EDITORIAL: Council right on engineer search

Editorials

August 24, 2009

Staff Reports The Niagara Gazette Mon Aug 24, 2009, 11:57 PM EDT

It was good to see the Ali Marzban saga wrap up at city hall last week.

Here’s the quick recap — hired after a year-long search by Mayor Paul Dyster, Marzban didn’t show up in the city for four months, didn’t have a state license eight months into his time here, was suspended for a week after being warned about his behavior at city hall, then left for a conference in Texas and was ultimately terminated by the city.

Considering the administration took a year to find this guy, there were concerns getting rid of him might take a while too. It didn’t, to the credit of city officials.

So now the question becomes: How do we replace him?

City Administrator Donna Owens said last week the city will try another national search.

We don’t know about you, but “yikes” is the first word that comes to our minds.

Fortunately, it sounds like members of the City Council are just about as fed up with all this as the rest of us.

If you remember, Marzban was found through a national recruitment campaign fueled by the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo’s “Building a Better Niagara Falls Fund.” That means taxpayers didn’t foot the bill.

You’ll also remember city officials ultimately cut ties with the group. That means any new national search will be footed by the taxpayers.

Not so fast, members of the City Council said this past week. Councilman Sam Fruscione, Robert Anderson, Steve Fournier, Charles Walker and council chair Chris Robins all said the new search should stay local.

We couldn’t agree more.

Citing the number of candidates locally, taxpayer funds necessary to perform the search and the time it could take, all of the councilmen said a new national search is unrealistic for the city. They’re absolutely right.

Remember, it’s not like the city is saving money by not paying the city engineer salary — we’ll likely have to pay members of the engineering department staff more and use costly outside consultants.

But finding a replacement isn’t just about money and time here. It’s also about passion.

You have to wonder how much someone from far out of town really cares about the City of Niagara Falls. Is an administration job here just a stepping stone to something bigger?

Let’s find someone who has a vested interest in Western New York, who actually has a stake in the community he’s trying to better.

Will they be the best and brightest? Maybe not out in California or Texas, but someone who has the right head on his shoulders and has done business in this area and has local knowledge should go a long way for the city.

Taking a look at how Marzban conducted himself in his short time in the city, it definitely didn’t appear he was here to build a better Niagara Falls.

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