Lockport NY

For those who have yet to check out the DT merchant Halloween displays here is Caruso's at 3 Charles St. Check them out before they're gone! Anyone head to the Main St Merchant Trick-or-treating last night?

Weather is looking like is will clean up for the kids tomorrow evening. Some interesting information(?): Actual random Halloween poisonings are nill but unfortunately objects do occur (though rare). Hope everyone has a safe and fun night.

The DT Halloween event is tonight (LUSJ) (Buffalo News). Weather is looking better as the day progresses 56° and partly cloudy for later tonight (WIVB)

From Lockport Main St Inc:

Halloween Party & Trick-or Treat Downtown
- Join us for the annual Halloween Party on Thursday, -October 29th from 5:00 pm to 8:30 pm in the City all parking lot - One Locks Plaza in Lockport (sponsored by the City of Lockport Youth and Recreation Department).
-Begin at City Hall for pizza, games, and trick-or-treat bags!Then make your way Downtown for “Trick-or-Treating” from 5:00 -7:00 pm.
-Return to City Hall and check out the FAMOUS Kiss Concert! (from Livingston Place).

Pumpkin Decorating Contest
-3rd grade students from Lockport City School District and Market Street Art Center will be decorating about 400 pumpkins this Halloween.
- The decorated pumpkins will be on display at participating downtown businesses from October 26th – October 31st. Community members are invited to visit downtown businesses and vote on their favorite pumpkins!

 from The Buffalo News:

Also from 5 to 8 tonight and Friday, the YMCA, 19 East Ave., will host Happy House for children ages 6 months to 6 years. Described as an alternative to scary Halloween activities, it offers a life-size Candy Land game and happy stories. Admission is $1.

Official City (and town) of Lockport trick-or-treat hours are this Saturday 4pm-7pm.

Next month, the authority will seek proposals from companies interested in building the wind power project, which is to be located somewhere offshore in Lake Erie or Lake Ontario.
Kessel said any suitable location from Ripley to the Thousand Islands could be considered.

I find them rather attractive in small quantities and I find they add to the scenery over at the Lackawanna/Buffalo border and to the south in the hills. As it is now there is not much to see except the horizon on the other side of the lake (except for the Toronto skyline sightings to the NE). I'd travel up to the lake from time to time to sit back, chill and watch them spin out in the water. A small village like Olcott Beach could pry cash in some with them located near by: another sight to see.

Although a fledgling technology I find the experimentation worthwhile in the long term quest to diversify our power sources and pushing ahead renewable technologies. Maybe it's as evil as Walmart. Time will tell ;)

LUSJ reporting on the revaluation progress.

A city committee interviewed representatives of four private firms interested in taking on citywide property revaluation Thursday.

The committee, comprised of officials including Mayor Michael Tucker, Acting Assessor Joe Macaluso and Real Property Appraiser Lena Villella, is supposed to recommend one of the firms to the Common Council for hire next month.

If a firm is hired, it’ll be the kick-off of a revaluation project that’s expected to cost city taxpayers about $200,000 by 2011.

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When that happens, property owners are said to pay less — or more — than their “fair share” of property tax.

Revaluation is about “getting it so it’s fair for everyone. Right now it’s not,” Pat Schrader, 4th Ward alderman, said this week.

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“I think there are an awful lot of remodeled houses that are worth more than they were eight years ago. They’re not paying their fair share, and we need to catch up with ’em,” he said.

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Third Ward Alderman Flora McKenzie believes the point of revaluation really is to make taxation fairer, but unlike those who see a scheme to raise everybody’s assessment, she fears the opposite will happen.

“There are some houses in really sad shape that shouldn’t be assessed as high as they are. There are houses in my ward that I wouldn’t pay $1 for,” she said. “The way I look at it, we’re going to lose, not gain (value)

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"Fair". Is it fair to watch the F&M building deteriorate in a long term race to lessen its tax burden to the owner? Is it fair to watch your neighbor's tax rate go down because they do not invest in their property (and thus the neighborhood hurting sale prices) and watch yours go up because you took the risk to invest in the city? I have the same outlook as McKenzie as it is a predictable path of the process in older areas.

I think most people will agree that those who can pay more should shoulder some more of the tax burden. In a "growth" area, pure assessment will work as people have a much lower risk in getting a return on their continual investment. They will take a tax hit knowing that they will recoup investment upon sale with rising house prices. But in a low demand area investing is risky enough with near static (or dropping) home prices due to surrounding disinvestment and an increased tax hit is just another blow. The inertia of it all is very difficult to turn around.

Old, low demand areas must be creative in their taxation so that they promote investment instead of a long slide of disinvestment. Residents should be rewarded for taking a chance of bringing reinvestment to an area. The long term growth will far out weigh the "fairness" trip to decay. Reward people "draws" such as nice houses and buildings: not low tax empty buildings, empty lots and parking. A mix of land based and value based taxation along with other tax incentives for hard hit areas will help turn things around. Or how about freezing the tax-rate at the purchase price until it is sold again? It rewards people for sticking around and investing and it bases it off of a true market rate price. You'll make up the taxes upon the next sale (or sales as others have the incentive to invest also). There are probably many more ideas out there but straight assessments are pry the least conducive to spurring investment in the city.

From the Buffalo News: Penney will give art to canal center.

 Art collector Charles Rand Penney said Monday he intends to donate his entire collection of Niagara County-themed art and artifacts, nearly 5,000 items, to the Erie Canal Discovery Center.

Melissa Dunlap, executive director of the History Center of Niagara, which operates the Discovery Center, said a $225,000 plan is in the works to remodel the building at Church and Ontario streets to include a second- floor gallery for Penney’s collection....

UPDATE 10/23/09 Buffalo News Editorial 

UPDATE 10/27/09 LUSJ reporting items are now in possession of the museum.

From Lockport Main St Inc. a listing of the events for the upcoming Halloween season:

Halloween Party & Trick-or Treat Downtown
- Join us for the annual Halloween Party on Thursday, -October 29th from 5:00 pm to 8:30 pm in the City all parking lot - One Locks Plaza in Lockport (sponsored by the City of Lockport Youth and Recreation Department).
-Begin at City Hall for pizza, games, and trick-or-treat bags!Then make your way Downtown for “Trick-or-Treating” from 5:00 -7:00 pm.
-Return to City Hall and check out the FAMOUS Kiss Concert! (from Livingston Place).

Pumpkin Decorating Contest
-3rd grade students from Lockport City School District and Market Street Art Center will be decorating about 400 pumpkins this Halloween.
- The decorated pumpkins will be on display at participating downtown businesses from October 26th – October 31st. Community members are invited to visit downtown businesses and vote on their favorite pumpkins!

The Haunted Palace
-October 27, 28, 29 from 6-10 pm and October 30 from 6-9 pm the Historic Palace Theatre—2 East Avenue in Lockport.
- Call 716-438-1130 or visit LockportPalaceTheatre.com for more information.

Lockport Haunted Caves
-October 14-30. Weeknights 6:30-9:30 pm. Friday & Saturday 6:30-10:30 pm.
- 2 Pine Street in Lockport.
-Call 716-434-CAVE or visit LockportHauntedCave.com for more information.

Happy House at the YMCA
-Happy House is an alternative to scary Halloween for children ages 6 months to 6 years sponsored by the Barge Canal Optimist Club and held at the Lockport Family YMCA—19 East Avenue.
-For a $1 donation, children play life size Candy Land, visit Pooh’s friends and share a friendly story.
-Times are Wednesday, Oct 28 from 6-8 PM, Thursday, Oct 29 & Friday, Oct 30 from 5-8 PM and on Sat from 9 AM to Noon, during the YMCA Fall Open House.

Main Street Masquerade
-Join us for “Main Street Masquerade” on Friday, October 30th from 9:00 pm to 1:00 am at the Historic Palace Theatre—2 East Avenue in Lockport.
-Tickets are just $10. With your ticket purchase, receive $1.00 off admission to both the Haunted Palace and the Lockport Haunted Cave Tours.
-Music and Dancing, Costume Contests, Prizes, Basket Raffle, Appetizers, Cash bar— beer and wine.
-18 and older. Costumes encouraged.

LUSJ has an update on the recent arbitration ruling on the fire dept. minimum staffing requirement.

To have guaranteed minimum staffing of 10 firefighters per shift, as the arbitrator ordered, would require the city to hire nine more firefighters, Chief Thomas Passuite said. Barring that, it would have to more than double its annual overtime allowance for the fire department.

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Property owners won’t foot the bill, Mayor Michael Tucker vowed. The city will petition state Supreme Court for review of the arbitrator’s decision, and if the decision is upheld, the cost will be covered by fire service and/or staff cuts, he said.

“I hear through the grapevine some of (the union officers) are bragging, ‘We beat the city’ in arbitration. They’d better hope they lose in court, because if they don’t, the (stuff) is gonna hit the fan. Enough is enough,” Tucker said.

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The 50-man fire department is organized into four platoons that take turns manning 10- or 14-hour shifts. Given time-off privileges granted the men in the LPFFA contract, even the nine-man shift minimum isn’t being met without calling firefighters in on overtime.

Here’s why: The LPFFA contract allows for up to four firefighters per platoon to be off duty at any time. Three platoons have 12 firefighters while another has 11. Subtract up to 4 from either number; also subtract the number of “unscheduled” absences on a shift, due to sick call-in, injury or military duty; then figure out how many men have to be called in from other platoons, at 1.5 times their hourly pay rate, to meet the minimum manning number.

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The big issue seems to be the number allowed off a shift at any time (according to article that number does not include "unscheduled" time off: sick, injury, etc).  A third of the scheduled work force? It seems excessive. Freeze the minimum number at 9 (no injuries or potential threats due to reduced manning in the last 3 years per article). Trade the minimum off to 2 (would allow for 1 unscheduled absence per shift without invoking overtime) for the hiring of an additional firefighter to round out the last platoon to 12 like the others.

I also offered this up in a comment to a post last week:

Perhaps instead of full over time you have "on-call" situations. Pay someone a small rate to be on call on a one or two person short shift night (a bit like a volunteer). If a fire event happens where they need to respond to a scene and are called they can receive the overtime pay for that shift. The city of Lockport is small. They can arrive close to the responding vehicle.

Like most of the corporate world does, why not benchmark other similar sized NE cities that have the same good safety record yet do it with less money and/or overtime? No need to reinvent the wheel on our own.

Any other ideas? How about public referendums on budgets on public employee contracts? Or even a public comment period on them (is there one already?) It's always surprising to find out whats in some of them.