The leadership of Laborers Local 91 is once again in the spotlight of both the U.S. Justice Department and the Inspector General's office of the Laborers International Union of North America, the Reporter has learned.

Over the past several weeks, a number of contractors, both in Niagara Falls and outside the city, have been interviewed by FBI agents who want to know whether the sort of shakedowns and intimidation that led to the indictment of union kingpin Butch Quarcini and 13 other officers and members of Local 91 back in May 2002 have begun again.

And Phil Smith -- the former FBI agent now working as an investigator for LIUNA -- visited the union's Seneca Avenue hiring hall last month to review hiring records. Sources said Smith is also interested in the ongoing efforts by those convicted of extortion, conspiracy and other crimes connected to the 2002 indictments to rejoin the union now that most have been released from prison.

Under the LIUNA charter, no convicted felon can be a card-carrying member of the union.

At stake is the very existence of Local 91. Early in 2007, officers of the local were given the go-ahead by LIUNA officials to begin construction of a 4,000-square-foot facility at Inducon Park, which was to have offered more than 70 training courses to union workers from as far away as Rochester on the latest in safety regulations and other techniques essential to building construction in the 21st century.

Strife within the union -- some of it reportedly encouraged by trustees Angelo Massaro and Johnny Cheff -- has led to delays in the project, despite the fact that funding was forthcoming from the international, and that the county's Industrial Development Agency chipped in with tax breaks for the center.

One law enforcement source told the Reporter that Local 91 Business Manager Rob Connolly and Assistant Business Agent Rico Liberale have been responsible for the roadblocks that have delayed the project for nearly two years.

Right now, the last thing Local 91 needs is another federal investigation. Leaders of Local 210 in Buffalo have made no secret about wanting to subsume the Niagara Falls local into their much larger local.

And the last thing this city needs is another black eye such as those delivered by the Local 91 indictments of 2002, or the torturous probe that led to the indictment of former mayor Vince Anello last year.