It turns out that the PBA’s anti-spam filters didn’t let Artvoice email through last week—something neither Ron Rienas nor I could have supposed—so Rienas never received my requests for comment on this article about the PBA’s intention to demolish several homes it owns on Busti Avenue.

After some back-and-forth on that matter, Rienas identified the problem, instructed his IT department to open up the servers to Artvoice email, and provided me with this response to the article:

The City asked us to comply with a violation notice and that we be in substantial compliance by May 1, 2009. They did not say that the buildings had to be repaired. In fact, the structural engineer’s report, approved and agreed to by the City, called for the demolition of three of the six vacant structures (a seventh house is occupied by a federal entity involved in border enforcement). We advised the City that it was our intention to demolish the identified 3 in accordance with the engineer’s report and to also demolish the remaining three as there is absolutely no intent to restore and reoccupy houses immediately adjacent to a congested, poorly functioning plaza and it is irrelevant if the capacity expansion proceeds or not. The City agreed with that approach.

The City also recognized that there was a 2004 legal agreement entered into by the previous Mayor and Common Council whereby the City was to demolish these houses. This was part of a much larger agreement related to reconfiguration of the US plaza wherein the PBA contributed $2.5 million dollars in improvements Front Park and vicinity. I don’t know about you Geoff, but legal agreements do still matter to some people. In the interests of addressing the concerns from neighbors who wanted to see the houses demolished and reacting to the City which was dealing with neighbor complaints related to the condition of the houses, the PBA offered to proceed with demolition at its expense. Feel free to walk around the neighborhood within the proposed Peace Bridge project area and come to your own conclusions as to the position of the residents.

The delay in not meeting the May 1 deadline related to the City determining what, if any, approval process the Peace Bridge was subject to. The Peace Bridge is not a private property owner. While there may still be a legal question as to whether the PBA is a state agency or a federally constituted bi-national compact entity, under either scenario it is established law that the PBA, just like any other federal or state entity, is not subject to municipal jurisdiction. Not surprisingly, the City has confirmed that. Notwithstanding this exemption, The PBA does it’s very best to work with the City and neighborhood groups on both sides of the river to address concerns and to be sensitive to issues as they arise – just like we are trying to do in this case.

We have not yet issued the RFP for demolition. We need to do the asbestos survey and abatement before we proceed with any demolition.

Yesterday, Peace Bridge general manager Ron Rienas, in reaction to this article on the PBA’s intention to demolish some properties that the city ordered it to repair, sent the following email to me and 45 of his closest friends, including the mayor and members of the Common Council:

Geoff,

Back in February you e-mailed me and said : “…we are, in fact, a reputable newspaper in this community”

So perhaps you can you can answer the following questions related to your article “Demolition Derby” (below) in this week’s Artvoice:

1. Would a reputable newspaper write an article about demolition, and show in the accompanying picture, houses that are on a different street, will not be demolished, and are not even within the Peace Bridge project boundaries.

2. Would a reputable newspaper say; “Rienas did not respond to numerous requests for comment…” when you did not call or e-mail me even once?

3. Would a reputable newspaper deliberately exclude the fact there was a 2004 agreement with the then Mayor Masiello and Common Council whereby the City was to demolish the Busti Ave houses and that the reason for demolition had nothing to do with the capacity expansion project?

4. Would a reputable newspaper ignore the fact that the majority of residents in the neighborhood impacted by these houses and the Peace Bridge project are supportive of the demolition of these houses?

5. Would a reputable newspaper exclude information from a professional structural engineer’s report, agreed to by the City, that recommends the demolition of three of the six  (not seven) vacant  houses?

I could go on and on about the misrepresentations and inaccuracies contained in your article but I think you get my drift. One last point – a reputable newspaper would print an apology or at least a correction when made aware of errors or omissions. Will you??

Maybe you could actually call me (884-8636) or meet with me to get the facts.

Ron Rienas

Ron Rienas (Photo by Bruce Jackson)

The February email he refers to was part of an exchange in response to a nastily worded complaint Rienas sent regarding a blog post I had made the previous summer. The blog post was in fact just a link and a quote from somebody else’s blog, but Ron directed his belated ire at me rather than at the author herself.

In any case, I replied last night to Ron (alone, not to his entire list of friends) that I had in fact emailed him three times asking for comment, to the same address from which he had sent his whinge, and had received no reply.

This morning I forwarded him the emails (which I’ll paste after the jump) and this reply to his other complaints:

Hi Ron,

Please find below the three emails I sent from mu work computer asking for comment on this issue. I can’t imagine they were caught in a spam filter, as you and I have corresponded frequently in the past with no trouble at all, using these addresses.

As for your other complaints:

5. I specifically mentioned that three of the properties had “major roof issues” and that the city would consider agreeing to demolition of those properties. It’s in the article, Ron, what more do you want? Especially given that you did not respond to me and so forfeited the chance to share the details of the report—which I likely would have summarized in exactly the same way, anyway?

4. I’m unaware of any poll of West Side residents conducted on the issue of demolishing these houses. What independent body did the poll, Quinnipiac? Feel free to share the numbers and the sample parameters with me. (E.g. If it was a survey of residents “impacted…by the Peace Bridge project,” did it include the entire West Side or just property owners in the immediate vicinity? Which property owners?)

3. The 2004 agreement is immaterial to this article; that was five years and a mayoral administration ago. This article was about this mayoral administration’s current demand that the PBA address the houses’ code issues by May 1, and the PBA’s reaction to that demand. That is the crux of the article, and I note that in your email contains no corrections of my apprehension of the core issue.

2. See emails below.

1. I used that photo, which is the one used by the National Trust to illustrate the neighborhood’s profile on its Most Endangered list, because I thought it made sense to show the neighborhood that the opposition to plaza expansion thinks is in jeopardy. Perhaps that misled some readers to believe these were the houses that the PBA owns and wishes to demolish. I’ll print a clarification in next week’s paper.

In summary,  one of your complaints (#1) has some merit, two (#4 and #3) are senseless, and two (#5 and #2) are false. Please note that I replied to you alone, not to the entire list you compiled yesterday. That seemed to me the adult thing to do. It also seems to me that an adult would write back to that list today and apologize for being wrong and for wasting their time. Please let me know if you intend to do so as soon as possible.

Best

Geoff Kelly
Editor, Artvoice
office: 716.881.6604
mobile: 716.480.0723
www.artvoice.com

Forgive the typos. I wrote quickly.

I have not heard back from him, so I guess he’s not going to apologize for calling me a liar, as I suggested he ought to. Thus, I’m posting his email and mine and welcoming Ron into the company of churls who fail to respond to Artvoice’s request for comment and then whine publicly that we never tried to talk to them. That company includes Brian Davis, the check-bouncing councilman; Steve Casey, the bullying deputy mayor; and even Mayor Byron Brown, who has not once spoken to this reporter in three and a half years, despite many invitations to comment on numerous subjects, many of which represented opportunities to cast the administration in  a positive light.

Welcome, Ron. I’ll send you more questions regarding the proposed demolitions this weekend. I expect you’ll ignore them.

After the jump are the three emails I sent soliciting comment from Rienas.

(more…)

About eight months ago, I linked to a post on a Crystal Beach, Ontario online news and opinion site called the Strand that alleged shady dealings between the Public Bridge Authority and Town of Fort Erie officials in regard to the disposition of Fort Erie’s Mentholatum Building, which the PBA owned and had planned to lease to the town. I knew nothing of the matter, and still don’t—I don’t even know where the Mentholatum Building is. I figured I’d post what the Strand had written and see what folks thought. One guy responded, saying basically that the Strand was wrong and using unreliable sources.

Yesterday, eight months later, PBA manager Ron Rienas responded, too, by email:

Earlier this month the PBA sold the Mentholatum Building to the Boys and Girls Club of Niagara. The sale price was the same that the Peace Bridge Authority (PBA) paid for the building approx. 4 1/2 years ago.

The building was initially acquired by the PBA and used for Peace Bridge purposes to facilitate the reconstruction of the Canadian Customs Plaza. The PBA is required by Canadian law to provide facilities for the immigration/refugee function including facilities for an NGO that provides refugee services. As the reconstruction of the plaza involved demolition of buildings housing those functions we were obligated to provide alternative space. The Canadian plaza construction was completed in 2007 allowing these uses to return to the plaza enabling the PBA to dispose of the building.

As a public entity and in keeping with Town of Fort Erie plans to utilize the building for community purpose, the Board did originally offer the use of the building to Town for a $1.00/year lease but the Town would be required to pay all utilities, taxes, maintenance, etc. When there was opposition to that arrangement because it was incorrectly perceived as free rent competing with the private sector, the Board determined that it was simply not worth fighting to do something beneficial for the community. Accordingly the decision was made to sell the building but in keeping with the desire to maintain the building for a community benefit the PBA first offered it to charitable organizations before putting it on the open market. The Boys and Girls Club of Niagara acquired the property and will be using the building for its own purposes as well as leasing space to the Town and other community groups. The difference being that the capital cost of the building is now built into the rent structure costing community groups more money.

As for the other allegations in the article there was a full environmental assessment done on the building and no remedial environmental work was required. The elevator was repaired and there was  a roof repair – total cost I understood to be less than $10,000. The reference to the PBA giving “gifts ” is also not accurate as we continue, in the spirit of good corporate citizen, to make grants to groups and associations  on both sides of the river that meet pre-determined criteria.

This isn’t my bailiwick, so I’m not fact-checking Ron’s account anymore than I fact-checked the Strand’s. But I’d love to hear more from folks who know more about the issue.

Here’s something that drives me crazy about the Buffalo News: the “Another Voice” column on the editorial page. It would be a nice idea, except that so often it is not given over to “another” voice. It is given, rather, to the same old voices: to people who are frequently quoted as sources in articles, who are in positions of political or economic power, to folks whose job is to push agendas—to people, in other words, who have no difficulty making their voices heard.

Today’s “Another Voice” column is by Ron Rienas, general manager of the Public Bridge Authority. None of the evasions he offers here are new, nor has Rienas lacked opportunity to make them in a public forum. He has been quoted in at least 40 Buffalo News articles in the past year. He wrote another “Another Voice” column in January.

In the past two months, the column’s authors have included incoming State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, who earns headlines somewhere in that state nearly every day; Tom Golisano, who can order up a microphone and reporter whenever he needs one; Erie County Legislator Maria Whyte, with whose column I agree but who already  has occasion to speak with reporters weekly; UB President John Simpson, stumping for the UB 2020 plan that is frequently the subject of articles in the news pages; Erie County Executive Chris Collins, also no stranger to headlines; and outgoing Congressman Tom Reynolds, who, it is true, has not been much in the limelight in the past two years.

And Rienas’ column today is a response to a recent “Another Voice” piece by attorney David Colligan, chairman of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy. I agree with much of what Colligan says in that piece, but he’s another guy who hardly lacks opportunity to speak his mind: He is quoted in the pages of the Buffalo News about once a month, sometimes more often than that.

In between these privileged perspectives, the column frequently comprises articles by the mouthpieces for lobbying or special interest groups. It would be nice, I think, if “Another Voice” were afforded solely to those who are invisible in the news media, underrepresented in government, underserved by our institutions and economy.

Ladies and Gentlemen! In this corner, weighing in at 80,000 pounds gross weight, the reigning champion of the Buffalo News editorial page, representing one of the millions of semi trucks that will be inspected over time at the proposed US truck plaza as a result of the inflexible opinion of current Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and his boss, President George W. Bush—who suffered a loss in the ring from US Supreme Court Judges just yesterday, when they ruled against the indefinite detainment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners held without charges and without hope of fair trial—the General Manager of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority…the pugilist for public domain…the crusher of communities…the paver of parks…the master of myopia…the potentate of public works projects: Ro-onnnnn RIEN-ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

And in this corner, weighing in at a combined weight of 187 pounds, four young schoolgirls playing jump-rope wearing gas masks, similar in age to the children at D’Youville Porter Campus School #3…represented by former NYS Senator and sometimes whacky issue-driver A-aaaaaaaaaaalllllllllll Co-PPOLAAAA!

WHERE: Niagara Branch Library, Corner of Porter Ave & Niagara St

WHEN: Wednesday, June 18, 2008

TIME: 6:30—7:30

RIENAS vs. COPPOLA

Competing for the lungs of an entire community! Don’t miss this big event!