NIAGARA FALLS - A published photograph showing a man with a beer apparently crouching on the mayor's desk during a party at city hall has Niagara Falls officials asking questions.

Mayor Vince Anello declined to discuss what he called a “personnel matter” after a weekly newspaper, the Niagara Falls Reporter, printed the photograph this week.

The newspaper said the photograph and others like it appeared on a MySpace page.

“This is a security issue, if you're talking about something like that going on in the mayor's office,” Councilman Charles Walker said.

The newspaper said another photograph, which was not printed, showed a young woman resembling the mayor's daughter, Vincenette, in the background.

Vincenette Anello, 26, is the mayor's full-time secretary.

Other photos, according to the Niagara Falls Reporter, showed a young man apparently pretending to set fire to a videotape and others wearing the mayor's tie and posing with a hard hat, golden shovel and oversized keys.

Vincenette Anello, through her father, declined to comment Tuesday.

Council members, who had not seen the photographs Tuesday, said they wanted more information. “If they have access to the mayor's office, and it's not a fabrication, what else did they have access to?” Council Chairman Robert Anderson Jr. said.

Anello said city officials were in the process of gathering facts. “In all personnel matters, they have to go through a process,” the mayor said.