POLITICS: Mullane seeks at-large Common Council seat

Local News

Related Photos

July 30, 2009

Staff Reports The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Thu Jul 30, 2009, 12:41 AM EDT

Democrats have a full slate of candidates again in upcoming city races.

Anita Mullane is the new candidate for the at-large Common Council seat, after the party committee this week filed the necessary paperwork with the Board of Elections.

Mullane, a committee member, will run in place of Michael Manning, who was endorsed by the party but dropped out of the race last month. Manning’s designating petitions were assigned to her.

Mullane, of Lindhurst Drive, ran a close race for the 5th Ward seat in 2005. She’s eager to “go out and knock on doors” again, this time citywide, she said Wednesday.

“That’s how you find out what’s on people’s minds, things they wouldn’t go to a Council meeting and say,” Mullane said. “I can’t wait to get out there.”

As she challenges veteran Republican Joseph Kibler for the at-large seat, Mullane is campaigning on a couple of core issues: the need for a full, curbside recycling program in the city and what she says are the current Council’s ways of haste and waste.

A teaching assistant at North Park Middle School, Mullane says the way students schoolwide manage paper recycling, voluntarily through the private sector, puts the city corporation to shame. If children can manage a weekly program, she figures, so can the adults.

“We’ve been talking about (curbside recycling) for 20 years. Why is there always a problem? It’s time we got it done,” she said.

Mullane suggested some Council members may be reluctant to take the latest recycling proposal seriously for fear of adding start-up expenses to the 2010 budget in the midst of an election year. She said the Council has exhibited several bad habits through the years: members jumping to conclusions before they’ve really looked into an issue, and/or accepting that things should be done the way they’ve always been done.

In past election cycles, for instance, non-incumbent candidates on either side of the aisle have suggested the city look at zero-based budgeting. That’s a process in which departments build new budgets from $0, projecting costs and revenues based on what they do and know they need. For as long as anyone can remember, next year’s city budget has been built using this year’s bottom line-plus as a starting point.

Council veterans dismiss zero-based budgeting as impractical. That they’ve said so apparently without looking into it bothers Mullane.

“It’s hard to make cuts if you’re doing the same things you’ve always done,” she said. “I’m not saying (zero-based budgeting) is better. I don’t know that it is; neither do (its critics). How can you say no to something without looking at it first?”

Mullane said the Council also tends to rush to legislate, without first examining the ramifications. She cited as an example the unanimous approval of a comprehensive sign law last fall that so antagonized small business owners, the law is now being rewritten.

“It was a waste of time and a waste of businesses’ money,” she said. “There are plenty of empty buildings around and filling them is only impeded by the perception of tough regulations and an unfriendly business climate.”

Other issues Mullane said she’d like to see addressed by the city: fair and equal treatment of property owners in assessment and taxation, “without exception,” and the need for more youth programs.

Mullane and her husband, Dan, have three children ages 13 to 23. At North Park, Mullane is the volunteer adviser for Moving Up Day, a graduation-type ceremony for eighth-graders heading to high school in the fall. She also is a member of the Lockport High School Foundation, which oversees the Distinguished Alumni and Quality Students recognition programs; and is an executive officer of Lockport Education Association.

Text Only

Local News

Shovel-ready park has perks
At first glance, the big, orange road sign announcing vacant property on Lockport Road as a “shovel ready certified” building site seems a bit gratuitous.
To companies looking for new places to launch a business, it’s not. The sign in their eyes is a welcome mat, for in three words a community pronounced itself ready, willing and able to make a deal quickly.

February 3, 2012 1 Photo
Roy-Hart to play the big stage
A group of local students will be performing this month at Kleinhans Music Hall just before a BPO concert.
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra will welcome the Royalton-Hartland High School Mixed Chorus as part of the BPO’s Community Spotlight program on Feb. 19 at Kleinhans in Buffalo. The chorus will perform under the direction of Carolyn Unitas Roos and accompanied by Janice McKinney.

February 3, 2012
Former NFTA cop sentenced
A former Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority police officer will spend six years on probation for sending a sexually explicit photo to a teenage girl, a girl he later had a sexual encounter with.
In addition, John W. Ingham will spend 25 weekends in the service of the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office Work Program. Ingham was sentenced Thursday by State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch, Sr. Ingham will also register as a sex offender.

February 3, 2012
Speakers address SPCA contract
Animal rescue volunteers want the City of Lockport to hit the SPCA of Niagara where it hurts — in the pocketbook — and help force reform of the troubled animal welfare organization.
Volunteers from multiple small, private rescue groups, and the SPCA itself, descended on the Common Council Wednesday to talk about the city’s ongoing involvement with SPCA.

February 2, 2012 4 Photos
Liberty Tire cited for 'multiple' violations
The City of Lockport will require Liberty Tire Recycling to obtain an operating permit in order to avoid being declared a hazard.

February 2, 2012
Instant millionaire
Paul Schneider had just gotten off the phone with his girlfriend when he called her back with some breaking news.
“She was teasing me and said, ‘so you hung up the phone with me to scratch your scratch offs?’” Schneider said. “And I said, ‘It’s a good thing I did because I won a million dollars.’”

February 1, 2012 1 Photo
Fire code crackdown vowed
City code enforcement officers are planning an inspection blitz at the multi-building Liberty Tire Recycling complex, in the hope of helping the company avoid another huge fire, officials said Monday.
Liberty Tire, 470 Ohio St., likely will be cited for one or more fire code violations after fire struck the facility this past Friday. A large pile of tires, stored behind one of the buildings, caught fire when a live industrial power line fell on the pile. The power line had partly melted due to a short circuit inside a building.

January 31, 2012 2 Photos
NFTA cuts will make transportation difficult
NFTA cuts will make it difficult, if not impossible for Buffalo-area commuters to get to work in Lockport and Lockport residents to get to Buffalo.
Millie Spencer, who lives near the Walden Galleria, takes four buses and an NFTA train to get to Lockport for her job as a graphic artist four days a week.
“This will threaten my job,” said Spencer who is married and has four children. “We’re down to one car and my husband’s job takes him all over the place. What would I do? I don’t know.”

January 31, 2012 1 Link
Prepared patriots
At mobilization ceremonies across the state this weekend, hundreds of servicemen from the Army National Guard were cheered on their way to training for a possible overseas deployment.
More than 1,800 soldiers assigned to the 27th Brigade Combat Team mobilized before heading to Camp Shelby in Mississippi to train for an expected deployment to Kuwait this spring. In Lockport, nearly 75 men from Company A of the Brigade Special Troops Battalion were thanked for their previous — and coming — service to the nation at a ceremony Sunday. Likewise, 90 were sent off in Geneseo Saturday, and more in Buffalo and Rochester.

January 30, 2012 1 Photo
Town recycling numbers are up
The Town of Lockport seems to have taken a bigger interest in recycling.
At a Town Board meeting Wednesday, Councilman Paul W. Siejak said for all of 2011, the town recycled 27.55 more tons than it did a year ago. Electronics recycling, which the town started in July, totaled 4,914 pounds.
For the electronics recycling, the town receives 5 cents per pound, which means Lockport was paid $245.70.

January 30, 2012
More Local News Headlines

Local News

Search Results

Related Photos

POLITICS: Mullane seeks at-large Common Council seat

Site Map

Contact Us