara Falls dry on purpose, bled NYS taxpayers dry. They basically own Niagara Falls, NY. 

Seth is set to be their poop boy.

Niagara Falls is a border city. They are profiting off the power (NYPA’s black budget, Niagara Falls Greenway funds), gaming, and billion-dollar-a-year tourism industry.

Jeremy Jacobs, James Glynn, Louis Ciminelli, Andrew Cuomo, Mark Hamister and their kin.

Their little pug dog was Paul Dyster. Seth is the man designated to continue the sellout of Niagara Falls.

As Seth one question – isn’t Albany and Buffalo what made a city that should be rich from hydro power and tourism one of the poorest cities in America?

It should be rich. But it’s not. It is far worse under Dyster than it was under Anello – who was bringing the city back (maybe that is why the Feds went after him on bogus charges).

We need someone who is not in Albany/Buffalo or Dyster’s shadow. 

Is that man Seth Piccirillo? You decide.

 

SharefXin

Comments (0)

Leave a comment

More From Niagara Falls Reporter

Craig Bucki Stands Out in Race for Supreme Court, Has All the Tools to Be Strong Judge
Featured

Craig Bucki Stands Out in Race for Supreme Court, Has All the Tools to Be Strong Judge

By tony Farina · September 16, 2026

By Tony Farina I’ve covered many court proceedings and trials in my more than 35 years as a newspaper and television reporter and I want to make the point at the beginning of this story that whether elected or appointed, some judges are fair and honest and many others fall short of the mark. In other words, the word jurist does not convey skill and knowledge of the law; it is just a role that some serve with distinction, and others do not. By definition, a jurist is a person who has expert or thorough knowledge of the law but

Is Niagara Falls Crisis Self-Inflicted? Lots of Questions, Few Answers
Featured

Is Niagara Falls Crisis Self-Inflicted? Lots of Questions, Few Answers

By tony Farina · September 15, 2026

By Tony Farina There are certainly many questions swirling around the mayor’s declaration of a state of emergency in Niagara Falls over trash, blight, and deteriorating streets that was declared back on July 20 and has been extended several times since because, according to Mayor Robert Restaino, the City Council refused to approve contractor agreements. But some observers point to depleted staff at City Hall, like in Public Works and Code Enforcement and other departments, as really self-inflicted wounds that are the underlying reasons work is not getting done in the city. Or is there even more to the story,

NIAGARA FALLS BUILT THE MODERN WORLD ON ITS POWER. IT CAN DO IT AGAIN.
Featured

NIAGARA FALLS BUILT THE MODERN WORLD ON ITS POWER. IT CAN DO IT AGAIN.

By Niagara Reporter- · September 11, 2026

The  Data Center That Answers Hochul’s Objections There was a time when Niagara Falls did not ask Albany whether it was permitted to prosper. The river was here. That was enough. The town had something Albany couldn’t give it. It used what was here. Water. Power. Work. Jobs. Industry. A future. In 1895, the Adams plant took the river and put it into wire. The current went to Buffalo. It changed the industrial world. Tesla supplied the designs. Westinghouse built the machines. Niagara supplied the falling water. Then industries came. Electrochemical. Electrometallurgical. They came because Niagara offered abundant, inexpensive electricity.

Niagara Falls Has Millions of Tourists But Needs to Find a Way to Capture That Wealth
Featured

Niagara Falls Has Millions of Tourists But Needs to Find a Way to Capture That Wealth

By tony Farina · September 8, 2026

By Tony Farina The City of Niagara Falls, N.Y., boasts one of the world’s greatest natural wonders that people from around the world come to see, but despite incredible tourism numbers of more than nine million visitors a year, the city of now less than 50,000 people is still pretty darn poor. Niagara Falls does not have a tourism problem; it has a tourism-capture problem, and the distinction should be a starting point for a serious new discussion about the city’s future. And ladies and gentlemen, that discussion needs to start now. The question is no longer whether Niagara Falls