Shades of politics

The Town of Lockport is refurbishing its “Welcome to Lockport” signs. There were 20 of them at various road entrances to the town, although three have been destroyed over the years and most of the others are weather-beaten.

The town is spending $1,350 on rehabilitating 17 signs and adding three replacements. Councilman Paul W. Siejak said a design change is being made in the process.

“We’re changing the green sun,” Siejak said, holding up a photograph of the current town logo, where the sun rises behind the word “Lockport.”

“We thought the sun should be, like, yellow,” Siejak said.

Councilman Paul H. Pettit, the town’s resident curmudgeon, disagreed. “The sun is orange,” he asserted.

When a reporter questioned Pettit on this point, Supervisor Marc R. Smith cut in.

“He sees the world through rose-colored glasses,” Smith said.

Some trick

Talk about violating one’s Hippocratic Oath: A 31-year-old man told Niagara Falls police he was assaulted inside a Pine Avenue restaurant early Saturday by a man dressed as a doctor.

The victim, a Packard Court resident, told police he was attacked about 3:35 a. m. inside Colosso Taco by a man wearing a doctor’s costume. He was punched and kicked repeatedly and suffered a sprained ankle during the assault.

Police said they later arrested 18-yearold Nicholas A. Ricotta, of Van Rensselaer Avenue, as he tried to leave the scene. He was charged with third-degree assault.

Money down the drain

There was something stinky about a recent bill the city of Niagara Falls received.

Two new mist fountains that started operating this summer on Old Falls Street came with a cost to the city: a $7,546 bill for three months.

The problem wasn’t just that the city wasn’t expecting the water bill, but that more than half of the charges were for sewer expenses.

Watchful internal auditors in the city controller’s office were quickly on the case.

The auditors reasoned that since the mist fountains are designed to collect and recycle water, then they shouldn’t be spilling back into the sewer system.

A glitch in the water recycling system in the fountains when they were first installed also might have contributed to the initial sewer bill.

City Controller Maria Brown said the matter was handed over to the city’s Law Department to straighten out with the Water Board.

Just goes to show you even government can get caught up in bureaucratic sewage.

Out with the new

Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza said Friday she is trying to reverse a budget cut in the state court system.

During a pretrial conference for Allen H. McKinnon, a Niagara Falls man charged with rape, Sperrazza explained why she has been unable to rule on the admissibility of McKinnon’s statements to police.

They were the subject of a hearing conducted by a judicial hearing officer, or JHO, who in this case was retired County Judge Aldo DiFlorio. JHOs are used to lighten the workload of active judges by presiding over often-routine but mandatory evidentiary hearings.

Sperrazza told the lawyers, “The powers that be, in their wisdom, have removed court reporters from JHOs and they’ve substituted digital recording devices to save money.”

Sperrazza wants a transcript of McKinnon’s hearing so she can make her decision on the statements.

“So they tell me, ‘You can’t get a transcript. Listen to the recording.’ I say, ‘It takes as long to listen to the recording as it does to do the hearing. You’re not helping me.’ The statute says I’m supposed to review the transcript. So they’re making a transcript from the digital recording, but it takes forever. I’m hoping with the time and expense of making a transcript, we’ll get court reporters back with JHOs.”

“I’d love that,” said Assistant Public Defender A. Joseph Catalano, McKinnon’s attorney.

With contributions from News Niagara Reporters Thomas J. Prohaska and Denise Jewell Gee, and Mike Kurilovitch.