One of four trees removed under a $20,000 contract change order authorized by the Niagara Falls City Council in July was located on the right-of-way in front of a Cayuga Island home previously owned by a senior member of the city’s engineering department.
City Administrator Anthony Restaino confirmed, during a brief interview on Tuesday outside city hall, that the tree in question was located at 8910 Champlain Ave.
Information available on the city’s online property assessment website lists the private home’s previous owner as Robert Buzzelli, who currently holds the position of civil engineer III in the Niagara Falls engineering department. Property records show Buzzelli sold the property on May 28 to what appears to be a relative.
On Tuesday, City Administrator Restaino said the city forester, not the engineering department, conducted the inspection of the tree prior to its removal sometime in May. Restaino said the tree was targeted for removal because it was “dead.” He stressed that it was not located on private property, but rather the area between the sidewalk and the street, which is considered public land.
“It was on the city right-of-way. It wasn’t his tree. It was the city’s tree. All of the trees that were removed were the city’s trees,” Restaino said.
Buzzelli did not immediately respond to requests for comment made by telephone and via email.
The Niagara Gazette previously reported that two of the other trees removed at public expense under the same change order were located on the right-of-way in front of Mayor Robert Restaino’s house and on the right-of-way in front of his neighbor’s home on College Avenue.
City Administrator Restaino said he did not have the specific address of the fourth tree removed under the change order, but said it was located on Cayuga Drive.
The change order stemmed from a $151,657 contract the city had with M2 Tree Service, Inc., of Westfield, NY. The city hired the company last year after requesting bids for the removal of 54 trees citywide as part of the city’s 2024 tree removal project.
In June, Mayor Restaino’s office asked the city council to approve the change order, noting in a memo to city lawmakers that extra funds were needed to cover the cost to remove “four additional” trees identified by the city engineering department as “problematic.” The $20,000 was covered using interest derived from the city’s allotment of COVID-19 pandemic relief funds, which were provided to the Falls and other municipalities under the federal government’s American Rescue Plan.
On Tuesday, City Administrator Restaino said the engineering department was referenced in the mayor’s request for authorization of the change order because the department put together the bid package that ultimately led to M2 Tree Services being hired for the tree removal work, not because it was involved in the inspection of the trees.
“The contract was run through the engineering department,” Restaino said.
A majority of city council members — Chairman Jim Perry and fellow lawmakers Traci Bax and David Zajac — voted in favor of authorizing the change order during a meeting on July 2. Councilman Donta Myles voted against the measure. Councilman Brian Archie abstained after asking where the four trees were located and being told by the city’s lead attorney, Corporation Counsel Tom DeBoy, that he did not know.
Mayor Restaino and members of his administration have, for weeks, refused to divulge the addresses of the four trees covered under the change order and have not responded to multiple requests for inspection records or for more detailed information about the city’s cost-per-tree.
Myles requested, in a Sept. 29 email to City Administrator Restaino, work order numbers, crew/time logs, equipment used and invoices or chargebacks tied to the tree removals. He has also sought the four addresses where the trees were removed and specific amounts as to the city’s cost-per-tree.
Myles is now considering pursuing the information by requesting Council Chairman Jim Perry to authorize subpoenas as outlined under the Niagara Falls City Charter.
The city charter is the legal document that guides the operation of city government. Section 3.7, titled “power of investigation,” grants the council “the power to investigate the affairs of every city department, board, commission, agency or other instrumentality of city government and the official conduct of any city officer except the mayor.”
On Tuesday, Myles questioned why it had taken weeks for the administration to publicly acknowledge that one of the four trees was removed from the right-of-way in front of a house formerly owned by the city engineer. He described the whole situation as “kind of baffling.”
“Why couldn’t they just be straightforward and just tell us when they knew exactly which trees were involved?” he said. “It’s sad that we have to go through this amount of effort to get information that should be readily available to the public.”
“You took the interest of those funds to cut down trees not only in front of your property but also in front of a house that was owned by the city engineer?” Myles added. “It makes me want to look more deeply into it, that’s for sure. This rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper.”
As to the trees being located on public property, not private property, Myles said he didn’t think it made much of a difference, noting that it is likely nearly all or even all of the trees removed by the city are located on public, not private, land.
“People who are on the city’s list of tree removals, most of them are on the right-of-way as well. For the most part, people don’t request that the city remove trees from their personal property. That doesn’t make any difference,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Niagara Gazette submitted two Freedom of Information Law requests to the city clerk’s office in an effort to obtain documents related to the tree removals.
The first request seeks any and all reports compiled by any city department, including engineering, as they relate to the trees targeted for removal under the change order. The second request seeks any and all correspondence, including emails, between the city and M2 Tree Services, Inc.
City Administrator Restaino said Tuesday the city’s lead attorney, Corporation Counsel Tom DeBoy, is putting together a package of information related to the outstanding requests for more information and that he expected the information would soon be shared with the Niagara Gazette.
“The whole $20,000 wasn’t spent on removing those four trees and you’ll see that in the documents,” Restaino said.
During a brief interview outside city hall on Tuesday, Mayor Restaino said he was recently made aware that one of the four trees removed under the change order was located on the right-of-way in front of a house previously owned by a city engineer.
He acknowledged that it was his understanding that the four trees in question were removed in May, before his office requested council approval for the change order in June.
“I think from a timeline that’s how it lines up,” he said. “I don’t know anything different. I know when the work was done. I know that four trees were taken off the original list of 54 trees and then there was the addition of four trees.”
Mayor Restaino indicated four trees were removed from the city’s original contract with M2 Tree Services due to their size. He did not have an explanation as to why the council was asked to authorize funds to cover the cost of the tree removal after the trees had already been removed.
“I don’t have an explanation,” he said. “I don’t know the timeline. I just know that when the matter came before us, we made sure it was put on a council agenda.”
When asked about his administration’s slow response to requests for documents related to the tree removals, Mayor Restaino said civil servants inside city hall have been working on it, but they are busy and the process takes time. He described it as a “question of personnel.”
“I would love to be able to tell you that the civil servants who are doing their daily work and working to get these daily requests fulfilled would be able to do it much faster. They are working as hard as they can,” he said.