Published: October 25, 2009 08:59 pm      

HAMILTON: A lesson provided by city settlements

If I am wrong, then I like to be the first one to admit it. Usually, I don’t have that luxury, because by the time that I discover that I was wrong, sometimes hundreds of other people have already whispered it behind my back.

But, this one is kind of a no-brainer, which a whole other group of people would testify that I am qualified to make.

Nonetheless, at the Monday City Council meeting I protested spending $137,500 on the paving of a nearly abandoned parking lot behind what was once the Slipko’s Food King Market on Main Street because there are no traffic or marketing studies to indicate the need for that job. Furthermore, the city should sell that property and demolish the Slipko’s building so that a private merchant can make up-front parking along Main.

Another fellow got up and spoke about the $7,600 travel budget for the city administrator being excessive.

Now, I don’t mind being more liberal than Niagara Falls High School history and government teacher Frank Soda. I don’t even mind about him being right sometimes and me being wrong. But, what bothers me is when he is more right than I am on a more conservative issue. I admit that this time he embarrassingly nailed it.

Soda had bet the students that he brings to City Council meetings that there would be public protests about the relatively paltry sums of money that council sometimes allows the mayor to use on what amount to be pet projects, but the public would overlook the mega-sums of money that some rightfully consider unnecessarily spent.

Soda asked if there is a pattern developing for monies that we spend in the city on policing errors. More specifically, monies spent in paying settlements for police/civilian accidents. The council approved spending $800,000 in one case recently, and $200,000 in another case on Monday.

It is easy for my liberal side to overlook such expenses as necessary ones, we having more sympathy for the victim than for the city. So much so, that we don’t examine why the city is at fault and how, if possible, such events can be mitigated, or even eliminated.

Our police force are professionals who, like us, want to improve. They would rather have the $1 million spent in additional police officers than in settlement payments.

But Soda’s question begs consideration: Is there a pattern developing? Perhaps being exempt from the vehicular and traffic laws that they swore to enforce takes a certain edge off them or causes them not to be as focused as they should? I don’t know.

While it may rightfully be of no comfort to the compensated victims and/or their families, I do believe that our police department likely saves the general public hundreds of times the money that is spent in settlements, police car repairs and replacements. Nonetheless, absent from any broadly known discussion by political and government servants are any actions taken to ensure that these payments become unnecessary.

There is little question that I am one of the Board of Education’s staunchest critics — and for good cause. So I really hate to do this, but I have to give kudos to Soda on, not only understanding this issue, but also on instilling a better understanding of it into his student’s minds.

Well done, Frank.

Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident. Contact him at kenhamilton930@aol.com.