NIAGARA FALLS — CHEERS
• PARK IT DOWNTOWN: The Niagara Falls State Park is the place to be Saturday. The downtown wonder is celebrating its 125th anniversary with a community parade starting at 11 a.m. at Main and Third streets. Parade Chairman Jerald I. Wolfgang said registration for the event is the same day from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Niagara County Office Building, Cedar Avenue and Third Street.
It’s a great time to get reacquainted with the state park.
• THAT’S ITALIAN: Despite a lack of funding, we’re glad to hear the show will go on for the Pine Avenue’s annual Italian Festival. “We’re reaching out to the Italian community as much as possible, and anyone else who would like to help,” said Joseph Schiro, president of the Cristoforo Colombo Society on Pine Avenue and one of the festival’s main organizers. “Right now, we’re about $7,000 short of what we need.” The festival will be held July 31 and Aug. 1 along Pine Avenue from 15th Street to Portage Road.
• GREEN THUMBS: The Highland Community Vegetable Garden located on Beech Avenue in front of Henry J. Kalfas is a wonderful project. The garden, which grows items like bell peppers, radish, tomatoes, lettuce and number of herbs, was established last year through a partnership between Kalfas and Niagara University’s ReNU program. The garden is maintained by a number of local community groups, including the Niagara Falls Housing Authority, Niagara Falls Weed and Seed and the Mt. Sinai Youth Ministry. Angela Santiago, theme specialist at Kalfas said the garden is tended to by two students from each grade level at the pre-K through sixth-grade school. She said the gardening is tied into the students’ science curriculum and has become a fun way of learning for the students. What a great way to grow.
JEERS
• WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS: The New York Power Authority is willing to make a $1 billion commitment to Western New York. Yet it seems that everyone who’s anyone is against it. The Great Lakes Offshore Wind Project calls for up to 166 wind turbines to be built along the Lake Ontario shore. “When you have P.T. Barnum, a carnival barker, coming by to sell you jobs, telling you the windmills are going to be manufactured here in Niagara County, everybody is going to be working, great jobs. Who wouldn’t sign up for this?” state Sen. George Maziarz said. “The problem is, excuse my bluntness, we have been screwed for so long by those people.” The bad blood between the county and NYPA needs to come to a halt. We need to put personal feelings aside and decide if this project is the best for Niagara County. The negatives about the project seem to come from personal displeasure, not research and facts.
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