One might think that -- after the severe thrashing they took from the residents of Cayuga Island two weeks ago -- Mayor Paul Dyster and his administration would be a little gun-shy when it came to antagonizing another Niagara Falls taxpayer, particularly one whose building provides the space where more than 300 other taxpayers make a living, and tens of thousands of tourists flock to each week during summer for a brief meal, a chance to sit down and perhaps buy a souvenir of their visit to one of the great natural wonders of the world.

The latest twist in the two-year-old saga of Dyster attempting to use all means, legal and otherwise, to shut down developer Frank Parlato's One Niagara building occurred on April 8, with the receipt of a written notice from the city Corporate Counsel's office. The letter -- addressed to Parlato's attorney James Roscetti -- advised, in no uncertain terms, that Parlato was prohibited from occupying the ninth floor of his own building.

"Advise your client to immediately vacate any space occupied in the building on the property at 360 Rainbow Avenue South ... other than the first floor," it read.

The administration had decided to appeal a decision made by Supreme Court Justice William Kloch in June of last year that allowed Parlato to open the ninth floor observation deck of the building to tourist traffic. Key evidence in that case was a completely illegal memo, written by "City Planner" Tom DeSantis, ordering Inspections Department personnel to not even consider anything Parlato submitted for approval.

Last Tuesday, Kloch took the city to task once again, ordering officials to show why Parlato should not be allowed to use his building in any way he sees fit. Until they do, he said, there was no legal reason why the ninth floor observation deck couldn't remain open to the public.

Calling the city's action "arbitrary and capricious," Kloch also ordered administration officials to show why they shouldn't be held responsible for the considerable legal fees Parlato has racked up defending himself against the suits.

He scheduled a hearing on the matters for April 29.

The Dyster administration waited nearly a year, 10 months to be exact, before sending the threatening letter and filing its appeal. During much of that time, building permits had been issued and city inspections had taken place on the ongoing renovation of the ninth floor.

It was certainly known to the city that Niagara Snow Park owner and Tuscarora businessman Joe Anderson had signed a lease for the building's ninth floor, and had sunk more than $500,000 into interior renovations, along with commissioning his own Third Street graphic design company to design and produce T-shirts the tourists might take along with them as souvenirs.

Clearly, Dyster and company waited until shutting down the ninth floor at One Niagara would inflict the maximum financial damage possible on Parlato and Anderson. And rather than using city Law Department attorneys to continue the case, they ventured out into the private sector -- which has some good lawyers -- and hired Daniel C. Oliverio and Jennifer Mucha of the prestigious Buffalo firm of Hodgson Russ.

City Council members contacted by the Niagara Falls Reporter said they knew nothing of the plan to appeal Kloch's decision.

"They've been trying to shut this guy down for two years," Councilman Bob Anderson said. "I just don't get it. You look at the downtown and there's just two big places that have a lot of people working, the casino and that (One Niagara) building."

Councilman Steve Fournier said the city's move to appeal Kloch's decision puts him in an awkward position, since he will be selling pizza and sandwiches there during the tourist season.

"Shutting down the ninth floor would certainly be bad for my business, and for all the businesses that open here," he said. "The people on the tour buses all go up there because it's free, and it gives you the best view in the city of the falls, the gorge and the Canadian side."

Just as the Dyster administration had attempted an end run around Kloch's 2009 decision by filing the appeal, they used a slush fund kept by the law office to hire Oliverio and Mucha in order to keep the Council in the dark, Anderson and Fournier agreed.

"Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when the mayor wants to bring in outside attorneys, it's up to the Council to decide whether or not to authorize the expenditure," Anderson said. "In this case, that procedure was not followed."

It remains unclear how the slush fund was set up, but Dyster has, during his 28 months in office, periodically set large amounts of money aside for use on things that never happed. There was $500,000 budgeted to help defend the Seneca Nation, for example, in the event anyone tried to shut the Seneca Niagara Casino down. Another $100,000 was to have been used to erect a statue on the small traffic island in front of the long-abandoned Hotel Niagara.

The statue, which Dyster said was meant to commemorate the centennial of an obscure treaty between the United States and Canada, never materialized, and what happened to the money remains a mystery.

Anderson said he has no idea why Dyster has been so insistent on shutting One Niagara down.

"We ought to be seen as business friendly, bending over backwards to encourage them and help them," he said. "Instead we've gotten the image of going out of our way to make things hard for local businesspeople."

Attorney Paul Grenga, who also represents Parlato, said the city misapplied the appeals process in its latest action.

"The way the appeal process is set up is meant more to protect the citizen, rather than the government," he said. "For example, if the city got an injunction stating you have to demolish your garage, filing an appeal would allow you to keep the garage until the matter had been decided by a judge. It doesn't work the other way around."

Asked why the city's attorneys would fail to grasp such a basic concept, Grenga shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"Maybe they didn't go to law school," he said.

The odds of the city prevailing at the April 29 hearing are slim and none. The ongoing pattern of harassment and intimidation of a downtown businessman who has sunk millions of his own dollars into a building other developers walked away from will likely continue, however.