CHEERS & JEERS: Sept. 3's best and worst of the week

Opinion

September 2, 2010

Staff Reports Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Thu Sep 02, 2010, 11:12 PM EDT

NIAGARA FALLS — CHEERS

• THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT: A Wednesday press conference unveiled a cool new tool in the fight against texting while driving. The so-called Love Your Family, or LYF app, uses a cellular telephone’s internal GPS to automatically detect speed and determine if the user is driving while they are texting. The product was developed by partners Michael Bongiovanni, a Buffalo web designer, Bret Blakely, a marketing and communications grad from Canisius College, and Elliott Winter, a Niagara County Community College alumnus and member of the North Tonawanda Zoning Board of Appeals. Their company, Good For LYF, says the application is available on all Apple iPhone smartphones and iPads and will also be available for Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile soon. It’s a great solution to a problem that worries many parents of driving teens.

• HARD ROCK SHOWS: While there’s some debate on overall attendance for the six-show Hard Rock concert series this summer, one thing is clear — there wasn’t a whole lot of trouble. Falls police reported this week that they made two arrests for disorderly conduct charges throughout the Saturday series. It’s nice work by concert organizers — and city police who maintained a very visible presence throughout the six weeks.

JEERS

• CASINO CASH: Uh-oh. It’s starting to look like the fight between New York state and Native American tribes selling tax-free cigarettes could pose real problems for the City of Niagara Falls. City Comptroller Maria Brown said Tuesday the decision by Seneca tribal leaders to suspend casino cash payments to the state is not cause for immediate concern, but could present at least one serious challenge if the two sides remain at odds months from now. Brown said the city’s 2010 budget relies on 2009 casino cash revenues to cover a debt service increase of roughly $4.5 million. Brown said the city was still awaiting payment for its share of the 2009 casino revenue when Seneca leaders agreed Monday to withhold future allocations. “You are looking at a $4.5 million cash flow hardship that is put on the city,” she said. Delays in casino cash payments could also force the city to suspend activities supported with casino cash, including various road repair projects, Zoom Team cleanups, some demolitions and future concert series. There’s no telling how this is all going to play out — and the city, as well as the other entities benefiting from casino cash, are along for the ride.

• AIRPORT MARKETING: Calling the business climate in the Falls area as “stale,” Direct Air President Ed Warneck wants local officials to do a better job of promoting Niagara County and all it has to offer. “We can’t sit still on this any longer,” he told a committee formed to find ways to the county’s $32 million airport terminal. Hopefully someone was listening.

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