Tag: City Hall

Jul 25

2022

Buffalo is slowly losing its trees

Published by

 Buffalo is cutting down twice as many trees as it’s planting. And residents are noticing the loss. “It’s nothing like when I was a child,” said Catherine Faust, a Highland Avenue resident in the city’s Elmwood Village.  From 2016 through 2020, the city cut down more than 4,300 trees. They only planted about 1,900 new ones.  An Investigative Post analysis found the rate of tree loss is greater in parts of the East Side. Masten District, for example, lost four times as many trees as were planted. “It is one of the most despicable things that I can imagine[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 19

2022

Council adopts new district lines

Published by

On Tuesday, Buffalo’s Common Council voted unanimously to adopt a redistricting plan that community groups and activists have spent the past two months trying to stop. The new district maps comprise an amended version of a redistricting plan unveiled in May by a citizens commission whose members were appointed by the Council and Mayor Byron Brown. The plan — which largely leaves intact the gerrymandering of a decade ago — will now be sent to Brown. The mayor must hold a public hearing on the matter. He then can approve or veto the plan, or allow it to pass into[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 11

2022

City Hall puts off day of financial reckoning

Published by

The COVID pandemic has been very good for the City of Buffalo’s finances. Pandemic relief funds from the federal American Rescue Plan have been a tremendous boon. You can see that money at work right now in city streets and parks. It’s going to help pay for water and sewer projects, as well as micro-loans to small businesses and the expansion of broadband internet access. It helped keep poor city residents in their homes. Most important for city government has been revenue replacement money — cash the federal government sent to make up for revenue the city claims it lost[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 10

2022

Bad governance, poor politics

Published by

This week, Jim Heaney recaps Investigative Post’s coverage of the Common Council’s fumbling of its redistricting process and gives a shout-out to a half-dozen stories that have caught his eye. You can get Heaney’s insights in your inbox every Sunday morning by subscribing to WeeklyPost. Jimmy Griffin used to call city lawmakers the “Comical Council.” If only the current incarnation was the least bit funny. Geoff Kelly has been following the process of redistricting the Council’s nine districts, as required every decade based on new Census numbers. He first reported on the Council’s proposed district lines, gerrymandered to protect incumbents, then[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 5

2022

Council lost, activists take redistricting rudder

Published by

​​Last week Our City Action Buffalo — an organization of good government activists — scored two quick victories in a battle with the Common Council over redistricting. First, Our City Action successfully packed a June 28 public hearing with speakers, more than 100 of them. All opposed the Council’s redistricting plan, first unveiled in May by a commission that did its work largely behind closed doors. The Council’s favored plan largely leaves intact district lines that were gerrymandered 11 years ago to benefit incumbents. The speakers were unanimous in their support for an alternative redistricting plan created by Our City[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 29

2022

City Hall transgressions cost taxpayers

Published by

On Wednesday, the Buffalo Common Council approved $510,000 in payments to settle nine personal injury claims filed against the city. A third of those lawsuits were against Buffalo police, whose missteps frequently cost the taxpayers big: almost $12 million in one five-year period, according to an Investigative Post analysis. But cops aren’t the only city employees who mess up on the job. The biggest payout approved yesterday by the Council’s Claims Committee was $225,000 to Freddie Ingram. In November 2018, a Buffalo parking inspector, Jumanne Pitts, backed his city-owned vehicle the wrong way down a street and collided with Ingram’s[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 28

2022

Council catches hell on redistricting plan

Published by

The first public hearing on a redistricting plan for Buffalo’s Common Council attracted just two members of the public. Only one spoke. Tuesday night’s public hearing was another story.  More than 100 people attended the 5 p.m. session — 60 or more in person, another 40 or so online, according to Delaware District Council Member Joel Feroleto, who chaired the hearing.  At least half the attendees spoke. All used the three minutes allotted to them to disparage the plan drafted by the Council’s appointed Citizens Commission on Reapportionment, first unveiled at a May 18 public hearing.  That May 18 hearing[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 21

2022

Buffalo’s gerrymandered Council districts

Published by

A coalition of activists and good government groups is urging Buffalo’s Common Council to reject a redistricting plan that has been moving quickly and quietly toward approval. And they’ve got a plan of their own to put in its place — one they say does a better job keeping neighborhoods together and promoting racial equity, while undoing the gerrymandering of a decade ago. The proposal moving through the Council was submitted last month by a citizens commission charged with recommending new district lines based on 2020 Census numbers. That commission worked largely behind closed doors, with little public notice or[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post