The Year in Review 2015: Local News
We cannot begin a review of the year past without remembering one we lost: the incomparable Lance Diamond, who passed away January 4. The Public opened 2015 remembering local R&B performer, and that’s how we’ll open this year in review. The artist and comedian Pat Kewley wrote of Diamond, “What Lance Diamond represents to me is the same thing that DIY music heroes of mine like Jad Fair or Daniel Johnston represent to me: that the secret to being cool is realizing that it doesn’t matter who you are or what crazy thing you’re doing or who’s watching–whether you’re on MTV or in the back room of Milkie’s–as long as you believe what you’re doing is great. Anybody else that has a problem with it just isn’t cool enough to be on your level. Rest in glitter, Lance.”
Check out dailypublic.com for a list of the other losses we mourn this year.
And now, the year that’s gone in local news:
JANUARY
█ On January 3, three bullets flew across Elmwood Avenue from the Sunoco station at the corner of Hodge toward Habibi Sheesha Lounge. A concert featuring teenage Chicago rapper Lil’ Herb had just concluded. One bullet hit a window at Hodge Liquor, another an apartment whose occupant was asleep. A third hit Habibi, and the wound was fatal: Owner Amr Abbas, whose lounge had been the subject of consistent complaints since opening in May 2014, was forced by city authorities to close the place.
Conclusion: Another empty storefront on Elmwood Avenue. The space remains vacant.
█ Developer, once and possibly future gubernatorial candidate, and school board member Carl Paladino started the new year by accusing rival developer LP Ciminelli of soaking the Buffalo school district for an unwarranted $41 million as part of the Joint Schools Reconstruction Project. At the same time, Paladino’s ally on the school board, James Sampson, was made to answer questions about an unflattering audit of his tenure as CEO of Gateway-Longview by the New York State Comptroller. The audit “identified 14 material business arrangements with 12 Board-affiliated companies (related to 10 different Board members) during [the] three-year audit period. These arrangements included new construction and renovation projects, legal services, information technology, cleaning, maintenance and staffing as well as various types of goods and services. The cost of the related-party transactions totaled about $7 million.” In other words, the board was accused of self-dealing on Sampson’s watch.
Conclusion: No conclusion at all. Ciminelli denies overbilling; Paladino and his allies continue to accuse the firm of chicanery. Sampson is no longer among those allies, at least according to Paladino, who over the summer demanded Sampson be replaced as board president, whom he blamed when the board failed to hire his first choice for superintendent.
█ North District Councilman Joe Golombek entered a resolution calling for Squaw Island to be renamed Deyo’wenoguhdoh (“Divided” in Seneca) Island, as the existing name was considered offensive to Native Americans.
Conclusion: After much debate, the new name Unity Island was made official by the Common Council in July.
█ Cars returned to the 600 block of Main Street for the first time in 30 years, allowing cars to share a roadway with trains for the first time in 65 years.
Conclusion: Now the 500 block is open to mixed traffic, too—including, of course, bicycles.
█ Buffalo school board member Larry Quinn gets a public scolding for checking out of important board meetings when a video circulates of him checking texts and ignoring speakers, including the man who is chiding him for his apparent indifference to public input.
Conclusion: None. A nice gotcha moment, but gotcha moments rarely change anything.
FEBRUARY
█ So much snow this month.
Conclusion: So little snow right now.
█ Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is indicted on February 18. Silver tracks some of his allegedly ill-gotten fortune to two locally managed firms: JoRon Management LLC and Counsel Financial Services. The former is run by Ronald M. Schreiber and Jordan Levy, the Buffalo-based tech investor who worked in the Assembly as a young man and, in recent years, is often to be found wherever state money flows to Western New York’s private sector. The latter provides loans at usurious rates to lawyers and law firms who work on a contingency basis. The Williamsville company’s executive team are largely Western New York locals with deep political connections. One of these was the late Judge Frank A. Sedita, Jr., who worked for Counsel Financial after retiring from the bench in 2010 until his death in 2013. The company donated $3,500 to the campaigns of Judge Sedita’s son, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III, whose tenure as DA has been marked by an express lack of interest in pursuing political corruption cases.
Conclusion: Silver was found guilty on all counts this month. Sedita was elected (with no opposition) to a seat on the New York State Supreme Court in November.
█ On Sunday, February 22, a parolee assaults, rapes, and robs the female clerk at the 7-Eleven store on Hertel Avenue and Niagara Street at about 5am. The young woman was working alone at the time. The incident sparks a series of protests by convenience store workers demanding safer working conditions.
Conclusion: In August, 7-Eleven field consultant Paul Wydro reportedly dismissed the protestors’ requests for changes in workplace conditions and scheduling practices; he would not accept a petition they tried to present him. But in October, the company agreed to some of their requests, marking a small victory.
█ Rust Belt Books, a fixture at Allen and Elmwood for 15 years, moves to Grant Street. “She is her own organism,” owner Kristi Meal told The Public. “She told us what she wanted.”
Conclusion: So far, so good.
MARCH
█ BMHA resident commissioner Joe Mascia continues his tireless assault on his fellow commissioners and BMHA administrations, demanding answers on cost overruns on the demolition of the Kensington Heights housing complex, on alleged irregularities in BMHA’s policing contract with the city for police services, on the staggering sums paid by BMHA for outside legal counsel, and other matters.
Conclusion: Mascia decided to run for the Fillmore District seat on the Common Council. During the race, an audio file surfaces in which he is heard speaking with a former employer, Paul Christopher, who encourages Mascia to indulge in a rant about a list of African-American elected officials. The audio file all but kills Mascia’s campaign. The BMHA board of commissioners and Mayor Byron Brown tries to remove him from the board, succeed only in suspending him; the outcome of that action—and the question of whether a duly elected official can be romped from office for offensive language—is currently being litigated in court.
█ DA Frank A. Sedita III continues to pretend he is not running for a seat on the New York State Supreme Court, holds a March 10 fundraiser that pretends to benefit his reelection race for DA. Which will never happen. Because he is running for a seat on the New York State Supreme Court. He almost flubs his cross-endorsement for that seat by demanding too much control from Democratic leadership over who succeeds him as DA. He favors Michael Flaherty, his first deputy district attorney; Democratic leadership favors Judge Tim Franczyk.
Conclusion: See above. Flaherty will become interim DA in January; Franczyk is expected to resign his judgeship in the new year to run for the seat.
█ Normally a disciplined bunch, Erie County Republicans play something akin to dodgeball (no teams, every man for himself) in their search for a candidate to challenge Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz in the fall. Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw withdraws his name from consideration and declares his support for Erie County Clerk Chris Jacobs, even though Jacobs had not declared his candidacy.
Conclusion: See April.
APRIL
█ In response to the Board of Education majority’s plan to promote a local administrator into the role of deputy superintendent—to be then promoted to super following the departure of Donald Ogilvie—the four board minority members call for a national search for superintendent. The minority members—Barbara Seals Nevergold, Sharon Belton-Cottman, Teresa Harris-Tigg, and Mary Kapsiak—hold a press conference to call for openness and comprehensiveness in the search, including community for input.
Conclusion: The hiring of Superintendent Kriner Cash, as the result of a national search. Too soon to make a call on that hire.
█ Chris Jacobs withdraws as a possible GOP candidate for Erie County executive and declares his support for Amherst Assemblyman Ray Walter, even though Walter has not yet declared his candidacy.
Conclusion: Walter declares his candidacy, works pretty hard it, finds little traction, is beaten handily by Poloncarz in November.
█ The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides most of the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority’s funding, sends a letter to BMHA that concludes: “BMHA is in a precarious financial position. It is imperative that specific corrective actions be taken as soon as possible to avoid potential receivership.”
Conclusion: None. But don’t expect City Honors to buy back the land that was once Fosdick Field from BMHA at the same cut-rate the city received when it sold the property to BMHA in the 1970s; HUD will demand that BMHA seek a high price for the land in order to address its financial problems.
█ On April 20, the Buffalo Marijuana Movement holds a rally in support of the proposed “Buffalo Marijuana Act” bill, suggesting that city decriminalize ganja and treat it as a “lowest police priority” and open up the economic doors for the crops medicinal and industrial uses. One man comes dressed as enormous doobie and a passerby tried to pose as smoking it, but the papier-mâché costume was too stiff in the hips.
Conclusion: No dice. But New York continues to move forward with its medical marijuana initiative, this fall licensing five companies to open four dispensaries each across the state.
MAY
█ Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, are arrested on corruption charges. Included in their indictment is testimony from an executive at the Long Island-based real estate company Glenwood Management, which, through a proliferation of LLCs, is among the state’s biggest donors to political candidates, including many Western New York elected officials.
Conclusion: Guilty, guilty, guilty. Both of the state’s legislative leaders convicted in just one year. Who’s next for US Attorney Preet Bharara?
█ Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes introduces a bill calling for Mayor Byron Brown to take control of Buffalo’s public schools, the performance and governance of which continue to be the number one conversation among the civic-minded in the city, thanks to a bickering school board and the national debate over the Common Core and its implementation. Brown pretends he’s not interested in the prospect, but of course is; Carl Paladino threatens to sue if the board is disenfranchised; but never mind, because Peoples-Stokes’s bill has no support even among her fellow Western New York lawmakers.
Conclusion: The school board is eventually disenfranchised, at least in the case of the district’s worst-performing schools, which are cast into receivership by the state Department of Education. Superintendent Kriner Cash is made receiver of those schools and granted broad powers to circumvent both the board and the teachers union to rehabilitate the schools.
█ Buffalo Car Share, providing low-cost access to vehicles since 2009, faces an existential crisis when its insurer terminates its coverage. Things look bleak, and then…
Conclusion: In November, the national company Zipcar announced it would purchase Buffalo Car Share. Next step for Buffalo: Uber, Lyft?
█ Holy cow: On May 28, state and federal investigators raid the homes of Steve Pigeon, Steve Casey, and Chris Grant, three of Western New York’s most respected and reviled political operatives. The raids are part of an investigation that originated with the Erie County Board of Elections into Western New York Progressive Caucus, an unauthorized committee formed by Pigeon and his associates to support their candidates in the 2013 election cycle. But the questions investigators are asking suggest the investigation has metastasized into something much bigger, and politicos from Buffalo to New York City are nervous.
Conclusion: Perhaps nervous for no reason, because nothing whatsoever has happened since those late May raids and the flurry of speculation that attended them for the next three months. By primary season, the whole affair seemed to have disappeared. Though last week we heard some fresh rumors about new activity in the case…
█ A little before noon on Saturday, May 30, a car ran off the Scajaquada Expressway (NY 198), crossed maybe 15 feet of grass, and killed three-year-old Maksym Sugorovskiy and broke the legs and one wrist of his five-year-old sister Stephanie.
Conclusion: We’ve been driving 35 miles per hour on the Scajaquada ever since, and the state Department of Transportation has been forced to take seriously demands to make the road a landscaped urban parkway that would reconnect rather than divide the two sections of Delaware Park.
JUNE
█ At a rally in Olean, Carl Paladino inaccurately characterizes the state as “subsidizing Asians” and other “non-Americans” going to school at the University at Buffalo. Caught out, Paladino issues a half-assed apology and local activists launch a social media campaign, #CanCarl, to call to try to get him disciplined or removed from the school board. Asa part of the campaing, the Public Accountability Initiative releases a three-part investigation into Paladino’s past racist remarks and the substantial public dollars received by his real estate business, which he estimates is worth $500 million.
Conclusion: Paladino still on school board, still the beneficiary of public largesse.
█ After nearly 200 years of US mail processing in Buffalo, the main Post Office on William begins to shut down and dismantle its machinery. Local mail processing will now take place in Rochester, meaning any letters sent from Buffalo to Amherst, for example, will probably take a day longer to reach its destination. The move represents a minor inconvenience to some, a money-costing delay for many small businesses, and life-changing shift for the hundreds of people employed in steady jobs on William Street.
Conclusion: Next up is the Ellicott Street post office, which the US Postal Service would like to vacate in favor of a smaller, storefront location in the same area. That’s not so big a change as what is occurring on William Street—except that the Ellicott Street post office occupies a large chunk of valuable land at the south end of the medical campus. Who will purchase it? What will become of it?
█ Young Joe Lorigo, majority leader of the Erie County Legislature by grace of his father’s control of the local Conservative Party, passes down two edicts last month in furtherance of the people’s pressing business: first, that “[d]enim of any form is prohibited from attire of any member of Legislature or staff in the Legislative chambers during any event involving formal business of the county”; second, that “[a]ll electronic devices shall be maintained on silent or vibrate mode and any disruption caused by a personal electronic device shall be ground for removal.” So, no jeans and no noodling with cellphones (unless you’re Lorigo, who’s famous for endless texting during sessions). That’s legacy material.
Conclusion: See November.
█ On June 23, a collision between a freight train and a tractor trailer caused an explosion that was heard across Buffalo. The accident took place on Ganson Street near Michigan Avenue, adjacent to an increasingly popular bike and pedestrian route that goes from the Cobblestone District to the Outer Harbor.
Conclusion: Bomb trains, anyone? At least four trains hauling crude oil pass through Buffalo every day, some with 100 full and volatile tanker cars.
JULY
█ In response to the furor attending his “damn Asians” remark, Carl Paladino throws a rally in support of himself in Niagara Square. An invitation to Paladino’s supporters, featuring a stock photo available for purchase from Getty Images of a diverse group of darling children giving thumbs-up to the camera, reads, “Carl Paladino has been under fire lately for comments some view as racist. They are trying to use distraction tactics to undermine the Buffalo Schools reform Movement. Now members of the community are fighting back against these lies and distortions.” Attendees are encouraged to bring their own “homemade signs.”
Conclusion: A handful attend.
█ Erie County Legislator Patrick Burke shepherds a measure that makes Erie County the first municipality in the state to pass legislation banning plastic microbeads in cosmetic products, while bills at the state and federal levels continue to linger.
Conclusion: Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been pushing this issue for two years, along with state legislators of both major parties. But a bill banning microbeads has faltered in the State Senate after passing in the Assembly for two consecutive sessions now.
█ The demolition of candidate Joe Mascia begins.
Conclusion: See March.
AUGUST
█ The Public learns that the financially strapped Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority has been making personnel changes, terminating some employees and demoting others, in an effort to control costs as the agency’s cash reserves dwindle.
Conclusion: Multiple sources, all speaking on the condition of anonymity, say key staff members have been removed from their positions and their work delegated to outside firms or BMHA’s general counsel, David Rodriguez.
█ Animosity between the American and Canadian leadership of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, which has raged for years, spills into public view once again when board vice chairman Sam Hoyt argues that a junket to Ireland that a number of Canadian boardmembers are planning—the latest in a string of international excursions—is a waste of authority money.
Conclusion: In October, totally out of the blue, Canadian board member Anthony M. Annunziata—who spars frequently with Hoyt—calls once again for the construction of a companion span to the Peace Bridge. Didn’t we settle this already, painfully and over many years?
█ Holy cow: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon gets a wild hair to visit Buffalo, and that’s what he does, taking a tour that includes Solar City, Larkinville, the Michigan Street Baptist Church, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Kleinhans, the Richardson Complex, and the Albright-Knox, among other points of interest.
Conclusion: None really. Just a neat moment.
SEPTEMBER
█ There is a primary election in New York State.
Conclusion: Here on the state’s west coast, nothing much changes.
█ The Buffalo News reports that in a sworn deposition over the summer, Mayor Brown repeatedly claimed not to remember what went down in a failed 2009 development deal with NRP Group of Cleveland. (NRP Group filed suit in 2011 accusing Brown of breach of contract and racketeering. At the core of the lawsuit is NRP’s claim that City Hall nixed the deal only after NRP balked at the mayor’s demand to reward Reverend Richard Stenhouse with an $80,000 contract.” Being counseled not to remember comes at an extraordinary price, The Public discovers. According to the city comptroller’s office, $426,909 has been expended on high-profile Buffalo attorney Terrence Connors of Connors & Vilardo for the mayor’s civil defense in the NRP case dating back to 2011.
Conclusion: The case trudges on. And lawyers continue to make bank from municipalities and elected officials.
█ A Manhattan law firm begins circulating a letter to homeowners in the First Ward, offering their services in what the letter called “likely” eminent domain proceedings should the Buffalo Bills decide to build a new stadium in the triangle of land defined by South Park Avenue and Louisiana and Ohio Streets.
Conclusion: The letter from the law firm of Goldstein, Rikon, Rikon & Houghton is, of course, just a sales pitch—they’re looking to dupe hopeful homeowners into paying a retainer. As recently as July, the Bills’ owners, Terry and Kim Pegula, told the Buffalo News, “[T]here’s been a lot of money put into Ralph Wilson Stadium. We’re in no hurry. We realize that if that work was just done, how foolish would you look if you start looking around for a new stadium when we’ve just renovated the one we have? We have time. We have an existing lease on the current stadium.”
Photo by Nancy J. Parisi
OCTOBER
█ The month begins with the implosion of Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital, attended by implosions parties and sidewalks full of gawkers for blocks in all directions.
Conclusion: What havoc the plumes of airborne particulates will wreak on those it enveloped is yet to be seen. Meantime, neighbors continue to do battle with planners over the scale, design, and multiple uses proposed by developer Uniland, which centers on a senior housing complex.
█ Looking for something to talk about besides tax structures in advance of the November general election, GOP Erie County executive candidate Ray Walter jumps on a story—planted in the media by friends of his—that suggests the state Attorney General is investigating misdeeds in the Poloncarz administration’s highway department.
Conclusion: It turns out the investigation, such as it was, had to do with misdeeds during the administration of Republican Chris Collins, Walter’s political ally, who is now a US Congressman. Poloncarz started the investigation himself when he was county comptroller, then passed it to the AG’s office after he became county executive. Whoops. back to tax structures.
█ After five years of meetings, sifting through mountains of input and many revisions, the City of Buffalo submits the Buffalo Green Code to the Common Council for review and possibly adoption. “This has been a long fight,” says Brenda Mehaffy of the city’s Office of Strategic Planning. “We have, not necessarily, a fight, now ahead of us. It’s still a conversation to make sure that this is the best document to reflect what many of us know is one of the best cities in this country.”
Conclusion: TBD.
█ After Investigative Post reports shortfalls in a goal for hiring minorities for construction work on SolarCity’s factory, two African-American leaders take matters into their own hands. Charley Fisher III, president of BUILD of Buffalo, and Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant form a new group they’re calling the Contract Compliance Review Committee, to monitor diversity on construction sites more closely.
Conclusion: TBD. Diversity goals on publicly funded construction projects—which can cover both the companies that get work and the makeup of the workforce itself—aim to ensure that minorities and women get a fair share of the work. This might seem straightforward, but the goals are governed by a hodgepodge of city, county, and state rules, each with their own nuances. There’s little consistency—even across various state agencies, for example—and even less transparency.
█ A sign in the grass in front of the former Budwey’s Market on Kenmore Avenue looks like any of a number of the vote-for-my-guy signs that litter the roadsides this time of year. But the candidate is “Max Rockatansky,” which is the full name of the title character in the Mad Max movies.
Conclusion: Whatever he was running for, Rockatansky did not win.
NOVEMBER
█ There is a general election in New York State.
Conclusion: Here on the state’s west coast, nothing much changes.
█ In the wake of the Paris shootings, Joe Lorigo, majority leader of the Erie County Legislature and son of Erie County Conservative Party chairman Ralph Lorigo, calls on Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz to prevent the county from receiving as many as 300 Syrian refugees in the coming year. (Bafflingly, because Poloncarz has no power to determine where the federal government resettles refugees.) Things get wild, racist, and xenophobic on social media and the comments section of the daily newspaper. Rallies are held in support of refugee communities. Lorigo’s call for a wide-ranging public hearing on the matter is scaled down to a quiet informational meeting, largely because members of his own caucus want nothing to do with this nonsense.
Conclusion: Lorigo is an ass.
DECEMBER
█ The Chemours Company announces it will close its DuPont plant in Niagara Falls by the end of 2016, terminating 200 jobs.
Conclusion: Bad news for the always struggling Falls. On the other hand, the DuPont plant is one of the region’s riskiest polluters and most dangerous plants for its workers. So, a silver lining.
█ State Assemblywoman Angela Wozniak takes time out from her busy schedule as a do-nothing Republican Assembly backbencher and target of an ethics probe to attend a meeting of the Lancaster Board of Education. Among the topics on the agenda is one that is popping up throughout the state — the treatment of transgender and gender-nonconforming students in the schools. Wozniak expresses her dismay at the notion that Lancaster’s policies might grant rights to such students. Channel 2’s Danny Spewak asks Wozniak about the policy and its relationship to the law. She appears dumbstruck and cannot answer a simple question about the thing she came down to speak out against, because she doesn’t know the law. The video of Spewak’s taking the stuffing out of Wozniak circulates widely.
Conclusion: Wozniak, like Lorigo, is an ass. Let’s end this thing with a prediction: She’s a one-termer.
Want to review the year is local arts and letters, food and drink? Wondering will next year hold? Check out dailypublic.com.