Published: January 21, 2009 01:09 am      

INAUGURATION: Mayor a face in the Washington crowd

Dyster on the mall as Obama is sworn in; Kimble honors new president in Legislature

Mayor Paul Dyster admitted to being a bit uncomfortable on Tuesday.

Standing in a packed crowd of more than 1 million people attending President Barack Obama’s inaugural address, Dyster said he barely had room to move or to even raise his hands to clap as Obama delivered his speech.

It didn’t matter much though.

He was there and as far as he was concerned he not only witnessed history firsthand but heard a message of hope he intends to carry with him as he continues his own work as mayor in the coming months and years.

“I think anyone who was out on the mall today felt like the United States of America can do anything,” said Dyster, who was reached on his cell phone in Washington, D.C. following the inaugural event. “He avoided the cheap lines. He avoided the ‘Yes We Can’ line and yet the tone of his speech was ‘Yes We Can” and I think that’s how people felt.”

“It was just very, very emotional,” Dyster added. “The whole thing was just so charged with emotion. People were just so keyed up to be there.”

Dyster expressed enthusiasm about two points of Obama’s speech. He said the president’s call for the country to move away from a dependence on foreign oil and to more of a reliance on renewable energies produced at home should be viewed as a welcome sign for places like Niagara Falls where such projects are already in the works. He said he also was pleased to hear the president “extend an olive branch” to America’s aggressors abroad. He said he’s confident an Obama administration will lead to good things for cities like Niagara Falls in terms of infrastructure spending promised through the proposed economic stimulus package. He noted that Obama himself got his start as a community activist in an urban environment and he believes this president understands the needs of cities better than his predecessor.

“Instead of making the last speech of the campaign, he made the first speech of the presidency,” Dyster said.

While excited about the prospects of an Obama administration, Dyster underscored the challenges ahead and said it will be important in the coming weeks and months for all those who were excited by Tuesday’s speech to hang in there if times stay tough.

“I know that the time is going to come for Barack Obama that the people who were out there and excited today are going to have to stand with him during some very tough times,” he said.

Meanwhile, Niagara County Legislator Renae Kimble, D-Niagara Falls, was invited to attend the inauguration but declined to attend due to a family commitment. Kimble, who is the highest ranking African American elected official in the county, said she was most pleased to hear Obama’s thoughts on world relations, an area where she said he clearly seems intent on taking a different, and perhaps more productive, path than his predecessor.

“Our world standing is extremely important,” she said. “America needs to go back to the moral high ground that we have had as a nation, one that follows the rule of law and one that does not believe in torture or waterboarding or things of that nature.”

During Tuesday’s Legislature meeting, Kimble read a proclamation honoring the historic occasion and offering wishes for success to the nation’s new president.

“We’ve gone from slavery to freedom, from freedom to civil rights, from civil rights to voting rights and now to the inauguration of Barack Obama as our 44th president,” she said.

As for what an Obama administration may mean to Niagara County, Kimble said she’s hopeful the new president’s push for a federal stimulus package will help create jobs locally and provide money for sorely needed infrastructure projects.

“Our roads and bridges are deplorable,” she said. “Our roads and bridges in Niagara Falls are more than deplorable.”