In the April 6 issue of the Niagara Falls Reporter, an error of fact occurred in contributor Frank Parlato's opinion column concerning a $2 million state grant supposedly awarded to the Cordish Companies in 2003 for the construction of a souvenir shop and attraction now known as Theater in the Mist. The error was repeated in the April 13 issue.

Actually, neither David Cordish nor the Cordish Companies ever received any of the $2 million from the state. For any inconvenience or embarrassment caused by this error, the Niagara Falls Reporter is deeply regretful.

That said, one might ask where Parlato got his information. The answer is simple. The $2 million state grant that was applied for by Cordish to build the Theater in the Mist was reported on by this paper, the Buffalo News and the Niagara Gazette in no fewer than 10 articles combined.

Astonishingly, the $2 million grant was, as of press time, also referenced in a news release on the official Cordish Companies Web site!

At the building's opening, former governor George Pataki spoke of the $2 million grant as evidence of the state's willingness to work with private developers in order to leverage what he then called a "$6.5 million investment from private investors."

In other words, Frank Parlato had numerous articles from the three newspapers serving Niagara Falls, a statement by the former governor and Cordish's own public relations arm telling him that Cordish had, in fact, received the grant.

There was no reason to suspect that the grant application had been rejected. No newspaper articles covered the rejection, and Cordish's own website made no mention of it.

It wasn't until Denise Jewell Gee, intrepid reporter for the News, got a statement last week from public affairs spokesperson Katie Krawczyk at Empire State Development that news of the rejection became a part of the public record here.

"The Theater in the Mist project was scaled down from the originally planned $8.5M project (with the $2M commitment from the State), and as a result, was not in compliance with the Empire Opportunity Fund grant terms and agreement," Krawczyk wrote.

Anyway, Parlato, a freelancer and occasional advertiser here, received a threatening letter from Cordish's attorneys and then a notice that he had been sued by the company. Although the letter and notice Frank got included the Niagara Falls Reporter and its parent corporation in the suit, the paper and its owners have not yet been served with anything.

But still, we regret the error.