Articles for Geoff Kelly

May 26

2022

City Hall’s paper thin fair housing report

Last week Buffalo’s Fair Housing Office filed its first activity report with the Common Council since April 2019. The new report is five pages long. Given its lack of content, it probably could have been shorter. It was just the third report the office has filed in the 16 years since the city adopted its fair housing ordinance, which created the office and requires it to report annually on its efforts to protect renters from discrimination. Buffalo’s law is a local affirmation of the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices that contributed to racial segregation. Segregation is[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 19

2022

A smart purchase by City Hall?

Most of Mayor Byron Brown’s proposed $5.4 million hike in police spending is for new patrol officers and detectives. There is also $364,000 earmarked for a product called ShotSpotter. ShotSpotter deploys an array of microphones in a neighborhood — 15 to 20 per square mile, attached to buildings and light posts — to detect and pinpoint the source of gunshots, then report the location to police. The company claims the technology is 97 percent accurate, provides police with intelligence on gunfire that might otherwise go unreported, improves police response time, and helps to reduce gun-related crime. About 120 cities have[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 5

2022

First impressions of Brown’s budget

Mayor Byron Brown’s proposed city budget is awash in federal pandemic relief funds. It’s bolstered by the restoration of long withheld Seneca casino money. And, on top of those windfalls, Brown has proposed a property tax hike for only the second time since he took office in 2006. The city needs all the money it can get. Operating costs keep rising. For example, among the spending increases in Brown’s budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins July 1: Police spending would rise $5.4 million, an increase of 6.3 percent. Most of that would pay for 45 new officers. Some[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 28

2022

Video: Police shoot car to car during wild chase

Earlier this week, The Challenger — Buffalo’s leading African-American newspaper — published an article describing the March 29 police chase that started as a routine traffic stop at the foot of West Ferry and ended on the city’s East Side, with police surrounding and firing into the vehicle driven by 28-year-old Kente Bell. It was a wild chase, according to the account Erie County District Attorney John Flynn provided the media, lasting half an hour and stretching the breadth of the city, with shots fired by both Bell and police. Three officers and Bell were wounded by gunfire. “Nine police[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 21

2022

Second parking commissioner nominee withdraws

Mayor Byron Brown is having a heck of a time replacing Kevin Helfer, who retired last month after nearly 12 years as the city’s parking commissioner and a top advisor to the mayor. So far, the mayor has taken two swings at the ball and whiffed twice. On February 25, the mayor nominated Christopher Savage, whose family is steeped in West Side politics. Chris Savage served as chief of staff for former state Senator Marc Panepinto and held posts with the Common Council and the Brown administration. He currently serves as a management analyst for the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority. [...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 19

2022

The Roswell-Russia connection

For more than a decade, Roswell Park Cancer Institute has been doing business with a leading Russian oligarch with long-standing ties to Vladimir Putin. The annual reports of the charitable foundation that raises money for Roswell tell part of the story: The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has been a leading individual donor to the foundation, giving in excess of $1 million in four of the past five years. But Abramovich’s charity isn’t the problem. Rather, at issue are Roswell’s relationships with for-profit companies whose investors include Abramovich and a Russian business partner, both sanctioned since the outbreak of the war[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 12

2022

Progressives take a pass

When India Walton beat Mayor Byron Brown in last June’s Democratic primary, it seemed like progressive activists might be ready to wield greater influence in the party, which monopolizes city politics and governmental institutions. Brown, after all, lost the primary despite carrying the Democratic Party’s endorsement. Furthermore, Kim Beatty — a city Democrat — beat the party’s endorsed candidate in the primary for Erie County Sheriff. Change was in the air. But then Brown beat Walton in November’s general election. And Beatty lost to Republican John Garcia. And now, it seems, city progressives have chosen not to mount an effort[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 5

2022

Allegations of ICE mistreatment of detainees

A coalition of advocates for immigrants’ rights claims that “egregious conditions” and “unsafe release practices” at the federal detention center in Batavia have caused detainees “serious injury and even death.” Those claims are leveled in a Freedom of Information request filed Wednesday with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the agency that runs the Batavia facility, formally known as the Buffalo Service Processing Center. In the FOIA request, the coalition cites current and former detainees’ accounts of beatings, medical neglect and other abuses. In addition to conditions inside the detention center, the coalition takes issue with ICE’s practice of[...]

Posted 3 years ago