The City of Niagara Falls is looking for a new head engineer.
City Administrator Donna Owens said Ali Marzban received a notice of termination Tuesday morning, formally releasing him from his duties as city engineer.
Marzban was recently suspended without pay by Mayor Paul Dyster’s administration for disciplinary reasons. City officials declined to discuss the specifics behind the suspension, citing city policy for handling of personnel matters. At the time of the suspension, Mayor Paul Dyster, said the matter was related to Marzban’s “conduct in the office.” He also said Marzban had received verbal and written warnings about his conduct prior to the suspension, as per city policy.
On Tuesday, Owens said she could not discuss the specific reasons behind Marzban’s termination.
“It’s unfortunate, but sometimes things just don’t work out,” Owens said. “He just did not work out here.”
Marzban’s one-week suspension came on the heels of City Council members expressing concern the new hire has yet to obtain a professional engineering license in New York. Dyster stressed that Marzban’s suspension had nothing to do with the license issue. Despite being suspended for five days, Marzban left last week to attend an engineering and infrastructure conference in Texas, which had been scheduled back in June.
Marzban has an inactive professional engineering license in Texas and applied to get the certification transferred to New York state. His work for the city since April fell within a grace period allowed by the state, but he was prohibited from representing himself as a professional engineer until a New York license was obtained. Dyster has said the city received confirmation Marzban applied for the transfer back in June but was unaware of the application’s status.
Marzban was selected in December following a national recruitment search to fill the vacant city engineer position. He officially began work in April and is earning an annual base salary of $93,341.
Owens said the administration intends to conduct a national search to find Marzban’s replacement. In the meantime, she said other members of the engineering department staff will oversee any work that needs to be done.
“We’ll go back to the well to find somebody else,” she said.
Mayor Paul Dyster is on vacation this week and unavailable for comment.
Contact reporter Mark Scheer at 282-2311, ext. 2250
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