I am hosting a meeting that you are invited to attend. The topic is “Equality with Seneca — How to obtain it.”
As most readers know, Albany granted Seneca legal superiority over Americans in Niagara Falls, including the right to open casinos, and any kind of business tax-free. They compete against us, tax-free, while we pay amongst the highest taxes in the nation.
This created an unlevel playing field that, if not stopped, may well result in Seneca capturing the entire town.
Perhaps, however, Americans living in Niagara Falls, by uniting, may be able to create a plan that will gain for us “Equality with Seneca,” to take back our city and make it great again. In any event, I believe we deserve a chance to look at ending the racist law that makes Seneca legally superior to Americans. We may succeed, if we band together. So I am calling a meeting of townsfolk; all are invited.

Time: 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 15
Place: One Niagara (the former Occidental Chemical Center), 360 Rainbow Blvd., Niagara Falls
Admittance is free.
Refreshments will be served.

The place of the public meeting: One Niagara, 360 Rainbow Blvd., corner of Niagara St.

• • • • •

Below is some commentary, along with date and headline, culled from The Reporter, where I address some of the issues:

GAMBLING MONOPOLY, TAX-FREE ZONE SET TO MAKE SENECA OUR RICH MASTERS IN NIAGARA FALLS
(3-10-08)

While Americans in Niagara Falls pay among the nation’s highest state income, sales and property taxes, Seneca pays none while operating similar retail businesses in direct competition with American-owned stores.
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ALBANY, ALONG WITH SENECA, IS KILLING THE TOWN (4-15-08)

It’s economics 101: The transfer of wealth: Seneca is gleaming, while more than two dozen American businesses collapsed. Four hotels closed. The ice skating rink closed. The Convention Center lost. The area adjacent to Seneca plunged deeper into desolation.
• • • • •

It was outrageously stupid to create a tax-free nation in the midst of highly-taxed, over-regulated, struggling businesses in a declining community. But that’s what Albany did.


ALBANY, SENECA AND THE SUCKERS (5-6-08)

The whole plan was idiotic and illustrates Albany almost perfectly: Albany would get 25 percent of slot machine revenue from Seneca and zero on everything else. Every other kind of gambling, and any other kind of business venture, would be absolutely tax-free for the carefree Seneca.
• • • • •

WE SHOULD CANCEL SENECA PREFERENCES NOW (6-3-08)

Seneca has opened a buffet, a pub, a “high-end” steakhouse, an Italian restaurant, an Asian restaurant, a glamour spa,a conference center, a bistro, a coffee shop, a nightclub, numerous souvenir and gift shops, and a 26-story, 604-room hotel.
More stores are coming, and the effects have not been seen: The Seneca-Niagara Hotel, the largest in the area, with deluxe rooms and pillow-top beds, ought to impact this season: Local hotels would have pillow-top beds too, if they paid no property tax, sales tax, income or bed tax. Seneca plans to build two more hotels, one with 800 rooms and another with 450 — all tax-free. Even the feeble minded here ought to comprehend that when you open brand new, glistening hotels and pay no taxes — you have a distinct advantage over longtime, faithful, existing but aging American hotels that are struggling under the weight of New York’s exorbitantly high taxes.
• • • • •

In order to gain extra revenue for itself, Albany created a tax-free nation (Seneca) in the heart of Niagara Falls to compete directly against tax-paying Americans. Is it a coincidence? This giant new Seneca hotel pays no property, income, sales or bed taxes. Meanwhile, four heavily-taxed American hotels, within its shadow, have closed since it opened.

LIKE IT OR NOT SENECA IS KILLING THE TOWN (6-24-08)

Albany created a monster known as “Niagara Falls, Seneca,” a 50-acre “country” ... created not on historic Indian reservation, but, uniquely, on U.S. land smack down in the middle of Niagara Falls, given away to a foreign nation to compete tax-free against tax-paying Americans. It would be treason anywhere else.
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SLOT MACHINES COMING TO ONE NIAGARA? (7-22-08)

Some people are blithely unaware that Seneca has superior legal rights: For these, please note: Based on ethnicity alone, a Seneca can open a casino; an American may not. They can open a business tax-free. We may not. They can build without complying with building codes; we may not. They can seize land and take it out of America and make it part of Seneca for more tax-free businesses. They can secede from the Union — piecemeal. We may not, of course. These things give Seneca a pretty big advantage.
And this they exercise, not on historic reservation land, but in downtown Niagara Falls, historically part of the USA ...
Consider the deterrent effect: what new business would, in a highly taxed, over-regulated and declining city, want to invest and compete against a tax-free nation next to it? I do not think we should allow foreigners to have more rights than our own children.
“Foreigners?” my critics chastise. “They are more American than you!”
But Seneca, by its own acclamation, is a sovereign nation. You can’t have it both ways: American when it suits you; a foreign nation when it helps you.
“Still,” referring to people such as Columbus or Custer, my critics hotly rebut, “ ‘We’ savaged the Indians!”
But their argument that I, you or “we” should have lesser legal rights, based on deeds done by others, prior to our birth, just because they had the same skin color, I tell them, “is blatantly racist.
Demanding equality, however, is not racist. Some maudlin lambs still feel they owe the debts of their ancestors who they erroneously think “stole” Niagara Falls from the poor (now rich) Seneca. Actually, the “Neutrals,” occupied Niagara Falls until the mid-18th century, when Seneca “stole” Niagara Falls and exterminated the Neutrals. Seneca squatted here only 50 years before the Europeans threw them off and made Niagara Falls, ultimately, part of America.
To assuage the guilt of the feeble hearted, however, kindly remember the warlike Seneca would have conquered your ancestors, if they had the strength. The difference is, had Seneca won, it’s unlikely their descendants would feel guilty. Ask a Seneca if they think they should share their gaming profits with the descendants of the Neutrals.
• • • • •

(Top left) Mr. Maurice John can legally have slots machines in Niagara Falls and open any business tax-free — only because he is not an American.
(Top right) Mr. Barry Snyder, a Seneca because of his race and ethnicity, is legally superior to Americans in Niagara Falls.

SOME CALL IT RACIST; SOME CALL IT SEXIST
(The demand for equality with Seneca is neither) (8-5-08)

Some feel that it’s racist that I — a white man — should talk about equal rights with Seneca. Let me start by being un-apologetic: I have no “white” guilt.
That idiotic, disgraceful, illogical, cowardly belief that I, by virtue of my race, am, somehow, responsible and should feel guilty for deeds done by people — who died before I was born — because they happened to have the same skin color as I. I have no guilt whatsoever ...
If Seneca is tax-free, all men and women should be tax-free. If Seneca can open a casino, Americans in Niagara Falls should open a casino. And that my friends is not sexist or racist at all.
• • • • •

SHOULD SENECA HAVE LEGAL SUPERIORITY OVER AMERICANS? (8-19-08)

The law permits a Seneca, based on race and ethnicity, to open any business and pay no taxes; or build without obeying building codes or zoning regulations; and a Seneca can open a casino; but should a person who is an American do it he will be arrested and charged with a felony ...
Some, who study the issue, believe that if Americans in Niagara Falls do not secure equality with Seneca, their economic advantages will permit Seneca to own the whole town.
• • • • •
Let us, my friends, end the racist and unpatriotic plan that permits people who are not Americans to have legal, tax-free and business advantages over Americans.
Niagara Falls, N.Y. — formerly known as “the Power City” and “the Honeymoon Capital of the World” — deserves a chance to come back and once again be among the van of great cities. I believe it is our civic responsibility to do it. See you at “our” meeting.
For more information, see frankreport.com or e-mail frank@frankreport.com.

Frank Parlato Jr. can be reached at frank@frankreport.com.