Month: December 2016

Former city housing commissioner Joe Mascia is set to lead a task force comprised of residents of the Marine Drive Apartments to study redevelopment opportunities and new governance models for the sprawling waterfront property. The objective of the effort is

BY JOE GENCO –”I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries”. Nothing says Merry Christmas like insults from Monty Python. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, at whom can we laugh?

BY TONY FARINA It is hard to know where to begin when trying to capture the essence of a much-honored and accomplished professional who is retiring after a long and very distinguished career in the criminal justice system who, by

BY JOE GENCO –”Do a good turn daily” so is the simplest requirement of Boy Scouts. Check out this heartwarming story about a Gasport Cub Pack bringing Christmas gifts to a family saddened by loss. Merry Christmas, Bob Confer. http://wivb.com/…/community-gives-back-to-lockport-family-…/

Editor’s note: Along with dozens of others, Carl Paladino was asked by Artvoice to answer four questions about the coming year. Respondents answers were published on 12/22/16. [http://artvoice.com/2016/12/23/want-2017-lot-different-opinions/#.WF1fzRsrJhF.]   Paladino’s comments about Barak and Michele Obama were labeled as ‘racist’ by

BY MIKE HUDSON 2016, the year that began with Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster taking the oath of office for a historic third term, was in many ways a watershed year for the city.Numerous websites including MyLife.com, NeighborhoodScout.com and City-Data.com continued to assert that Niagara

The unsurprising news broke late Tuesday night: the chairman of the Niagara County Legislature, Keith McNall, R-Lockport, would be keeping his job. In the annals of Niagara County’s political news, this wasn’t exactly an earth-shattering announcement; after all, save for

BY TONY FARINA “The citizens of Niagara Falls would be hard-pressed to find a better candidate for a seat on the City Court bench than Alan Roscetti,” says longtime pharmacist Robert Kendzia when asked about the young man’s plans to

BY FRANK PARLATO Earlier this year the Niagara Gazette announced that a group of locals organized something called “Reclaim Niagara” – formed to “get Albany out of our pockets.” To combat the “exploitation of our resources by public authorities and

Terry Robinson, the city’s most respected city planning advocate, is being urged by activists to seek the Democratic Party nomination for Mayor of Buffalo. The embattled three term Mayor Byron W. Brown is alleged to have denied approval of a 50-unit

BY JOE GENCO –I have never been to a meat raffle, but think it might be fun. Who wants to go on Saturday, Jan. 28 to support David Johnson’s Spartans Little League baseball? We will buy a table for $40

BY JOE GENCO –Here’s to the photographer recording the assassin in Turkey. It takes some guts for a journalist to witness a murder and, rather than fleeing, rely on his skills to record the event. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-photographer-who-capture… -Gabrielle Ballow, the cowardly

BY JOE GENCO –You might think the mess in Flint, Mich. is over, but not for the people who live there, who still can’t drink the water. At least they are still prosecuting the decisionmakers. http://www.freep.com/…/michigan-ag-bill-schuette-…/95624818/ –I always read the

The allegations are egregious: that Mayor Byron W. Brown — the city’s first Black mayor — refused to allow the construction of 50 privately funded affordable housing units on the East Side unless his friend and political backer, Rev. Richard

BY JOE GENCO –The 538 members of the Electoral College today affirm the election of President Donald Trump https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/125fa84a-c327-11e6-8422-ea… –Trump supporters in Montana have begun targeting Jewish people. Not that they are anti-semitic fascists or anything. Oh wait, is that

Former Deputy Mayor Steve Casey is providing affidavit testimony in the racketeering case against the three-term Mayor Byron W. Brown at the crux of corruption charges that could send him to prison. The testimony also represents the shattering of the political

BY JOE GENCO –“I need to be able to talk about it and have someone talk back to me.” Christina Abt finishes climbing her Mount Everest — 52 interviews in her 65th year, ending with her own darn 10 questions.

Before it was known as Delaware North, the global Buffalo-based concessioner called itself Emprise. A reporter at the time who relentlessly investigated the company and its business practices, Don Bolles, was murdered in a car bombing in 1976. In 1972, the House