NIMCH [by Gerald Skrlin]

NIMCH

American Acronym: Not In My City Hall

People in Washington DC got together some time ago and produced a traffic gridlock, protesting and resisting city proposals to take away their properties to build roads to ease the traffic in and around their neighborhoods.

They mounted a campaign, NIMBY viz. Not In My Back Yard, much like former Council member Jimmie Stuart did when he resisted the truck route proposed to use the Whirlpool /Rapids Bridge, which would have congested the north town and left the area buzzing with lorries galore.

Well, since I spoke to the City Council on Tuesday Jan 21, 2014, I have had to wait a long time to present the information I acquired by requesting FOILs to back up my accusations, as I stated, “The corruption that exists between the Mayor’s Office and the Inspections’ Departments.” Bear with me and I shall present this information to you so you may determine the veracity of my claim.

I saw how Tom DeSantis reacted to what I spoke. It was very interesting.

First of all to speak out against public officials it is not easy, nor is there any pleasant emotional thrill to bring out the truth in these claims. However when considering the deceitful actions used by particular members of their departments and the Mayor, and their underhanded and continual criminal attempt to cover up illegal activity; that of actually ignoring an illegal rooming house to accommodate foreign student women, being deceitfully exploited by the Holiday Inn, is in the proverbial sense, unforgivable.

Besides these facts, an actual felony was committed in producing forged documents to a Niagara County Health Sanitarian on two occasions. The list of offenses does not stop there, they continue. And what of the uncovered illicit deals? We shall perhaps never learn of those deals that went on far behind the scenes in shady deals as have been so, so characteristic of former Niagara Falls administrations.

It is about time things change! Not change such as politicians speak of, i.e. political change, it is not expressly cared for in a Federal republic bound to checks and balances, but when most people think of checks and balances they think of their own check book and pine at how difficult it is to balance it!

Is it beneficial for our working people to be replaced by student workers? No. Is it beneficial to deny foreign students seeking a summer opportunity to visit the United States and partake of the program which has strict guidelines that mandate they be awarded an American Experience? Absolutely not!

Ms Sharon Hauser, General Manager of the Holiday Inn has been accommodating foreign students in Mr. Fisal Merani’s house at 154 Buffalo Ave, Niagara Falls, NY 14303 during the last three tourist seasons, 2011, 2012, and 2013.

According to department of State Guidelines, such students are to be protected by their sponsoring agencies who are supposed to help place them in suitable accommodations and preferably with American families to demonstrate American hospitable cultural values.

What a sad experience they learned here!

On at least three occasions I told the city council of the incident in the summer 2012 when eight foreign student women, four from Jamica, and four from the Eastern European Balkans were accommodated at Merani’s house. It was extremely fortunate for them when my sewer backed up whereupon I complained to the city inspections dept. about the Holiday Inn’s illegal boarding house. The inspectors came and what did they find?

They found that there was “ no sewer backup” which means the sewer line did not permit the flow of waste to the city sanitary sewer system. Instead of the toilet on the second floor flushed into the sewer line upstairs, discharging in between the walls, there it flowed, going down into the basement where it pooled. The maintenance workers had the cellar door locked so no one could get down the cellar stairs.

It was during this period when there was also an electrical fire in their stove. The girls, who were friendly with my son rushed over one evening, calling out frantically for help. Their electric stove was on fire. My son, having studied electronics discovered immediately that it was an electrical fire, whereupon he attempted to get to the fuse box in the basement to shut off the source of energy producing the fire.

Can you imagine what would have happened if he had run down the stairs into the basement? The hotel maintenance staff did however put out the fire, but, they never did call the fire department!

I read a letter from the Niagara County Health Dept. Director Scott Ecker which addressed to Ms Sharon Hauser. He stated the Holiday Inn, of which she is general manager was operating an illegal rooming house, Fisal Merani’s house. I read it before the new 2014 city council of which I consider to have, a majority of ONE.

Walker, Cholikian, Grandeniti, and Robinson all heard me speaking of these matters for years, and Paul Dyster, whom I informed personally of these matters twice, face to face in the summer of 2013, and face to face at Maple Ave School in 2011, all did… NOTHING!

By:

Gerald Skrlin

Caretaker Lavinia E. Porter House
Historic Museum
Niagara Falls, New York, USA

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