CHEER: It’s good to see efforts to turn around Main Street in Niagara Falls are continuing. You may have noticed the dumpsters lining the street. Crew members from Rodriguez Construction Group, Inc., working on behalf of the city’s urban renewal agency and the Niagara Orleans Regional Land Improvement Corp., have been cleaning out the interior of some of the 38 properties acquired by the city from their former owner, the private investment firm Blue Cardinal Capital, to make them more attractive to developers. Just last week, a tour of properties on the street was conducted with interested developers. Niagara Falls Director of Planning Kevin Forma said while some of the buildings being pushed for redevelopment have been vacant for years, Forma said the city and its partners are finding the bulk of them to be in decent shape. He said a few offer unique features, like the former rectory building next to the historic First Congregational Church building in the 800 block of Cleveland Avenue, which he noted has a section made from Medina sandstone. Possibilities for redevelopment, Froma said, include creating more housing for Niagara University students. He also said there’s been interest expressed in reopening the Rapids Theatre.
CHEER: Congratulations to the Starpoint High School concert choir, which won the privilege of singing “I Want to Know What Love Is” with the legendary band Foreigner at the Erie County Fair on Aug. 7. Responding to an audition contest popped by the radio station 97 Rock, school choral director Nicole Carere got her students to make a video of themselves singing another Foreigner classic, “Cold as Ice,” and that video won the 97 Rock audience vote for the choir they’d most like to see sing with Foreigner. It is, as the rock band’s marketing director John Lappen noted, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the concert choristers, and undoubtedly while they’re living it they’ll knock the socks off Foreigner fans.
CHEER: The first students in SUNY Niagara’s commercial driving school took the wheel this week in Sanborn to learn a profession that’s in demand. Working with 160 Driving Academy, a national driver training provider, our local community college has another new offering for non-traditional students / adult learners, and it’s a truly self-propelling offering at that. According to 160 Driving Academy’s Bob McArthur, graduates make an average salary of $65,000, with opportunities to drive locally, regionally and over the road — and to be their own boss. The five-to-six-week program has two formats, 160 hours at $4,995 tuition and 200 hours at $5,495 tuition, and the latter format is eligible for up to $5,000 tuition subsidization by the Niagara County Workforce Investment Board. SUNY Niagara is to be commended for acting to fill a void in critical workforce training and at the same time opening a door for local residents who are game to improve their lot pretty quickly.
JEER: On top of the terror tactics employed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as its masked, ID-less agents descend on communities across the country and “disappear” migrants willy nilly, ICE is gaslighting the American public when it claims, in a deluge of press releases and social media posts, that it’s taking violent criminals off the streets. Investigative Post’s recent analysis of ICE data from the Buffalo office shows the con being worked on two fronts. First: Of 335 migrants arrested through mid June, more than 75% have no criminal convictions or pending charges. And then: Of 52 “arrested” migrants described by ICE as dangerous criminals taken off the streets, more than half were already off the streets, because they were in a state or federal prison where ICE seized custody of them. Such government-led demonization of migrants, overwhelmingly people of color, is a crystal clear indicator where our country is headed. Where is our outrage?
