Lockport NY

The Buffalo News Reported:

A new car wash will be constructed on South Transit Road after approval of a variance by the town Zoning Board of Appeals last week. The site at 6719 S. Transit Road, owned by Craig Heidemann, is just north of Bartz Road. The Zoning Board of Appeals passed a variance from the rules for front and rear setbacks from the property lines

Why do I bring it up? Because I've always hoped for a full service Delta Sonic to find its way to Lockport. It is a local WNY business that would fit nicely in the Lockport area.

The Buffalo News Reported:

The city has saved an estimated $380,000 on its garbage and recycling program in the 8½ months since privatization, City Clerk Richelle J. Pasceri told the Common Council this week.

Dawn M. Timm, Niagara County's environmental coordinator, calculated the number based on the trash pickups since mid-October and comparison figures for October 2010 through June 2011, when city crews still were doing the work.

Modern Disposal took over last fall, and the city established a user fee for the program, including standardized garbage and recycling totes.

Timm said Tuesday that the city has recycled about 1,400 tons of waste since privatization, versus only 354 tons in the city-run period, when only newspaper and cardboard were collected at curbside....

A good job by those who put it together or by those using it. I believe the fees are generated yearly based on cost. The more the recycled should lead to lower rates as time goes on.

A couple years after closing Dewitt and reducing Pound to just Pre-K, the Lockport School District has decided to close Hunt. The LUSJ reported:

...Board members said they did not make the decision lightly.

”I’m not going to sit here and pretend I can say something that will make this any easier,” said President John Linderman. “It’s not an easy decision for this board to come to.”

”It’s with a heavy heart I voted,” said Trustee James Gugliuzza, a Hunt alum.

Superintendent Michelle T. Bradley said the district will move forward, deciding whether to sell or lease the building. The roughly 250 kids who attend Hunt will be transferred by the fall of 2013, not including the ones who will move up to fifth grade at Emmet Belknap Intermediate...

A big plus for the City of Lockport was its neighborhood elementary schools. It was rare to find a municipality that still offered the benefits of these  neighborhood bonds and the ability to walk a short distance to school instead of living on a bus.

...A parent of two at Washington Hunt, including a son who will enter his fifth school in seven years, Michael Foster said losing a school like Hunt could have adverse effects on the community. Parental involvement in their children’s education could be reduced and stability of the community threatened

Foster told board members about his decision to move to Livingston Place within the Washington Hunt community. He told board members to be sure about their decision to close the school....

It would have been nice to see city leaders more involved or taking a stand in the last two rounds of closures. Losing these 3 neighborhood anchors for 2-3% savings in the school budget (what did salaries and benefits rise the past 3 years?) seems a short sighted decision in regards to the well being of the city and school district.

Work on a classroom addition at Kelley is expected to begin in the fall. The addition was a part of an $18.9 million capital project approved by voters last year. Some residents said had they known it would lead to the closure of Hunt, they probably would have voted differently.

Keep churning the spoon fed calves out of the bigger and bigger factories. 

The Buffalo News and LUSJ  reported:

For the second time in seven months, a tentative sale of Ulrich City Centre has been announced.

This time, the buyer is supposed to be Siesta Development, a newly formed Buffalo company whose principal is Darrel R. Lloyd, an appraiser at KLW Group in Amherst.

The Niagara County Industrial Development Agency on Wednesday approved the transfer of the property tax break on the commercial complex from Ulrich Development Corp. to Siesta.
Owner David L. Ulrich said the sale hasn’t closed yet.

In November, the IDA board approved the transfer of the tax break to Timothy R. Gelder, vice president and chief financial officer of Barden & Robeson Corp., Middleport. However, that deal fell through.

“The buyer wasn’t able to obtain financing,” Ulrich said Wednesday.

He declined to discuss the sale price, calling it “very modest.” However, Siesta’s application says the company intends to obtain a $2.8 million mortgage while investing $600,000 in equity — a total of $3.4 million...

Some people have mentioned that they have some concerns with the person who tax assessed the property at $2.2 million buying the property for $2.8. Is the concern that he received priority in the sale for giving a lower assessment to the previous owner Ulrich?

We are all free to sell our properties for more than they are assessed at. Tax assessments are educated guesses and the real value in most cases is revealed in a sale.(obviously not the case if my mother sold me her house for $1).

The city did not lose out on any money since the assessments just relatively divvy up the approved budget for the year. You and I just may have paid a couple $$$ more.

I've written about assessments in the past. Their punitive nature is a big hold up to reinvestment in the city. We should be rewarded for improving our properties, not for letting them die a slow death infecting the houses around them.

Seeing as tho it was mentioned in the Concert Thread that all it seems is that the concerts are the "Best news in Lockport"    I figured I would share this as a change of pace ..

 As of this morning "The Bricks"  on Washburn Street are being torn down .. FINALLY .. its only been .. HOW LONG  since the fire and the condemnation of the building? 
(Pic attached of the tear down.)


 Not 100% sure if they are taking BOTH buildings down ,  or if a rebuild is planned. However the buildings DO have the fencing and a "Asbestos warning" sign around the entire (99%)  of the perimiter.

In the pic you cant see it BUT they do have a fire hose running across the street from the hydrant going to where they are working.. there are also workers dressed in white Tyvek suits  and with respirators on ..

Just another piece of "blight"  that is being removed from Lockport.

I have had some contact about where The Tracker is this year. I am quite preoccupied but here is the 4th installment. We will fill in the line up of the 2012 Molson Canal Concert Series in Lockport NY. This is the 5th year of the series in Lockport and there are to be 9 shows again this summer as the city works it way to a new 3 year contract.

New this year is Artpark charging for their Tuesday Series since it had grown to crowded. Will Lockport see more concert goers because of this?

Past years' threads are here:
2011 Series
2010 Series
2009 Series

Artists will be added as they are leaked/found up to the official series announcement date. The date is usually early June but was announced mid-May last year after the whole line-up was eventually discovered. If anyone finds any information feel free to drop them in the comments below. I have been a little busy to dig deep. Recent updates will be shown in red.

All shows are held outdoors at the Ulrich City Center downtown on Main St rain or shine and are free. Visiting Lockport and looking for other things to do? Look here: "Lockport on the Erie Canal"

2012 Molson Concert Series Lineup:
(Official 5/14/12)
6/29 - Gov't Mule              
7/06 - Eddie Money
7/13 - Rik Emmett
7/20 - Big Wreck   
7/27 - Theory of a Deadman
8/03 - 54 40
8/10 - George Thorogood and the Destroyers
8/17 - Kenny Wayne Sheppard
8/24 - Tea Party

Official series website: http://www.canalconcerts.com/ Any inquiries about being an opening act etc. should be directed there as I am only a Lockport resident with no real ties to the concert promoters.

The Buffalo News has a nice interactive of Erie and Niagara County school districts' cost per student for the upcoming year.

On Sunday, we'll be running a special section, "Your Schools, Your Vote," providing the most extensive coverage in Western New York related to the suburban school budget votes and school board elections on Tuesday.
We'll give you detailed information about the proposed budget for every district in Erie and Niagara counties; information about candidates in contested board races; and graphics that will enable you to compare taxes, enrollment changes and spending changes in your district to others in the region.

Comments have froze here due to an unofficial Blogger bug. Please continue the conversation in the new thread:

The LUSJ reported that the Flight of Five Project to restore the north set of canal locks to period operation, has been granted the ability to restore them in phases instead of all at once.

The city is close to securing the state’s permission to restore two in the Flight of Five series of canal locks.

Pending final signoffs by the state Canal Corp. and Department of Transportation, the city will use the remainder of an old federal “earmark” to put Locks 68 and 69 back in working order, David Kinyon, chairman of the volunteer-staffed Lockport Locks Heritage District Committee, said this week.

It’ll happen because the city finally has gained access to $1.7 million, the balance of a federal transportation award obtained for Flight restoration in 2005, by then-U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds.

Though the money was committed, it sat unspent for years because the city was prohibited from using it until it had pledges in hand to fund a total restoration project...

 A huge score for the project and one that makes a lot of sense. One the wonders of 19th century engineering sits in the middle of our city and we should be good stewards. It is about time we catch up with other projects through out the state restoring long abandoned aqueducts, etc. A lot of those projects are in outlaying areas. Having ours in the middle of DT provides another piece of the puzzle for making a unique interesting vibrant place to live, work and visit.

Who will store the mule?

The LUSJ reported on the progress over at 160 East Ave (Next to LUSJ itself.)

While the improvement is huge for the previously vacant building, the result of the street facade is lacking.

The project passed before the planning board last year. My only comment during the session was the the East Ave frontage designed to look like the back or side of a building. The use of the rear as the main entrance is easily understood since the parking is (thankfully) at the rear of the building.

Just because the front of the building is not main entrance (or even an entrance at all) should not preclude that the front facade of a structure interact visually with the street. The lack of any law based design guidelines in the city create situations like this where by time you get to comment on the project all you can do it suggest something. Something which will most likely be ignored since it is not the law to do so and the project has long been designed.

A simple porch structure, even if non-functional would easily tied the building into the street instead of "ignoring" it.

Kind of related to this project, and the languishing parking ramp project, is this parking ramp design from Miami University in Ohio.

If a parking structure can interact with its frontage, why can't a medical building? And if the parking ramp ever gets replaced, a design such as this would fit nicely along Pine and Main.

The Buffalo News reported that Artpark will start charging admission for its Tuesday concerts (with reduced parking charges) while the Wednesday concerts will remain free (but with the current higher parking charges).

Free concerts at Artpark played a key role in transforming Lewiston from a sleepy village to a bustling regional tourism destination.

But as the bands came, so did the crowds -- so much so that this year, Artpark's popular Tuesday in the Park concerts will, for the first time, require an admission fee. Proceeds from the tickets, which will range from $5 to $25, will be used largely to control crowds.

"The crowds here for really big concerts have been kind of overwhelming," Artpark President George Osborne said Tuesday. "It's just grown to be so big, and we really couldn't find a way to control all the people until this project."

The new Tuesday admission charges -- along with reduced parking fees -- were outlined as Artpark announced plans for a $4 million overhaul of its facilities. The upgrade will include a new elevated stage, fences and ticketed entrances...

The Buffalo News reported that the city has rejected a new county radio tower in Outwater Park.

Niagara County is looking for places to install new emergency radio towers, but the City of Lockport last week rejected a county request to build one in Outwater Park.

The Common Council and Mayor Michael W. Tucker decided at last week’s meeting that they didn’t want a 180-foot radio antenna to be installed next to the Outwater Park water tower, as the county had proposed.

The tower would have been surrounded by a 51-by-41-foot enclosure. “I just didn’t think Outwater Park was an appropriate place,” Tucker said. He called the proposed tower “not very pretty.”...

...“They’re waiting on some final numbers there,” Tucker said. “Outwater Park is not going to happen. We still want to work with them. We still have some options. They could still put their antennas on top of the Spires.”

That’s a nine-story housing complex at Church and Ontario streets, owned by the Lockport Housing Authority....

I can see the reasoning for not wanting to put it in a park. But seeing the monstrous water tower is already there why not just put it on top of the water tower, especially if they are mentioning putting it on top of  The Spires as an option? Outwater has been hurting for a long time. In exchange for the radio tower on top of the water tower request park improvements like new trees etc.

The LUSJ reported that the polling locations for this year's school budget will not change. They are still trying to consolidate in the long term to one location (the high school). It goes to say that doing so will only save $600-$700 dollars. But....

...District officials have cited safety concerns at the schools used as voting sites as the main reason behind reducing the number of them to two...

What are the safety concerns? What documented events in last 100+ years of voting in Lockport school buildings show them to be reasonable to occur and thus necessary to prevent?

Out in industry a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is used at times. In short you rate chance of occurrence, effects that would result and chances of detecting it. Multiply the three to rank the priority. Something can happen often and be hard to detect but have little effect. Something else can have a disastrous effect but rarely ever happen and/or be easily detected. What "events" are the school district trying to avoid here by making it more of a PIA to vote?

The LUSJ reported that the library budget vote is coming up:

Voting on the Lockport Public Library’s 2012-13 budget will take place from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 4 in the community meeting room of the library.

Registered voters of the Lockport City School District are eligible to vote on the proposed $1.5 million budget. The spending plan will need $1.3 million from the tax levy, a $32,127 increase.

The library trustees will hold a public meeting on the budget at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the library’s community meeting room. The trustees and the library director, Beverly Federspiel, will present the proposed budget and answer questions from the public...

The summary flier PDF is here.

The LUSJ reported on Tucker proposing a 3-yr contract for the Molson Concert Series.

Mayor Michael Tucker is advocating a three-year agreement between the city and Canal Concerts Inc. to ensure the summertime series stays put here.

The series of Friday night concerts at Ulrich City Centre, held over nine weeks between June and August every year, has been in Lockport since 2008. The agreement between the city and Canal Concerts Inc., specifying each party’s obligations related to carrying out the shows, has been year-to-year from the beginning....

I recalled it being an initial 3-yr agreement followed by one year renewals up to this point. The article does a good job at laying our costs and responsibilities of each party (city/promoter)

...As it has all along, the city pays the costs of professional stage rental and assigns several police officers and a paramedic crew to the venue on concert nights. The arrangement cost the city about $124,000 in 2011...

...The proposed contract covers the 2012, 2013 and 2014 series seasons.

For the duration, it has the city agreeing to: pick up and dispose of all garbage collected at the venue; help get the series included in area advertising of cultural, art and summer events; provide street barricades and “no parking” signs where needed for crowd management; pay for stage rental for nine shows per season, at total cost of $79,200 per season; waive city permit fees and licensing normally required of vendors; maintain a liability insurance policy for the shows and name Canal Concerts Inc. as an additional insured party; lease the City Centre courtyard from Ulrich City Centre LLC, from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. on concert nights, at no cost; provide a staffed ambulance at every concert; cover Canal Concerts’ electric costs and ensure the company has access to three-phase power at City Centre; provide a changing room for the bands; and move portable bathrooms to and from the courtyard before/after the concerts.

Canal Concerts inc. is obliged to conduct a minimum of nine Friday night concerts per year in the courtyard; provide the city with a list of acts booked for the series by April 1 every year; obtain series sponsors and provide the “same level of performance” as in past years; clean up all refuse in the courtyard and have it placed at the curb for pickup; provide at least 15 security staff, and at least 15 portable bathrooms, at every concert; have the bathrooms cleaned weekly before city workers move them; select beer and food vendors and ensure they all have proper permits and/or licenses; return the courtyard to its “original” condition after concerts; provide four uniformed staff to man each ticket tent; ensure trailers and beer trucks are parked next to electric outlets, in specific places agreed upon by CCI and Ulrich City Centre; not block the entry and exit at Lock 34 Bar  & Grill at City Centre; use only “volunteers” as workers at concerts, or show worker compensation and state disability insurance paperwork for employees;  and ensure third-party vendors also can show the necessary paperwork for paid employees...

 We've all been through the perceived benefits or lack thereof so I'll leave that alone for the time being.

Buffalo News reported. They also noted that a 3yr deal is the same as the original and "par for the coarse".

I was searching for the location to drop off a couple of our old printers that were in the attic. The Niagara County Landfill on Rt. 93 still takes electronic waste for free. During the search I noticed that the county has updated the website and has a lot of information on whee to recycle/donate/give away old items:

Niagara County "Other" Recycling Page.

Old sneakers? coats? craft/school supplies? furniture, eyeglasses, paint? There are some unique sources out there to not only get rid of the equipment and keep it out of the landfills but also to help out other people. 

The Buffalo News reported last week:

March is the month for action for city residents who want to change the size of their garbage or recycling totes.

City Clerk Richelle J. Pasceri said starting Thursday, residents may call the city’s taped refuse hotline at 439-6752 to leave their requests to go bigger—or smaller. Each resident is entitled to one free trade.

Garbage totes come in 35-, 64-and 96-gallon sizes, while recycling totes are available only in 64-and 96-gallon models. Pasceri said a limited number of 96- gallon recycling carts are available, but the city has ordered some yellow lids to convert 96-gallon garbage totes, which have blue lids, into recycling bins.

The trades will be carried out in late March and early April, Pasceri said.

The best news is the ability to get a larger recycling tote. Ours is full well before the bi-monthly pick up.

Last night the planing board gave approval to Lockport Locks and Erie Canal Cruises for a new metal roof with cupola along with some facade improvements. I believe it is part of a matching grant  from the state done through the city planning office. The roof will go on top of the existing roof which will make it a quick project. The plan is to have it completed by this upcoming canal season. Some other businesses are also applying for the grant so hopefully I will have more to share in the upcoming months.

ELockport has the full copy of Mayor Tucker's 2012 State of the City Address in PDF form and both the Buffalo News and LUSJ reported on it.

The good news:

1. The city is in a relatively good financial state with a high bond rating.
2. The new privatized garbage and refuse system is saving money and working well
3. Tourism is up.
4. Online bill payment coming soon
   

The bad news:

1. All 5 union contracts are up and pension and healthcare cost are steeply rising.
2. Taxes still relatively high
3. No real residential or overall income growth.
4. Housing stock becoming more and more outdated every passing year.
5. Parks and Highway still starved to provide sufficient infrastructure maintenance

This could be expanded and feel free to add your thoughts. There is no doubt in my mind that the city is much better of than it was when I purchased here 7 years ago (so is our house ;). So much so that I am even a bit surprised. Still lacking is the overall vision, plan, and tools to create real growth in the city especially in residential investment.

As nice as the Tourism Task Force is, more important would be a Residential Investment Task Force. Residential dollars are here year round, they create semi-permanent investment in rehabilitating housing stock which increases the overall valuation of the city. Their investment also makes the city look better to the eyes of the tourist.



The city has done a great job putting out the budgetary fires. This can only last so long and will only be made more fire-proof by attracting long term investment in the city.

The Buffalo News reported that the Ice Rink Complex in the old Jubilee on Chestnut St is gaining momentum again.

It’s been dormant for several years, but city officials were voicing optimism last week that the Lockport Ice Arena and Sports Center may become a reality as soon as this year.
“Recent developments have given us reason to believe that this project will become a reality very soon, and I am committed to making it happen,” Mayor Michael W. Tucker said in last week’s State of the City address.

Corporation Counsel John J. Ottaviano said Ciminelli Real Estate Corp., hired in early December to mastermind the construction and financing of the arena, has submitted a construction estimate of $10 million to $14 million.

More importantly, Ottaviano said, Ciminelli has a plan to sell federal income tax credits to investors whose payments would comprise 38 percent of the construction cost.

Foundation grants also may be announced soon to assist with the funding of the twin-rink complex, to be built in the former Jubilee supermarket on Chestnut Street. Bank loans also are part of the financing plan.

“We’re within $3 million to $4 million of closing this entire deal,” Ottaviano said. “Now that’s a very significant number, but it’s a lot closer than we were before.” The rather large range in the construction budget reflects some decisions not yet made that could add or subtract costs.

Among them, Ottaviano said, are the exact size and exterior appearance of the building and whether parking should be expanding onto the former Dussault Foundry site at the foot of Washburn Street....

 A good idea that fills a local and regional need while reusing an unused building in DT. The bad idea is using the old Dussault Foundry site for parking. Why pave over downtown's only view over the escarpment for a parking lot? Why park people (potential customers) farther away from Main St and businesses ensuring they will never go there? Using the existing two lots at Locust and Washburn would put overflow parking within two blocks while getting foot traffic walking past store fronts. Other wise best of luck to the project.