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Niagara Gazette: Centennial Park loan hearing survey results won’t be released

January 27, 2023

On January 27, 2023, the Niagara Gazette reported that Mayor Restaino has decided that the results of a public survey taken at the end of a contentious city council meeting regarding the Mayor’s speculative $150 million Centennial Park project would be kept secret.

The Gazette Reported:

During an interview this week with the Niagara Gazette, Restaino said Community Development Director Clifford Scott Jr. should not have distributed copies of the survey to individuals who attended the Dec. 22 hearing at city hall because he was not authorized to do so.

“We never authorized any survey,” Restaino said.

Scott refused to answer questions about the survey, its distribution and the results to the administration and instead referred all questions to Restaino’s office.

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[Councilman Donta Myles] believes sharing the survey results would another level of transparency to the process. Failing to do so, he said, speaks volumes about the Restaino administration’s ongoing efforts to “push through” the acquisition of the land for Centennial Park without having genuine discussions about whether residents believe it is in the city’s best interests.

“My question is why would the public’s concerns or the public’s opinion or the opinion of your constituents not be authorized?,” he said. “Why would that even be a problem?”

The full story in the Gazette can be found here.