Standing in front of a half-built hotel on Niagara Falls Boulevard Friday, state Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, called on county and state officials to investigate the conditions which led to a man falling to his death at the site in October.
The site, a future Holiday Inn Express at 10111 Niagara Falls Blvd., was using non-workers at the time. Another man was injured in the fall, which happened when a pre-cast concrete form shifted and fell.
“Number one, we want to know what agency or individuals were responsible (for the unsafe working conditions),” said Maziarz, who also said he would take the issue up in the state Senate’s Labor Committee, which he chairs. “Number two, we want to insure something like this never happens again.”
About 40 people attended the press conference, many of whom were from local construction unions.
“We come to work for employers,” said John Magney of the Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters Local 289. “We don’t come to die for them.”
Maziarz said he had talked to a number of agencies in the past several weeks, including the state Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, state Workers’ Compensation Board and City of Niagara Falls.
The site has rapidly acquired a history of issues, including OSHA fines before the accident and state and federal investigations afterward that led to fines. Laborers Local 91 had picketed the site since ground was broken over the summer.
Pictures of the site were shown at the conference, including a lack of safety fences on the roof and differences between plans submitted to the city and the actual construction. The site has been closed after an order by the city’s building inspection department.
“What was submitted and what is actually being done are two different things,” Maziarz said.
Conference attendees said that both the hotel owner, Grand Island developer Mohan Saran, and its architect and site superintendent, Ken Lofstrand, were on scene to watch Maziarz speak and then left. A message left afterwards on Lofstrand’s cell phone was not returned on Friday. Maziarz also said engineers showed up at the site early Friday morning after learning of the press conference, putting fences up and moving debris towards the back of the site.
Reached after the press conference, Violante said that no information had been presented to him so he couldn’t yet judge whether he’d take action on it.
“Once I get the information I’ve been told I will get, then we’ll take it from there,” Violante said. An investigation of this type from a DA “wouldn’t be common, but I wouldn’t say it doesn’t exist.”
Eleven workers have died in construction accidents in Western New York since 2003, said Rob Connolly, business manager of Laborers Local 91. Every one of them were non-union workers.
“This job was an accident waiting to happen,” he said.
Local News
NIAGARA FALLS: Maziarz calls for investigation at hotel site
Senator calls on county and state officials
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