"I think the most difficult thing for us in Buffalo and Niagara Falls over the course of the last several years has been sort of overcoming a negative psychology, here," began Dyster. "I think many times we have failed to recognize the positive things that are happening in our communities, failed to recognize the great potential, and if you don't love yourself, you can't expect the world to love you, and that includes investors and developers."
However, he believes that stigma is becoming a thing of the past.
"I think we've turned a corner," he said. "Buffalo has clearly turned a corner in terms of its self-perception. People view Buffalo now as an engine of growth for the region, and I hope over the course of the next couple years, they're going to see that Niagara Falls, too, has turned the corner."
Niagara Falls Councilman, Bill Kennedy, reacted to Dyster's speech and his tenure as mayor.
"I actually enjoyed it, and I felt the mayor was very sincere in drawing some attention to positive things because we all know that Niagara Falls has the stigma of negative things, and I'm glad to see that the mayor brought some positive to the things going on in the city," said Kennedy. "There are a lot of future projects that are being worked on that are going to rejuvenate the city."
Kennedy continued by saying that residents and officials need to look beyond Dyster's time as mayor and start preparing for some challenges.
"The mayor is obviously stepping aside, so the next mayor coming in is going to have his hands full to work on a lot of the structural deficit plus keeping these things rejuvenated so that Niagara Falls can come back to life," he said. "I'm particularly happy on a few of those fronts because I have sat in on those meetings, I've given them my ideas and suggestions, so there's a lot of things going on - the new healthy lifestyle I think is a good thing, the bike path, the food trucks - just a lot of rejuvenation of Niagara Falls, and that's what we need because we were a dying city, and it needs to come back to life."
"I will use every ounce of my energy every day that I am mayor, and there are 302 of them left by my count, to try to move our city forward," said Dyster. "When those 302 days are over, there will still be lots of work to do, new dreams to dream, new visions of the future to believe in, new projects waiting for someone with the energy and determination to make them happen. In the long run, the future of the city is your future. What the state of your city will be depend on you. As I look over the audience assembled here today for the last State of the City as your mayor, and in particular, as I look at the faces of all those amazing young people, the state of the city looks very promising to me, and I'm optimistic about the future."