Outrages & Insights

Cities in green and Brown

The differing approaches in Buffalo and Niagara Falls in reaction to spiraling energy costs and other ramifications of climate change can be boiled down to this:

When I called Paul Dyster to talk about what Niagara Falls is doing, the mayor invited me up for what turned out to be a detailed, and ultimately exhausting, two-hour interview in which I finally had to plead "no mas." The man knows his stuff, and talks not in sound bites, not in sentences, but in complete paragraphs. Several at a time.

Don't believe me? Here's a video of a speech Dyster gave this summer to Business Gets Green.

Mayor Byron Brown, on the other hand, doesn't want to talk about what he is doing -- and not doing -- in Buffalo. Not with me. And not with some prominent greens like Walter Simpson who have tried to get an audience with him.

As a result of its mayor's respective attitudes, Niagara Falls has landed a plant to produce silicon used to make solar panels, while Buffalo is, well, washing the halls of City Hall with less abrasive cleaning solutions.

In addition to my story in Sunday's Buffalo News, I've complied links to additional resources for those of you who want to know more.

Let's start with Sam Magavern's report done with some of his U.B. law students for the Partnership for the Public Good, entitled "Greening Buffalo: What Local Governments Can Do." Magavern presents an abbreviated version of the recommendations in this story he wrote for Artvoice.

To learn with other cities are doing, start with the one-page action plan developed by the the Climate protection Center of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Magavern says Cincinnati's action plan is particularly relevant to a city like Buffalo.

Popsci.com has ranked the nation's 50 greenest cities, although probably fewer than 20 really deserve kudos. Another outfit has done a readable narrative on the greenest of the green cities.

Newsweek has reported on a study by the Brookings Institute on how metropolitan regions can reduce their carbon footprint.

Finally, Gristmill is in the midst of reporting on what 15 regions across the nation are doing on the green front.

Read on.

How many politicians does it take ...

... to screw in a light bulb? Depends on where you pay your taxes.

I've spent some time on Kevin Gaughan's Web site, which includes a study on the cost of local government in Erie County. For the record, we pay $28.8 million a year for our current state of affairs when it comes to just cities, towns and villages.

A quick show of hands: How many think we're getting fair value?

Thought so.

We've got 393 city, town and village elected officials. There's an elected official for every 2,371 man, woman and child in the county.

Their pay, health insurance and pension premiums cost us $11.5 million a year. Their support staffs cost another $11.2 million. That works out to $24.35 per resident annually.

The most over-governed, as you might imagine, are the smaller villages and towns. The Village of Franham has a politician for every 64 residents. Almost makes the runners up seem efficient - the Village of North Collins and the towns of Brant, Wales, Holland and Sarnia, which have between 200 and 300 pols per resident.

At the other end of the spectrum, Buffalo has one elected official for every 11,656 residents, followed by the towns of Amherst, Cheektowaga, Tonawanda and Hamburg.

Here's a table with the rankings of all 44 cities, towns and villages.

Yeah, you read right - 44.

Who's getting the best bang for the buck?

Elected officials and their primary support staff cost $9.57 per resident in Amherst, followed by Cheektowaga, Lackawanna and a couple of the larger villages, Hamburg and Kenmore.

The costliest? Franham, at $93.38, followed by Brant, the Town of North Collins, the Town of Colden and the Village of North Collins.

Put another way, if you live in the Village Franham, you're also also living in the Town of Brant, and your cost per elected official for the two layers of government tops $178. For a family of four, that comes to more than $700. Not all of that is coming out of your pocket, as state aid picks up part of the tab, but geez, that's a lot of money.

A family of four in Amherst is paying under $40.

Anybody think the folks in Farnham are getting 19 times better government?

I didn't think so.

Here's a table ranking cities, towns and villages by cost per pol.

Want to pay with the numbers yourself? Here's a spreadsheet with all the details. Play to your heart's content, and by all means share with you come up with.

And just for kicks, if you didn't read my post from a couple of weeks ago, go here. It's worth it if for nothing more than the picture of Barney Fife.

Village politicians circle the wagons

So I'm reading a story by Fred Williams about officials from 12 villages in Erie County gathering to denounce Kevin Gaughan's proposal that they merge with their towns, and a scene from Blazing Saddles immediately came to mind. It's the one where Governor William J. LePetomane, played by Mel Brooks, declares, in a fit:

"Holy underwear! Sheriff murdered! Innocent women and children blown to bits! We've got to protect our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen."

OK, that's a bit harsh, I admit. But, come on, among those leading the charge against consolidation is Terry Caber, the mayor of the Village of Farnham, population 322, who is essentially arguing that his constituents would somehow suffer if the village was swallowed up by the Town of Brant, population 1,906.

Franham has 200 parcels. Heck, my street may have more properties than that.

The village has five elected officials, or one for every 80 man, woman and child. All five were re-elected this spring without opposition. But they call it democracy.

Farnham has a one-man public works department. It's got a village hall. It's got a $319,000 annual budget, plus $99,000 if you count the water district, which costs village property owners $104,000 in real estate taxes.

All this for 322 people. At least back when the 2000 Census was taken. My hunch is the number is a little lower these days.

It's not as though Brant is lacking for elected officials to look out for the folks in Farnham. Or appointed ones, for that matter.

The town elects a supervisor, four board members, two judges, a highway supervisor and a clerk. That's nine.

There's another 20 appointed officials serving on the planning board, the zoning board and the board of assessment review.

Brant has almost as many politicians (nine) as police -- a 12-man department, including the chief. No word on whether they've got a deputy chief with the first name of Barney.

Gaughan has calculated that villages in Erie County account for 9 percent of the population and 23 percent of its elected officials, whose salaries cost taxpayers $5.6 million in 2006.

(Update: Buffalo Pundit has linked to this item, and has included a hilarious YouTube clip that includes the "phony baloney jobs" scene. I'd never get away posting it on this blog, The News being a "family newspaper" and all.)

The "Blazing Saddles" reference notwithstanding, this is not a laughing matter.

Spokesmen as shields

Spokesmen have their role in a sprawling bureaucracy like City Hall or the Buffalo Police Department.

They can be traffic cops, pointing reporters in the right direction, scheduling interviews, running down documents. In other words, facilitators.

Sometimes, they speak for the boss, at least on mundane topics. Fair enough.

The current crew running city government is using its spokesmen for an additional purpose: to shield them from tough questions from the press.

Witness Wednesday's interaction between Mayor Brown and Brian Meyer, our City Hall reporter. Meyer asked the mayor about the police department's decision to strip crime incident reports of basic information. Brown refused to comment.

"Every organization has a spokesman, and ours is Mike DeGeorge," the mayor said.

Gee, I didn't know the buck stopped at Mike DeGeorge's desk.

(Update: Several hours after this post went live, Brown ordered the department to stop deleting key information from crime reports. So he stepped up. Here's a link to story.)

Brown usually deflects question to Peter Cutler, his press guy. Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson has his own flack, DeGeorge. School Superintendent James Williams has Stefan Mychajliw and used him to do most of the talking during the McKinley High School fiasco.

Between them, these spokesmen cost taxpayers over $200,000 a year in salaries, plus benefits. DeGeorge drives a city-issued car, as well. Not that you find him traveling to crime scenes much anymore and answering questions from newspaper and TV reporters on the scene.

What ever happened to the notion of decision makers answering questions about their actions?

Many inside and outside City Hall say that idea runs counter to the culture that's taken root since Brown took office two years ago.

Late last year The News surveyed hundreds of community, business and political leaders about Brown's first two years in office. On balance, they gave him middling grades. Good on some stuff, like being smart, hardworking and even-tempered. Not so good on other fronts; a major beef was that he's too concerned with image, too isolated, too aloof.

One community leader described Brown as "isolated, insular." Another described the mayor  as "very thin-skinned [with] a need to look good all the time."

More recently, Aaron Bartley, a Harvard-educated lawyer and West Side housing activist, spoke of what he termed the administration's "clinical paranoia."

Bartley and others believe there's a big resistance to dealing with those outside the bubble the mayor and his senior staff have built around themselves. It's not just Bartley. I've heard it from block club leaders, business leaders, etc.

The activists who pushed the city to enforce its living wage law told me they couldn't get an audience with the mayor until they put up a tent city outside City Hall in September 2007 and vowed not to leave until he met with them. He finally relented after an overnight campout, and ensuing press coverage, but wouldn't let them into his office. Instead, they spoke in the hallway outside his office.

"This sort of closed-door policy, control approach is an impediment to progress," said Allison Duwe, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Justice, one of those who met with the mayor.
   

   

Q&A with Buffalo News police reporters

I've got a story in today's paper, a follow on Tuesday's blog post, on efforts by the Buffalo Police Department to suppress crime news. Here's a companion Q&A with Vanessa Thomas and T.J. Pignataro, who are The News' two primary police reporters.

Vanessa has worked the day shift for the past six years. T.J. has covered nights for more than five years. They work out of a press office in Buffalo police headquarters and often report from crime scenes. I interviewed them Tuesday about the way police brass have been making it harder for them to do their job informing the public. They collaborated on their answers, and thus speak as one.

The police department brass has taken a couple of steps to restrict your access to information and personnel. What do you think has triggered that?

"The mayor appears to be focused on maintaining a positive image of the city as much as possible and control the flow of information. When the mayor took office and appointed his top police brass, there seemed to be an underlying quest to make the city appear to be as safe a possible.

"For example, the mayor's spokesman, Peter Cutler, once tried to tell one of us what the lead of the story should be, and insisted what information should be put at the bottom of the story.

"A few months into the Brown administration, access to police supervisors was eliminated. Then, it was reduced further after the March 2007 appointment of Mike DeGeorge as spokesman. Only DeGeorge, Commissioner Gipson and the two deputy commissioners were authorized to speak with the press.

"The move didn't only upset reporters. It also upset police supervisors who were long trusted to speak with the media. They were also upset because information was being filtered and diluted from police brass, lacked important details and was sometimes inaccurate."

Talk about the changes in incident reports you use as the starting point for reporting crime.

"Within the past few months, incident reports have been pared to absolute bare bones. Often times, they lack the address of the incident, time of the incident, victim's age and address and significant details about the alleged crime.

"Police officials say they moved this information to a different computer database in the department, however, reporters aren't permitted access to this database."

How has that made your job more difficult?

"As the result of the change in the police department's policy and the changes in the incident reports, reporters are forced to take the additional step of contacting DeGeorge to get even the most basic facts about the crime.

"Some reporters covering the police beat say they are sometimes unable to reach DeGeorge to get these essential details. It's impractical to assume he would be available 24/7."

The commissioner has also ordered officers and everyone below the rank of deputy commissioner not to talk to reporters. How has that played out?

"It basically means that the officers doing the investigations and with first-hand knowledge of the cases are silenced.

"As the result, reporters now get information filtered by only a very select few at the top.

"Also, some officers have expressed frustration about having their ability to talk to reporters eliminated and resent when the police brass don't portray the "true story" especially as they know it to be as the case investigators."

How does access and transparency compare with when Tony Masiello was mayor and Rocco Diina was commissioner?

"The previous administration allowed allowed reporters to interview everyone from officers to detectives, detective sergeants, lieutenants, captains, inspectors, chiefs, etc. at crime scenes, at their stations, on their cell phones and so on.

"We had around the clock access and supervisors were trusted to release information to the press at their discretion. There was an expectation that officers shouldn't reflect badly on the police department when being interviewed by reporters."

Buffalo police suppressing crime info

Somewhere in the city Saturday night, two men got into an argument. It escalated into a gang beating involving 10 other men. The beating was a bad one and, as the police incident report said, the victim was bandaged up afterwards.

Normally, this would be worth a brief in the paper. Not a murder, but newsworthy nonetheless.

Ditto for a Rite Aid employee who was caught with five bottles of prescription drugs in his pants pockets. The police report said the employee was intending on stealing them and selling on the street.

Again, newsworthy.

I came across these two reports while covering the police beat Sunday. Neither report made it into the paper, however. It's the byproduct of an effort by the Buffalo Police Department over the past couple of months to cut back on the information included in incident reports made available to the press.

This follows a series of incidents over the past year-and-a-half that have involved, among other things, Deputy Commissioner Daniel Derenda (I originally had the first name wrong) storming into the press office at Police HQ to confront a reporter about a story in the works, Mayor Byron Brown lobbying to get a crime story killed, his press secretary suggesting a lead on a story and police officials demanding that The News clear crime items before publishing them.

Along the way, Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson has wondered aloud in front of a reporter as to why he should make it "easy" for the press to do its job and Brown raised the specter of limiting The News' access to routine police reports.

The News is able to access incident and arrest reports via a computer in a press office in Police HQ. Last year department officials threatened to deny The News continued access to these reports. They became especially irate after we ran a story in October 2007 detailing how the police failed to alert the public about a serial predator who had been terrorizing old people in the Broadway-Fillmore area. The next business day, we were informed we were losing our computer access to police reports.

The department backed off its threat after a face-to-face meeting between the mayor and our editor, Margaret Sullivan, who was, and remains, strong in her belief that the press requires continued access to police records to inform the public. I guess the mayor didn't like the prospect of being tagged in the paper as restricting the public's right to know.

But that didn't end the administration's effort to limit what the police share with the press, and therefore, the public. Instead, routine information is now often omitted from incident reports. It's been going on for a couple of months now.

I've covered police on and off for more than 20 years and I've never seen such incomplete reports as I did Sunday. I quizzed some of my colleagues, who say the same thing. A lot less information, a lot less cooperation filling in the blanks.

In the case of the aforementioned gang beating, no location was mentioned in the report, aside from the police district it occurred in. No address on the victim. Bare bones.

As for the drug theft, the report said it occurred at a Rite Aid. No store address. No address on the defendant, either. Again, not a whole lot to work with.

Until a couple of months ago, police reports routinely included the address of the crime scene. We also got the address of defendants charged with crime, usually with an age or date of birth. Enough to write a respectable brief, maybe even a short story.

This lack of information would not be as much of a problem if the reporter could pick up the phone and talk to the cops. But the department imposed an edict in March 2007 precluding all but a handful of police department employees from talking to reporters. Not even most higher-ups are permitted to talk.

Precinct lieutenants? No. The lieutenant who runs homicide? Not without permission. Rank-and-file cops, the ones who really know what is going on? You've got to be kidding?! Even the technicians who input the reports have been told to not provide reporters with even the most basic information, such as street addresses, if we come looking for missing details.

The only ones authorized to speak to reporters are Mike DeGeorge, the department's civilian spokesman, and Gipson and his two deputy commissioners. DeGeorge has become the go-to guy, but the problem is, when reporters call him, he often knows less than we do.

Sometimes he gets the information. Sometimes quickly. Sometimes not so quickly. Problem is, we're in the business of news, not history, especially in this era of instant news via the Web.

(My own experience with DeGeorge: The last two times I called him, including Monday, to discuss this post, he failed to return the call).

We didn't abuse the access we had to reports. We keep the names of sex crime victims out of the paper. Ditto for many elderly victims. And we use discretion when it comes to naming other crime victims and where they live. We're mindful of protecting victims and witnesses and not compromising ongoing investigations.

How we use the details contained in the crime reports was never an issue in discussions The News had with police and administration officials. Implied throughout this process it that it's largely a matter that officials in City Hall and Police HQ don't like some of the stories we've written and they'd like to see less crime news in the paper. And one way of doing that is making it harder for reporters to do their jobs. Limit their access to people, put less information in the paperwork.

This tactic runs counter to the trend nationwide, where a growing number of police departments are making more and more crime information available to the press and public, often via the Web.

A good first impression

I had my first in-depth interview Wednesday with Brian Reilly, the city's new commissioner of economic development. Seems like a sharp fellow. Definitely energetic.

What's to like:

He's cut his teeth elsewhere - Milwaukee and Cleveland.

He's got experience in green economic development.

And he's full of ideas.

What he said of particular interest:

He's added a focus on attracting companies to the city and helping those already here expand. Should help to make the city more business friendly.

He's talking to the other economic development players on a regular basis, folks like the IDAs and state Empire Development Corp.

He wants to cluster neighborhood investments, which would be a real departure from the scatter-shot approach that goes back at least as far as Jimmy Griffin.

He's trying to market brownfields in South Buffalo, including the old Republic Steel site, as a renewable energy and technology corridor. Also working with Lackawanna to include the Bethlehem Steel site. Selling points: lots of land and lake and highway access. And, I found out, home to a huge 42-inch water main capable of pumping as much water in a day as the rest of the city consumes. (Companies in the water-parched south and southwest, are you listening?)

All this said, it's one thing to be smart and full of ideas, another to be effective.

Does he have what it takes to succeed in the political waters of City Hall, to change its long-standing approach to economic development, which I'll oversimplify as "indiscriminate subsidies, often used as pork barrel."

I've spoken with some other folks who have had dealings with Reilly, and some of them, while they find him bright, said he sometimes comes off as overly defensive. That's a common criticism of the administration he works for. Here's hoping he's better at dealing with the rabble than some of his superiors.

Regionalism is not a four-letter word

The curse of Buffalo - aside from Wide Right, No Goal and the never-ending saga of the Peace Bridge - is the 1,001 cities, towns, villages and school districts that dot the landscape and suck the life out of taxpayers.

OK, 1,001 is an exaggeration. But not much of one.

Take Cheektowaga, home to one mega-mall, five school districts, a town government and, if that's not enough, a village government (Sloan).

We may have built grain elevators a century or so ago, but since then, it's been mostly silos, in the form of one duplicating government entity after another. It's rooted in a political culture that values turf above all else.

That mindset is arguably on display involving a bill passed by the state Legislature that would establish a countywide land bank to manage and rehabilitate vacant properties. Abandoned properties are a huge problem in the city and a growing one in the suburbs.

Expert after expert say that's the way to go, that it's worked in other states. Given that nearly one in every four properties in the city is vacant, they insist that it's an especially smart move here.

Byron Brown, however, is dead set against the land bank bill. Usually, it's suburbanites who oppose regional cooperation with the city. This time, it's the other way around.

Brown wants to start with a city-only land bank. I guess he thinks the suburbs can wait on their vacant housing problem. Phil Fairbanks had a story about it in Sunday's paper.

As Brown sees it, it's a matter of accountability.

"This bill is bad for Buffalo," he wrote in a letter to Gov. Paterson in which he asked him to veto the legislation. "These properties need the direct management and local accountability of the City of Buffalo."

Is it about accountability or control?

"Control is clearly one of the motivations," said Aaron Bartley, of PUSH, or People United For Sustainable Housing.  "No matter what the structure of this land bank is, politicians will seek to control that structure."

Given the city's sorry track record managing and rehabilitating abandoned housing, Brown's argument has a hollow ring.

Jimmy Griffin, Tony Masiello and now Byron Brown have had their chance to deal with the problem. It's only gotten progressively worse. People like Bartley are saying "enough is enough."

The bill is on Paterson's desk to sign or veto.

"This is a governor who's driven by good government and good public policy," said Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, the bill's prime sponsor. "I can't imagine a circumstance where he would veto this legislation."

We'll soon find out. 

Revitalizing City Neighborhoods

Mayor Brown's reconstituted economic development team would be well served by reading An Integrated Approach to Fighting Blight and Poverty in Buffalo’s Low-income Neighborhoods by the Partnership for the Public Good. The seven-age report deals with the cross-section of ill plaguing inner-city neighborhoods.

Its big-picture take:

"Any serious program which seeks to reverse the continuing concentration of blight and poverty in Buffalo’s neighborhoods must include a coherent plan to stop the flood of abandonment, must focus on strategic neighborhoods, and must bring greater resources and legal changes to strengthen code enforcement, housing rehabilitation, foreclosure prevention, anti-flipping, and anti-predatory lending efforts."

The recommendations make reference to a report and recommendations issued in 2006 by the National Vacant Properties Campaign after a study of the region's housing vacancy problem.

Ready to sue

Call them what you want: subsidies, incentives, grants. Lee Bordeleau calls them unconstitutional.

The Lockport stockbroker has gotten 40 people in pony up $100 each to launch a lawsuit challenging the legality of grants, discounts, tax breaks and the like made by state and local government in the name of economic development.

"Any kind of welfare, I'm against," he said.

Bordeleau got noticed last year when he paid for a billboard on Route 78 in Lockport calling attention to Niagara County's status at the time as the highest-taxed county in the nation based on a percentage of housing value. In recent months, he's been working the media in an effort to find people willing to invest in the lawsuit. His goal was 40. Mission accomplished.

"We're going to do it, we're going forward," he said. "This is something that needs to be done."

Bordeleau said he expects the suit to be filed by the middle of July. James Ostrowski, the self-described lawyer, writer and anti-politican, is his attorney.

Stay tuned.

Insights into Kaleida-ECMC deal

I struck up a lunchroom conversation Tuesday with Henry Davis, our medical reporter, on the deal struck between Kaleida Health and Erie County Medical Center. I had two questions: what broke the stalemate, and is it a good deal or just an expedient one?

Henry's take:

A core of veteran doctors working for Kaleida or ECMC -- or both -- were the catalysts. About 10 of them, respected veterans, persuaded State Supreme Court Judge John Curran to insert them into the lawsuit ECMC and Erie County government had filed against the state Health Department.

"The doctors used their influence to move both sides from their hardened positions," Henry said.

Would there have been a settlement without their involvement?

"Very unlikely," he said.

A good deal?

"I would call it a potentially good deal," he said, "but it also raises questions about whether the original purpose of the Berger Commission was satisfied." And that purpose was to reduce the number of hospitals and hospital beds in the Western New York market."

So, hurrah for the docs, and let's keep an eye on the details as they are sweated out in the months ahead.

Tobe is out

Long in the making, as I reported in this blog in April, Rich Tobe is out as the city's  commissioner of Economic Development, Permits and Inspection Services.

Mayor Byron W. Brown asked him for his resignation Friday. Initially part of the inner circle, Tobe has been on the outs for some time, and his fate seemed to  sealed when Brian Reilly was brought on board in February as the city's chief economic development officer.

How others view us

Al Jazeera English, a worldwide news satellite network aimed at the West, has broadcast a story about Buffalo, part of its ongoing "Frontline USA" series. Our rank as the nation's second-poorest city brought al Jazeera here.

It's a pretty interesting piece. I found things things of particular note:

— Al Jazeera interviewed a number of people in the trenches, such as Aaron Bartley of PUSH and Alison Duwe of the Coalition of Economic Justice.

— Mayor Byron Brown is still spouting his discredited claims that the city is in the midst of an unprecedented $4.5 billion building boom.

The clip is 15 minutes. Watch and weigh in.

Progress at LaSalle Park

Last week I reported uncut grass and other signs of neglect at LaSalle Park. I passed through the park this morning on the way to work and what did my eyes see but the grass cut and two county parks employees at work, one manning a lawn mower, the other a weed whacker. I'll mark it down as progress.

The bathrooms are also clean, but no thanks to the parks department. County Legislator Maria Whyte and four AmeriCorps volunteers assigned to the Father Belle Center spent the past several days, starting Friday, cleaning and painting bathrooms at the park. The bathrooms had yet to be cleaned for the season and were covered in filth and graffiti. AmeriCorps volunteers James Morrison, left, and Nate Buckley, are shown here at work Monday.

I've exchanged several calls and e-mail with Grant Loomis, spokesman for County Executive Chris Collins, who has this to day today:

"Given current budgets and manpower, all parks are on a 15 to 28 day cut schedule."

"In general, the county executive has stated publicly many times that the current parks agreement does not work in the best interest of either Erie County or the City of Buffalo. The agreement as currently constructed presents serious budgetary and operational challenges. The county executive is looking forward to continued discussions with Mayor Brown and his administration to reach a new agreement that works for both governments and returns our parks to the condition that taxpayers deserve. "

The grass cut every 15 to 18 days? Man, I wouldn't get away with at at home. Should taxpayers and park users tolerate it?

Waterfront wasteland

I had occasion to visit LaSalle Park the other day and was aghast at the conditions, as documented Wednesday afternoon by my colleague, Derek Gee.

Here it is, after Memorial Day, and the grass along the waterfront pathway looks like it has yet to be cut this year. The road at the far end of the park looks like al Qaeda has been using it to practice setting off roadside bombs. Broken glass from a shattered windshield littered another patch of road.

In short, a mess.

Most cities would kill to have a park like this. Great waterfront vista. Lots of green space. Minutes from downtown.

The Olmsted park system is considered the jewel, but LaSalle's location and potential are hard to beat. The Masiello administration developed a plan to revitalize the park about five years ago. It's been collecting dust since.   

Buffalo Rising took note of the conditions a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm chiming in.

Note to Erie County Executive Chris Collins, county legislators and their parks department: Perhaps you should send someone over with a lawn mover. Conditions don't reflect well on your stewardship of city parks.

And City Hall, perhaps the road should make its way into your capital improvement plan.

A century ago, the site was used as a dumping ground. It shouldn't look that way today.

Not exactly change agents

What's up with the Common Council?

Vetting the city's annual operating budget, and, to a lesser degree, the federal block grant budget, are among the major responsibilities of a Council member. After all, money is what drives city operations.

This year, however, the Council all but rubber-stamped both budgets. It's becoming a trend.

The Council changed Brown's proposed $435 million operating budget by $653,456. That's less than 1 percent -- 0.15 of 1 percent to be exact. Last year, the Council changed the budget by 0.22 of 1 percent.

The Council this year gave the mayor the budget he wanted largely in exchange for a small boost -- from $75,000 to $110,000 -- in what each member can spend in his district at his discretion. In other words, a little more pork.

One could argue that there was a lot to like in this year's proposed operating budget. More cops. Lower property taxes. Pretty safe, politically.

I've pointed out in previous posts, however, that the Brown administration's budgeting strategy relies on continuing increases in state aid to balance the books. There's no effort being made to close a huge structural budget deficit.

Shouldn't that strategy be worthy of debate? By not only the Council, but the Control Board? It's the elephant in the room, if decision makers want to acknowledge it or not.

Then there's the block grant budget. I did an investigation in 2004 detailing how the city had squandered more than a half-billion dollars in federal block grant funds, going back to the days of Jimmy Griffin. Too little spent in the poor neighborhoods the program is intended to help, too much on the salaries of bureaucrats and the follies of ill-fated projects of developers with political connections.

It's still going on. Steve Banko, whose local HUD office oversees the city's use of block grant funds, fussed in an Artvoice story a couple of weeks ago that little has changed under Brown.

Reported Artvoice:

"What bothers Banko ... isn’t just that the city administers its block grants so poorly, it’s that it tries to be sneaky about it."

Where is the Council in all this? Demanding change? Insisting that money be put to use in smart ways in the neighborhoods they represent?

Nope. They're approving what Brown puts in front of them.

This year, the Council changed the mayor's proposed $23.8 million block grant budget by $250,000. That's 1 percent. More than the rate of change with the operating budget, but still infinitesimal, especially considering the block grant program's continuing problems.

Q&A with city control board director

The Common Council is continuing its review of Mayor Byron Brown's proposed budget, which relies on the state for 42 percent of operating revenues. In an earlier post, I pointed out the budget has a huge structural deficit that is growing larger because of the Brown administration's growing reliance on state aid and its strategy of cutting property tax rates in the face of increased assessments, thus negating what would otherwise be an increase in property tax revenue.

The city control board keeps probably the closest eye on the budget and city spending practices. I interviewed its executive director, Bertha Mitchell, to get her take. Here's our exchange.

How do you compare this year's proposed budget with the last couple of years of the Masiello administration?

"It's a bigger budget than in the last few years of the Masiello administration, but they have more resources, primarily from increases in state aid."

Where do you see progress under the Brown administration?

"There has been progress in the sense they've managed to get their priorities into the budget and have been able to pay for them with available resources."

What are the continuing areas of concern?

"There is no real advance in getting their fiscal needs to balance without recurring increases in state aid. Given the situation with New York State, we're afraid aid could be reduced or at least not increased.  They are budgeting conservatively by lagging some of the state aid increases by one year, which shields them from the immediate impact of an unanticipated cut in aid."

Any other concerns?

"We have concerns over the growth in fringe benefits, primarily the cost of health insurance. Without proactive contract settlements that address this particular issue, the city can not do very much about it. They also need to control the cost of increases in staffing and overtime in the uniformed forces."  Personnel costs continue to make up a very large portion of city expenditures, and these costs are expected to be the largest cost driver year after year.

Does the budget have a structural deficit?

"Oh, definitely. These structural imbalances are difficult to change, but present huge opportunities to restructure and reform the way government works.  Buffalo is not alone in this, many municipalities across the State face a similar problem and are becoming more dependent on state aid."

What's the source of the problem?

"In the short term the city has limited ability to raise new revenues, outside of additional state aid to cope with increasing needs.  Property tax margin has been increasing over the last few years, but the growth is slow and sales taxes have been strong this year, but the weaker economy may impact any additional growth.

Brown has been cutting residential property tax rates, thus negating what would otherwise be an increase in revenues. Is that a sound fiscal policy, given the structural deficit?

"Taxpayers have been hit hard over the last few years. The city has some resources from certain pockets of state aid which allow them to give taxpayers a breather and they are using them this budget year for such purposes.  They have a balanced budget, a growing fund balance and now might be the time that taxpayers saw some relief.

Is the city getting closer to being solvent?

"I think they're closer and making progress, however they're not there yet, and additional progress will be necessary before the city is fully solvent."

Double doo-doo

The proposed budget released Thursday widens City Hall's already huge structural deficit -- and does so by design.

Mayor Brown's plan boosts spending by $16.7 million while cutting property tax revenues by $1 million, thanks to a small cut in the residential tax rate.

Something has to make up the difference, and that something is more state aid. It's up from $169 million in the current budget to $181.5 million, accounting for 42 percent of the city's operating revenues. (Basic aid is up from $142.3 million to $155 million, with the balance coming in the form of reimbursement for expenses the city incurs running programs on behalf of the state).

Basic aid is about double what it was a decade ago. Which is another way of saying that despite all the budget pain of the past decade, despite the imposition of a control board, the city is deeper in the hole than ever.

Brown and his people will argue otherwise. They talk about the city's recent budget "surplus" and the rainy day fund they've been able to build. But all that money has come from Albany.

Tony Masiello said back in 2001 that the city would be in "deep doo-doo," without state aid. Seven years later, we'd be in double doo-doo.

The point isn't just that the city can't pay its bills without Albany's help, but that the politicians in City Hall aren't even trying to do anything about it. The strategy, as city budget director Janet Penksa explained to me last week, is to intentionally not grow property tax revenues. As the city's tax base increases, the plan is to reduce tax rates so it comes out a wash. Brown went one step further with this proposed budget, cutting property tax rates to the point where total revenues drop.

So, the game plan is to grow increasingly dependent on the state. At a time when the state is facing fiscal problems of its own, and the prospect of cuts in aid to local government and school districts, which Tom Precious spells out in a story in today's paper. Brian Meyer has a story on the Common Council's reaction to the proposal, as well. 

No one is going to squawk about a property tax cut. But a lot more city home owners who I know complain about city services than they do city taxes, and the tax cuts work against improved city services.

Schools are the most pointed example. The mayor's proposed budget maintains school operating aid at $52.4 million. Perhaps not unreasonable, from one perspective, given the state's large increase in education aid to the district.

But the status quo represents a continuing retreat in City Hall's support of its public schools. A decade ago, the city provided schools with $64.1 million in operating aid, covering 12.3 percent of the district's expenses. City aid has since dropped, while district expenses have increased, and city assistance now accounts for only 6.6 percent of the School Board's budget. The state, meanwhile, picks up nearly three-quarters of the tab.

Between them, City Hall and the School Board are spending $1.2 billion dollars and the state is paying $755 million of that. That's three quarters of a billion dollars. And if Brown has his way, that number will only continue to climb.

More on Brown's $4.5 billion

City Hall has a fundamental problem: it can't support itself on locally generated taxes.

Historically, property taxes have been the city's primary source of revenue. But operating costs long ago surpassed the amount of revenue generated by property taxes, the city's share of sales tax, and other traditional sources of funding.

To make up the difference, the city has increasingly turned to the state for funding. It's gotten to the point where state aid now outpaces property tax revenue - $147 million to $146 million. Sales tax revenues account for another $65 million.

If the city is to ever close this huge structural deficit, it needs to grow its tax base. But the development on Brown's list, even if it all comes to pass, would not have much of an impact for the foreseeable future, for a couple of reasons.

   First, nearly two-thirds of the projects are tax exempt because they are owned by the government or, to a lesser degree, the Seneca Nation. Right now, one-third of commercial property in the city is tax exempt. That means the Brown list is more reliant on the development of tax-exempt property than what has occurred in the past.

   Second, many of the projects that are taxable enjoy property tax abatements that will delay by up to 15 years the time they pay their full property tax bill. Depending on the subsidy program, building owners only pay partial property taxes, or the state pays the tax bill on their behalf, which only adds to the state deficit.

   In either event, taxpayers are paying a price.

More school aid = more spending

   Last week I said suburban taxpayers might want to ask their local school boards if they plan on using a huge boost in state aid to increase spending or cut property taxes.

   The answer is in at one school district I looked at this week.

   State education aid to East Aurora schools is going up by $862,459 for the coming budget year.

   Spending in the district's proposed budget goes up by $849,554.

   Actually, there's not a direct cause and effect. The district's budget was shaped several months ago, before the governor and state Legislature decided to boost education aid by 8.7 percent statewide.

   Originally, district administrators proposed a budget that would have required a 5.9 percent increase in property tax collections. That figure has been bumped down several times since, and with the help of the increase in state aid, now stands at a proposed 2.16 percent.

   The East Aurora budget is a more or less status quo spending plan. Expenses are up 3.3 percent, compared with a projected inflation rate of 2.6 percent. To cover that increased spending, the district is using the added state aid, plus $337,242 in addition property tax revenues and $800,000 from reserves.

   Long story short, the big boost in state aid enables school officials to continue spending higher than the inflation rate while providing a back-handed form of property tax relief by allowing budget makers to raise taxes a little less they they were otherwise prepared to.

   In other words, it forestalls for at least another year any serious attempt at belt-tightening.

   I don't mean to pick on East Aurora. I mean, look at the Amherst Central School District. Its Board of Education on Tuesday passed a budget calling for the largest increase in property tax collections in more than 15 years.

   Voters will have the final say in all this, as budgets are subject to a referendum May 20.

   By the way, both districts have Web sites, fairly attractive ones with lots of information. Menus. Sports schedules. Board member profiles. But don't go looking for access to their budgets - they're not there.

Tobe on the way out?

   Talk on the street is that Richard Tobe, left, is not long for City Hall.

    Tobe declined to comment Wednesday when I asked him whether he was on his way out as the city's commissioner of economic development, permits and inspection services. "No comments" in situations like this often means there's something up.

    "Tobe is on the way out the door," said developer Carl Paladino. "They don't want to admit it, but he is."

    Paladino isn't exactly on the "ins" with the Brown administration -- he openly loathes it -- but he's in the development business. Someone who is close to Tobe, Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, said he's hearing the same thing.

   Tobe was a part of Dennis Gorski's inner circle during his tenure as county executive. He later served on the city Control Board until being hired by Brown in early 2006. He was originally part of the Brown inner-circle as well, but that is in the past tense.

   "I understand he's been marginalized, his role has been diminished," Hoyt said. "If that's the case, I find it highly unfortunate because there is no person in local government who is more honest, who is more hard working, who is smarter, than Rich Tobe."

   Tobe's departure would make Brian Reilly the city's undisputed economic development chief. He was hired earlier this year after Tim Wanamaker, who shared development duties with Tobe, left for a job in California.

You are being watched

Well, not all of you.

Not if you live in the suburbs.

But if you live in much of the city, especially in neighborhoods considered high-crime areas, chances are police surveillance cameras are trained on some of the streets you travel. Brian Meyer reported Wednesday that City Hall's surveillance network is now operating at 43 sites. Here's a map showing the current locations. By the end of the year, the city expects to have more than 100 cameras in operation.

I guess I must be old-fashioned, in a Ron Paul kind of way. I just don't think walking down the street should make me subject to government surveillance. Has 9/11 made us that indifferent to civil liberties?

I can understand the fears and frustrations of people living in high-crime neighborhoods and why the cameras might provide them a sense of increased security. But there is the potential for abuse, particularly because the police have carte blanche on how they use the cameras.

Think not? Here's what police spokesman Mike DeGeorge told me Wednesday afternoon after I asked for a copy of laws and rules that govern the department's surveillance operation.

"It's my understanding there are no state, local or city laws or ordinances governing the cameras. As far as departmentally, the administration is formulating a policy plan at this point," he said.

One needs to look no further than the illegal tactics of New York City police leading up to the last Republican National Convention for an example of police misusing their surveillance powers. Read this New York Times story.

Police officials here said they have no intention of playing Big Brother. But there are no rules, no do's and don'ts in place.

Moreover, it wasn't that long ago that police officers, upset with a lack of a new labor contract, targeted the public with a parking ticket blitz that many citizens saw as an abuse of their power.

Residential construction and LEED

My stories about green building practices Sunday and Monday focused on the commercial sector. There's a flip side to the coin -- residential construction. And the situation there is gloomier. There's not a single residential structure in Western New York that has been built to LEED standards. Nada. Zippo.

Builders are probably building "greener" than, say, 10 years ago. But as Sunday's story showed, there's a difference between building "green" and building to more demanding LEED standards.  Anyone can claim to be "green." But the third-party LEED certification lends credibility.

The regional housing construction market isn't exactly booming these days. But there's a fair amount of activity in the city, with subsidized housing being built on the East Side, public housing undergoing  renovation and downtown buildings being converted into high end apartments and condos. There was talk at Saturday's green economic development summit of requiring greener building codes. Seems like the city might be a good candidate, given that all this work is being subsidized one way or another with public funds, tax breaks, etc.

Building LEED would certainly benefit homeowners and renters, as heating and water bills would drop.

Pale shade of green

I knew next to nothing about the subject when I started to research green building practices, but that's part of reporting that I like -- learning things. One of the things I learned while doing the story is that there are a lot of people in the development community who still don't know much about green practices, at least when it comes to building to LEED standards, the benchmark by which sustainable buildings are judged.

Just about everyone says they're building "green." But most of the buildings going up around here are a pretty pale shade of green.

Some building owners, developers and architects get it. But many don't. They're working off old habits, outdated assumptions and indifference to the role commercial buildings play in global warming.

As a result, only seven buildings constructed in the region this decade meet LEED standards.

Local government is not without fault. A growing number of local governments around the nation are building their own facilities to LEED standards, and encouraging, sometimes mandating, that the private sector do likewise. Local governments have toughened building codes and restructured development incentives to promote sustainable practices.

Here, only the county governments in Erie and Niagara have adopted LEED standards for the future construction of their facilities and, let's face it, counties aren't building much on their own these days.

School boards, in particular, is where the action is, Buffalo public schools in particular. The district is more than halfway through a massive reconstruction program involving upwards of $1 billion. And there's nary a LEED school to be found.

Here's three resources worth checking out:

Web site of the U.S. Green Building Council

Study of green building programs around the nation by the American Institute of Architects

Study of costs associated with building green by Davis Langdon

For the complete story, read Sunday's Buffalo News in print or online. There will be a follow-up story Monday on the handful of local success stories.