Now that Election Day has come and gone, the winners of last week’s election races are starting to outline their plans for their new positions. One of those key races was up in Niagara Falls. Democrat Robert Restaino was elected as the first new mayor in that city in over a decade.

“I’m excited at the opportunity,” the longtime Niagara Falls resident said.

The biggest thing he wants to tackle is the city’s financial woes.

“We need to be smarter with that money, we need to use that revenue in a way that would benefit growth,” Restaino said.

Restaino is talking about casino revenue from the Seneca Nation of Indians. Just last week, a federal judge backed an arbitration panel's ruling that the Seneca Nation was wrong to stop its annual casino revenue sharing payments to New York state. For years, Niagara Falls relied on that money. Restaino says it’s time to forge a better relationship with the Senecas, but the city needs to ultimately be less dependent on those revenue payments going forward.

“We’re constantly relying on that relationship working, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t and when it doesn’t and if we’re relying so heavily on that, that what’s creates these problems for us,” he said.

The mayor-elect believes one of the ways to fill the gaps in the budget is to grow the business community and make sure the city is at the table when big companies like Amazon visit Western New York.

“These are the companies that are growing, these are the companies that are expanding and we need to make sure we’re in the discussion to attract them. I think Niagara Falls has something to offer in those conversations,” Restaino said.

As a way to collect revenue, the Niagara Falls City Council in October passed a resolution calling for the creation of a tourist surcharge in state parks in the falls. The city can’t impose this unless New York state makes it a law. Restaino says since the state has the final say, he wants them to be involved in those talks.

“I think if you’re going to have those kinds of conversations, I think we need to make sure that we have all the stakeholders at the table first before we start launching off into those things,” he said.

Dyster’s budget for 2020 proposed eliminating vacant fire and police department positions, something Restaino believes goes back to instability of the budget.

“That would not be something that I think makes a whole of sense in terms of how we adjust our budget,” he said.

The newly-elected Democrat wants to restore the public’s trust in the city’s government in hopes of moving Niagara Falls in the right direction.

“For me as honest and open as direct as I can be with the residents here I think that that’s to everyone’s advantage, it’s even to the advantage to local government,” he said.

Restaino is now looking to form a strong team to help tackle those problems. He said he wants to change the culture at City Hall.