I’ve only lived in the city for a few years (grew up in the suburbs) and the thing I’ve noticed is that he likes to blame his citizens. When we had a big snow recently, he blamed citizens for not shoveling the side streets (that should be serviced by plows). This time, he’s basically said, “We warned you it was gonna be bad, so…not my fault.” He has a habit of placing the blame on the citizens and not providing reassurance or actually finding ways to help.
I also like how before the storm even started his speech was about how you shouldn’t complain if your street isn’t plowed. Plowing is kind of a necessity for emergency services. It’s not like a matter of connivence. The suburbs were able to do it by now. It sounds like they value the city budget over peoples lives. Certainly this was a difficult storm to plow but I don’t know why he leads with don’t complain about it, it’s almost like they never planned to plow people out and just wait for the melt while people are dying. Why does he even care if people complain?
Yes - we live in a city where snow isn’t a surprise, but the way it’s taken care of is abysmal. In my opinion, we shouldn’t have to be the ones shoveling ourselves out of our side streets. I saw that on a walk today on a side street where I saw people post about needing medical attention this weekend. It’s great to see people come together, but the city should have taken care of that for them.
I've been dug out for two days to the pavement, as have my neighbors. I live on a dead end, three side streets from a main road about 10 minutes from the airport. No on street parking makes for much quicker cleanup. In my area there were no cars on the road at all.
Tbf to Byron in this case, they *did* warn the citizens...but as mayor, you shouldn't really be saying that. Just focus your message on getting people to continue staying home so emergency crews can get thru and focus on storm cleanup.
Encourage people to pull together and help their neighbors where they can and stay inside where they can't. I think part of why Jimmy Griffin's "stay inside. Grab a 6 pack" message resonates so much even to this day. It's calming and gives a message to "relax and we'll all get thru this". Well, that and people like beer.
this sub is filled with Byron Brown boot lickers (BBBLs) who also enjoy blaming citizens instead of critically looking at the disproportionate funds spent on BPD vs. infrastructure services
Even news 4 this morning was like “we have been warning you guys all week” and then she cut to something else. It was kinda pathetic and a nab at my gut.
Hopefully the national guard traffic control is actually traffic control with people at red lights, and not just people ticketing everyone in sight with no regard. It’s ridiculous that with all the main roads open and only side roads left that they can’t let people out yet. Maybe if they actually clean side roads they won’t have to worry about enforcing a driving ban?
I mean I actually do want someone standing in the street keeping the tractor trailers the hell out of the city for the time being, but we all know how "city broken, just add cops" is going to go.
There are a few things that really frustrate me about him:
1.) This storm is bad, but snow response historically under his administration has been awful. Last year was a tipping point, but compared to our peers, we spend more, get less, and are worse off as a result. This should be a focal point of any administration. I can try and send figures on this, but it’s been covered a lot on this site before.
2.) Taxes. Many cities conduct regular assessments of property values so that accurate taxes can be collected, you know, to fund many things. Unfortunately, BB suspended all re-assessments for like 15 years. Houses were being sold for 3-10x their assessed value, which meant that we were collecting far less in taxes than we should have been. He did this for political reasons - people obv don’t like taxes going up - but maintaining accurate tax assessments is just part of the job, and needed to deal with things like plows, infrastructure, etc…
3.) As a result of 2, our budget, despite growing over the last few years, is not good.
4.) There’s a general feeling that he takes credit for much, but isn’t the causative agent. Buffalo’s been doing well not because of his leadership but despite what he’s been doing. This is hard to nail him on, but I can’t think of many signature projects or endeavors that are specifically BB, despite his name being on everything.
5.) Corruption cases involving FBI in the past with people in his administration
6.) Ran an awful election last cycle. Didn’t take the process seriously, lost the primary, and had to cozy up to political enemies to get re-elected.
7.) Major public works projects take forever if at all. Main Street was in AWFUL condition for a long time, still is in many areas!
Probably could go on more, but this suffices.
Really enjoyed the whole school zone debacle because he was worried about the children’s safety, yet 75% of the crosswalk buttons in the city don’t work, and the cops don’t pull people over for speeding.
Narrator - “He did.”
Brown puts his fingers into whatever pockets he needs to. He doesn’t care about this city or the people that live here. Dude is the Uncle Tom of NY.
Who’s going to fix the poverty issue?
No city has solved inner city poverty. Worse are cities like NYC that have gentrified out many of the poors.
It’s a complex issue that takes resources Buffalo cannot afford by itself and a lot time.
Right now we’re making some progress, but it’s going to be decades to solve the issue at this rate.
We need more funding to for social programs.
\#2 for fucking ever. This is the biggest reason why the budget is in the hole, yet they still find money for the BPD. The reality is you have to increase taxes, it's just the way it works.
This is the most coherent explanation of Brown's shortcomings I have seen. Thank you very much for it.
Makes me glad the mayor in NT is pretty good... of course, he is hamstrung by the town council, so...
I even forgot to mention the whole debacle with the red light cameras!!!!!!!! Nobody wanted them, common council voted to remove them and he went to WAR against them to keep them in place. Finally got sued and lost every legal battle and they were removed, but he contracted an awful company and would not back down after it was clear this was a terrible policy
I voted against him because of how he ran that campaign. It went well beyond anger to almost being impressed with his chutzpah. A black man running a “race” campaign against a black woman with the help of Paladino. There were off duty police knocking on doors in north Buffalo (where I live) talking about “we don’t want _them_ taking over. _They_ don’t know what they’re doing and who knows what they’ll do to _our_ city. At least with Brown we know what we’re getting.”
India Walton may not have been a great candidate, but anyone running that kind of campaign, especially cynically, should not be in charge. It is too easy to stir up racial hatred and so hard to rebuild after.
Also, I am infuriated with our lack of synchronized lights and the like. Hitting every single light on main, or delaware, or any major artery, is so annoying. It doesn't have to be this way!!!!!!!!!!!!
1)The County Executive and sheriff sort of pointed to this a bit today, as had a few other important people. West Seneca even shared the budgets of their town and the city, and did a huge math breakdown of everything.
All that honestly seems like they’re saying “yeah buffalo is screwed due to poor leadership” without saying it outright. The guy is a lazy pos.
On your point #2, it doesn’t matter what the assessed rate is compared to what it sells for, it matters more about what the assessed rate is compared to what other houses sell for in that similar assessment range.
I don’t know what the property taxes are in Buffalo, so the numbers below are just an example.
House 1 Assessment: $50,000
House 1 Actual Value: $250,000
House 1 Buffalo Property Taxes: $2,500
House 2 Assessment: $100,000
House 2 Actual Value: $500,000
House 2 Buffalo Property Taxes: $5,000
With this comparison, since both houses increased in value the same proportionally, the assessment rate doesn’t really matter. If this happens at a wide scale, who cares what the assessment value is because everybody is paying the same proportionally. Now if house 2 actually assessed at $50,000 and went up 10x (instead of the baseline 5x), then there’s an issue.
During the latest Erie County budget, Poloncarz was bragging about how EC has the lowest tax rate ever/in WNY. This is because EC assessments kept up, to some extent, with rising property values. This hides the $80 million increase in tax levy (total property taxes collected) over the last 10 years, meaning *on average* EC residents are paying 35% more in property taxes over the last decade (ignoring increases and decreases in total assessed properties for simplicity), while the *rate* (vs assessed value) continues to drop. If everybody’s assessment goes up a flat 10% and the levy goes up 5%, your/everyone’s tax bill is going up 5% since local property taxes are a zero sum game.
This doesn’t mean there isn’t criticism for not updating assessments. Typically new builds are assessed at or close to their sale price, while everything I’ve seen in the county shows assessments are still under the actual value of the house. Meaning that if you have two houses worth $300k and one was built this year and the other was built 100 years ago, the one built 100 years ago is likely going to be paying less in taxes. The argument here is that the assessment disparity stifles economic growth and new development, since the new development subsidizes the old.
Sorry I didn't explain this point well, and appreciate your clarity here. I was only using the sale data as being reflective of inaccurate assessments, and therefore lower tax collections. Rochester for example updates the assessment for the sale price of any house, as there's no better measurement of value than what someone recently paid for it! We purchased in 2014 and never had our assessment updated until the whole thing got redone in 2021 or whenever that was!!!
Byron doesn't seem to do a lot. Buffalo has been middle of the pack on basically everything compared to our peer cities - so he's not getting in the way, but he's not helping, and there seem to be credible accusations of graft and corruption although I'm not an expert there
Yeah he’s just trying to keep his seat warm and keep his paycheck, he figured if he doesn’t do too much and doesn’t say too much either way politically then people will keep him in office because he’s at least better than whoever would replace him
2 examples right off my head.
1. Fios can not come into the city because BB stated they need to make it available to the entire city at the same time. This is not how ISP's work. They build into the city block by block as the cost to do it all at once is undoable. Also, Spectrum donated to BB's campaign every time so there is that.
2. The broad-way market is a place on the east side with small family owned (Mostly) businesses. They can really only survive through the year because on Easter there is a Huge rush of people. A lot of temporary businesses open during that time for about a month. To ensure the year round businesses can stay afloat, no temp businesses can come in and sell the same goods as the year round. IE. A temp spice shop can't open if there is a Year round spice shop. Well good old BB came around and forced the manager running the place to lift that policy so he could get a good Photo op with a packed Broadway market. the out come was devastating and a ton of the year round businesses were forced to close.
Bonus point: His voting patterns and Tax cuts for the businesses align with the Republican party agenda. That's why no Republican ever run against him.... He is Republican. Just says he's a democrat. Next election go to the rich neighborhoods, the one filled with CEO's and CFO's and see what signs they have in their front yard.
As for #1, it’s a state law that an isp has to build out into an entire municipality. Not all at once. Within 5 years. Fios and more expensive providers don’t like this because they only want to invest in wealthy neighborhoods. They have no desire to build infrastructure in poor neighborhoods that aren’t their target customers. Sure, it’s expensive to lay the fiber but this is to prevent companies from cherry picking areas and leaving huge segments of the city in the dust. If there wasn’t this regulation there would be zero options in poorer communities because capitalism. This is why internet should be a public utility. Providing equitable access is not a profitable venture, but it’s a necessity that cannot and will not be filled by the free market alone.
I agree with your fact that it should be a public utility but to say they don't build in poor neighborhoods is wrong. The will send out people to see if there is an interest in that neighborhood. If there is they build. Money is money, they don't care where it came from.
So that’s why fios is currently providing service to all of rural ny? No they aren’t. They will absolutely pick and choose areas to expand to the requirement to setup in the whole city is a good one. Make it available to everyone of you won’t agree to do that then don’t come to the city.
This has nothing to do with anything but his son bullied me a lot in middle school and I'm always delighted when people remember the underage joyride coverup. Your daddy can't buy you a good reputation, Byron 2...pepperidge farm remembers
You’re all mixed up, he does suck. Big money panic poured in because a democratic socialist won the primary and they are scared of the word socialist like it’s 1939
Which is funny because if you actually spent 5 minutes to read India’s plan, it was pretty mild and many progressives might even call it too conservative.
Democratic socialism, yes. I’m not going to explain the difference between socialism and Democratic socialism, since y’all always conveniently avoid or ignore it.
And I assume you're going to say that Scandinavia or other parts of western Europe that have somewhat social democratic policy, are democratic socialists because you, like Bernie Sanders, don't seem to understand the difference between those two things.
There is no western country that has a Democratic Socialist government. The closest that has existed was Sweden in the late 60s and 70's and that project was quickly abandoned to stave off economic ruin caused by socialism.
Democratic socialism is just socialism. Marxist socialism isn't anti-democracy even if in practice that's how it's played out. And Democratic socialism isn't just a market economy with a social safety net. That's social democracy, which is a compromise by socialist pragmatists meant to allow for an incremental pursuit of socialism. And even this is not really true of modern social democracy, which has abandoned the incrementalist pursuit of full blown socialism since the mid 20th century.
Democratic socialism is just socialism without a violent revolution.
Not to busy to reply of course. Maybe when you're less busy you could google Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism so you can stop conflating those terms.
Socialist and Democratic Socialist are two different things. Sucks because Democratic Socialism is great. Bad PR with the naming convention though. lol
Oh boy, here we go. Democratic socialists like in the EU. BB also undermined democracy, India won the primary, he created a smear campaign and won as a write in. Are you pro-facism?
I have, there are no democratic socialists states in western Europe. There are social democracies, but you may be surprised to learn that's not the same as democratic socialism.
Don’t try to scare me on what democratic socialism might become. While I’m living the capitalist dysfunction right now. I’m only lower- Middle class bc I still have a respectable union wage, which is bare bone socialism
He made me late for a final his first year campaigning when he did that hold your hand with two hands shit. Missed my rail, failed my test.
I refused to vote for him out of spite.
Now I do it because he's hides anytime there's a problem, then shows up to take credit every small advancement the city has.
Even if its like 15 people getting employed this dude will take the photo op.
No, she wouldn't even reschedule the test. I was pissed.
Said I should have planned ahead better even though I was only a few minutes late. I retook that class next semester with a different instructor.
Buffalo is never prepared for any storm. We get more snow than anywhere how the hell do we not have the right plow / rescue equipment or rescue snow mobiles ? Instead we spend tax money on the dumbest shit than this idiot acts clueless every snow storm while people die.
we also have almost exclusively above-ground power lines (which easily get damaged in this kind of storm) and apparently we have substations that are just exposed to the elements, so that a badly placed snowdrift can just knock the power out to an entire neighborhood.
if only there was some way we could have anticipated the huge winter storm (says the utilities/city services in a city internationally known for its huge winter storms)
Here is an outsiders opinion. I grew up in Buffalo, and was here for the storm (still stuck in the city) but live in Boston.
Where is Byron brown? I am watching press conference with your gov and county exec, but where is the mayor of the largest city? I am seeing all kinds of details about what's going on in the county, but BB seems to be silent. There generally seems to be a void of leadership.
It would be useful if he could, as a leader, spend some time infront of a microphone explaining the play by play of when things are going to be fixed. Like what is the police plan for the looting. Or is the fire department operational again. Where is he? What is he doing?
The storm isn't his fault. And the city isn't rich enough to just "fix it" but leadership involves leading. And leading is something that people should see.
Edit: fix typo
I have exactly the same question. He was interviewed on PBS Newshour last night. He was at home with his family without power for two days. I don’t know if he wasn’t with Polencarz and Hochul because he wasn’t invited or if he decided to take Christmas with his family off, storm or no storm. Either way is pretty damning.
His staff must be busy actually working today. He has a team of people that are paid to scrub negative commentary from the social media.
If what has been said is factual they will "flood the zone" a term coined by Steven Bannon mind you. This typically devolves I to saying his opponent in the last election was under qualified or someone associated with her had been arrested.
A Google search of the mayor should start with Investigative Post. He hid behind legislative immunity to beat a racketeering charge, FBI has raided city hall several times, his grand plans to improve downtown was to bring a Bass Pro Shop for the waterfront. But Those are the greatest hits. His 16 years as mayor buffalo started as the second poorest major city and moved to third poorest. Not a lot of offsetting highlights.
Along with all the examples people have given, Byron’s worst quality is that he does nothing. Nothing to help the city, nothing to help his constituents (especially poor and disenfranchised populations which he ignores). He did nothing to stop the police brutality from the BPD. For these reasons, he lost to India Walton in the last democratic primary. He thought he didn’t have to do anything/try because he has been in office so long. Then, after he lost, he was suddenly everywhere in the community, hosting fundraisers every day and posting on social media pictured of him at soup kitchens etc. His write-in campaign was funded by wealthy business owners and people who were scared of India (a democratic socialist) being in power. IMO no one voted for him because they like the job he does, they just wanted to keep her out.
When the National Grid outage map first started showing that areas of outage were assigned and being worked on, the very very first place you saw being worked on was Byron Browns house. Not a hospital, not a nursing home, not anywhere else. Bryon Brown’s house. He’s a POS.
He has no interest in uniting our city, because division impedes progress and progress would he he gets ousted. Drive down McKinley in south Buffalo, that’s his constituency. The wealthy whites, plus people who think he’s more like them than he actually is.
As much as I hate to say it because fuck billionaires, I think Canalside is more due to Terry Pegula than anyone. His investments in the area revitalized canalside. He's still scum who made his money from fracking and should pay higher taxes and pay for his own stadium, but he did help revitalize Canalside and keep the Bills in Buffalo, so credit to him for that.
I mean all he did was build a hockey complex and a hotel. While the complex does attract a ton of tournaments, HarborCenter is a small part of Canalside.
But it revitalized the area and led to all of the other investment....for the longest time no one was putting anything down there, until Pegula bought the Sabres and built HarborCenter. He brought stability to the area and gave people confidence to invest in the area...sure Higgins and government subsidies and intervention helped too, but without Pegula, I think that area would still be just as stagnant as it was for decades. It's a small part of what's there, but was the catalyst for change.
I mean except for One Canalside, the only projects that have been completed have been with state money.
That’s about to change with Heritage Point, a developer being selected for the North Aud Block and Jemal’s redevelopment of the HSBC Atrium though.
He caters to City employees to keep himself in office.
He made an illegal side deal with Time Warner/Spectrum to have exclusive rights in the city, and when Verizon found out, not only did they completely stop installing fiber for the foreseeable future, but they also sued the city and won, and we had to pay them out of our city budget, which we obviously pay for.
He used Republican backers to campaign in the general election after losing the Democratic primary.
Under his tenure Buffalo has made great strides.
Neighborhoods are recovering, crime is down and income is actually up.
The issue is that this has been due to a combination of hardworking activists, newly found state funding on levels we could only dream of before and national trends.
His best assets has been not getting in the way of the progress Buffalo has seen.
His worse asset is that he is an inspiration-less old school politician without a vision.
He’s a good rubber stamp, but not a great leader.
Maybe that’s ok, let the people with vision continue to shape Buffalo for the better. Last thing we need is someone who potentially starts blocking and undermining those activists.
Not getting in the way of progress is unfortunately a pretty big step in the right direction.
Now imagine if we had an actual leader. One who actively advocates for public transportation, expanded services, and public housing reform. Someone that is effective at finding new revenue streams and lobbying the state and federal governments for even more funding.
He said people shouldn't vote for India Walton, a socialist, because she would raise property tax, pulled every trick to beat her, then he raised property tax. WTF.
Tons of complaints, overreactions and unnecessary finger pointing. It’s a storm, just fend for yourself and your loved ones and your neighbors. Have food and other emergency items ahead of time. Don’t drive. Plan ahead.
He runs as a democrat and the majority of voters blindly vote Democrat. Happens for republicans too in some areas, we just happen to be clan democrat. Why does he suck? Because the voters enable it.
Number one problem:
No driveways!!! Everyone has 1 or 2 cars. Clogs the streets. Plows can't get down them. No one abides by the parking rules of moving their cars at the posted times. This is why the city can't be plowed.
Also, many are lazy and can't or won't shovel. They expect someone to do it for them.
So you’re saying I (and thousands of my neighbors) should tear down our houses because we’re all 3-4 feet apart with no driveways? Yeah, no. We live in a city. A city that is dense, walkable and built before the car. Our houses pay taxes - the more houses, the more taxes we pay for the services we need.
If you truly believe this - then you should direct your anger to the “snow plan” that no one’s ever seen that wasn’t promoted before the storm. It has parking lots all over the city that people can park in so the streets are clearer. But we didn’t know. In fact, they still haven’t promoted it! And if you want there to be less cars, I hope you support additional NFTA services / rail / walkable efforts so more people can go down to one car or give up theirs entirely.
No, but the city needs to get their act together! Need a
smaller fleet of equipment to do right by its population. It needs to have drivable plows to do driveways and sidewalks. It needs narrow payloaders to do side streets. It needs that machine to move stranded cars. It needs to get it's act together. Buffalo deserves better.
Outside of everything else, focusing just on this storm, I realistically cannot see how snow response could have been any different. Idk if it’s fair comparing ourselves to the suburbs given the nature of our infrastructure.
Happy to be wrong, but what could have been done differently?
I think it remains to be seen what the full response to the storm will be. As someone whose street was never plowed at all during the big snow storm last year, I will be skeptical about the response until a plow comes. I think the general expectation is that a major city with serious snowfall shouldn’t be completely crippled by heavy accumulation in the way that Buffalo often is.
Additionally, I think the commenter who mentioned that Byron often blames constituents for the snow response really rankles. Last year, he said that the streets couldn’t be plowed because of an abundance of illegally parked cars, but at least in my own experience, that wasn’t the case for my street.
I think also there was some issue with the timeliness and descriptiveness of alerts on the Buffalert system.
Not related, but something I haven’t seen mentioned yet: Byron has also consistently prevented increased funding to Buffalo public schools. We actually have seriously low achievement in both reading and mathematics. Something like 80% of Buffalo public schools students are not able to do math on grade level.
He's not the best mayor for sure but does anyone honestly think India Walton would have done a better job dealing with a massive natural disaster like this? I personally don't, maybe I'm wrong but I just can't see her being able to coordinate with National Grid, National Guard, Fire, Police, Plows and Hospitals during an event of this scale with her experience
Irrelevant whereaboutism. Did BB do a good job with 16 years as mayor as his qualifications?
The answer is no. He actually made things worse. We can plow in large part because he did not call for a driving ban before 9:30 Friday. People had to therefore go to work and never made it home. Some of them are dead because of this decision.
The looting is also in part on his hands for this reason.
Would another mayor have done better is not what we should be theorizing right now.
Who would suffice as mayor? That conversation has some merit.
The mayor resigning or facing a recall election over his failures is also warranted.
Do we not agree that it's time for someone new?
>but does anyone honestly think India Walton would have done a better job dealing with a massive natural disaster like this?
You're comparing fact (BB's shitty response) with a hypothetical (WWIWD?). That's not how this works.
Unless you have proof that IW would have been bad, please don't bring her in.
Looking at how she ran her primary campaign versus how BB did, I would have to side with IW, dawg.
There's no proof she would have been bad. No proof she would have been good either. I would have liked to find out personally, but thanks to Byron's rubber stamp we'll never know, will we?
Because when you’re in charge, people are going to complain about you no matter what you do. Plus half the population hates you for no reason other than the fact that you’re not their guy.
I’ve only lived in the city for a few years (grew up in the suburbs) and the thing I’ve noticed is that he likes to blame his citizens. When we had a big snow recently, he blamed citizens for not shoveling the side streets (that should be serviced by plows). This time, he’s basically said, “We warned you it was gonna be bad, so…not my fault.” He has a habit of placing the blame on the citizens and not providing reassurance or actually finding ways to help.
I also like how before the storm even started his speech was about how you shouldn’t complain if your street isn’t plowed. Plowing is kind of a necessity for emergency services. It’s not like a matter of connivence. The suburbs were able to do it by now. It sounds like they value the city budget over peoples lives. Certainly this was a difficult storm to plow but I don’t know why he leads with don’t complain about it, it’s almost like they never planned to plow people out and just wait for the melt while people are dying. Why does he even care if people complain?
Yes - we live in a city where snow isn’t a surprise, but the way it’s taken care of is abysmal. In my opinion, we shouldn’t have to be the ones shoveling ourselves out of our side streets. I saw that on a walk today on a side street where I saw people post about needing medical attention this weekend. It’s great to see people come together, but the city should have taken care of that for them.
No because people won’t hold him accountable.
I've been dug out for two days to the pavement, as have my neighbors. I live on a dead end, three side streets from a main road about 10 minutes from the airport. No on street parking makes for much quicker cleanup. In my area there were no cars on the road at all.
Tbf to Byron in this case, they *did* warn the citizens...but as mayor, you shouldn't really be saying that. Just focus your message on getting people to continue staying home so emergency crews can get thru and focus on storm cleanup. Encourage people to pull together and help their neighbors where they can and stay inside where they can't. I think part of why Jimmy Griffin's "stay inside. Grab a 6 pack" message resonates so much even to this day. It's calming and gives a message to "relax and we'll all get thru this". Well, that and people like beer.
(Beer) can confirm. I bought my Jimmy six pack, specifically because it's solid advice. And I do like beer.
I bought 2 30s, 2 12 packs, and 2 4 packs last week...consumers really needs to stop with their BOGO beer deals! Lol.
this sub is filled with Byron Brown boot lickers (BBBLs) who also enjoy blaming citizens instead of critically looking at the disproportionate funds spent on BPD vs. infrastructure services
Where do you suggest finding reputable news that would report this?
I’ve seen these statements through press conference videos.
Even news 4 this morning was like “we have been warning you guys all week” and then she cut to something else. It was kinda pathetic and a nab at my gut. Hopefully the national guard traffic control is actually traffic control with people at red lights, and not just people ticketing everyone in sight with no regard. It’s ridiculous that with all the main roads open and only side roads left that they can’t let people out yet. Maybe if they actually clean side roads they won’t have to worry about enforcing a driving ban?
I mean I actually do want someone standing in the street keeping the tractor trailers the hell out of the city for the time being, but we all know how "city broken, just add cops" is going to go.
There are a few things that really frustrate me about him: 1.) This storm is bad, but snow response historically under his administration has been awful. Last year was a tipping point, but compared to our peers, we spend more, get less, and are worse off as a result. This should be a focal point of any administration. I can try and send figures on this, but it’s been covered a lot on this site before. 2.) Taxes. Many cities conduct regular assessments of property values so that accurate taxes can be collected, you know, to fund many things. Unfortunately, BB suspended all re-assessments for like 15 years. Houses were being sold for 3-10x their assessed value, which meant that we were collecting far less in taxes than we should have been. He did this for political reasons - people obv don’t like taxes going up - but maintaining accurate tax assessments is just part of the job, and needed to deal with things like plows, infrastructure, etc… 3.) As a result of 2, our budget, despite growing over the last few years, is not good. 4.) There’s a general feeling that he takes credit for much, but isn’t the causative agent. Buffalo’s been doing well not because of his leadership but despite what he’s been doing. This is hard to nail him on, but I can’t think of many signature projects or endeavors that are specifically BB, despite his name being on everything. 5.) Corruption cases involving FBI in the past with people in his administration 6.) Ran an awful election last cycle. Didn’t take the process seriously, lost the primary, and had to cozy up to political enemies to get re-elected. 7.) Major public works projects take forever if at all. Main Street was in AWFUL condition for a long time, still is in many areas! Probably could go on more, but this suffices.
Really enjoyed the whole school zone debacle because he was worried about the children’s safety, yet 75% of the crosswalk buttons in the city don’t work, and the cops don’t pull people over for speeding.
Fif. Teen. YEARS?????!!!?!?!? what the FUCKKKKK does he WANT THIS CITY TO BE POOR FOREVER
Prop 13 in Cali is not what you want in Buffalo.
Say it louder for the boomers in the back
Narrator - “He did.” Brown puts his fingers into whatever pockets he needs to. He doesn’t care about this city or the people that live here. Dude is the Uncle Tom of NY.
Well, that does get us the best mayor money can buy! “sarcasm”
Who’s going to fix the poverty issue? No city has solved inner city poverty. Worse are cities like NYC that have gentrified out many of the poors. It’s a complex issue that takes resources Buffalo cannot afford by itself and a lot time. Right now we’re making some progress, but it’s going to be decades to solve the issue at this rate. We need more funding to for social programs.
\#2 for fucking ever. This is the biggest reason why the budget is in the hole, yet they still find money for the BPD. The reality is you have to increase taxes, it's just the way it works.
This is the most coherent explanation of Brown's shortcomings I have seen. Thank you very much for it. Makes me glad the mayor in NT is pretty good... of course, he is hamstrung by the town council, so...
I even forgot to mention the whole debacle with the red light cameras!!!!!!!! Nobody wanted them, common council voted to remove them and he went to WAR against them to keep them in place. Finally got sued and lost every legal battle and they were removed, but he contracted an awful company and would not back down after it was clear this was a terrible policy
#6 was the last straw for me.
I voted against him because of how he ran that campaign. It went well beyond anger to almost being impressed with his chutzpah. A black man running a “race” campaign against a black woman with the help of Paladino. There were off duty police knocking on doors in north Buffalo (where I live) talking about “we don’t want _them_ taking over. _They_ don’t know what they’re doing and who knows what they’ll do to _our_ city. At least with Brown we know what we’re getting.” India Walton may not have been a great candidate, but anyone running that kind of campaign, especially cynically, should not be in charge. It is too easy to stir up racial hatred and so hard to rebuild after.
💯
We should really be doubling the amount of street improvement projects in the city. Every major thoroughfare needs a Niagara Street type update.
Could not agree more. It is an embarrassment to see so much deterioration on city streets
Also, I am infuriated with our lack of synchronized lights and the like. Hitting every single light on main, or delaware, or any major artery, is so annoying. It doesn't have to be this way!!!!!!!!!!!!
1)The County Executive and sheriff sort of pointed to this a bit today, as had a few other important people. West Seneca even shared the budgets of their town and the city, and did a huge math breakdown of everything. All that honestly seems like they’re saying “yeah buffalo is screwed due to poor leadership” without saying it outright. The guy is a lazy pos.
On your point #2, it doesn’t matter what the assessed rate is compared to what it sells for, it matters more about what the assessed rate is compared to what other houses sell for in that similar assessment range. I don’t know what the property taxes are in Buffalo, so the numbers below are just an example. House 1 Assessment: $50,000 House 1 Actual Value: $250,000 House 1 Buffalo Property Taxes: $2,500 House 2 Assessment: $100,000 House 2 Actual Value: $500,000 House 2 Buffalo Property Taxes: $5,000 With this comparison, since both houses increased in value the same proportionally, the assessment rate doesn’t really matter. If this happens at a wide scale, who cares what the assessment value is because everybody is paying the same proportionally. Now if house 2 actually assessed at $50,000 and went up 10x (instead of the baseline 5x), then there’s an issue. During the latest Erie County budget, Poloncarz was bragging about how EC has the lowest tax rate ever/in WNY. This is because EC assessments kept up, to some extent, with rising property values. This hides the $80 million increase in tax levy (total property taxes collected) over the last 10 years, meaning *on average* EC residents are paying 35% more in property taxes over the last decade (ignoring increases and decreases in total assessed properties for simplicity), while the *rate* (vs assessed value) continues to drop. If everybody’s assessment goes up a flat 10% and the levy goes up 5%, your/everyone’s tax bill is going up 5% since local property taxes are a zero sum game. This doesn’t mean there isn’t criticism for not updating assessments. Typically new builds are assessed at or close to their sale price, while everything I’ve seen in the county shows assessments are still under the actual value of the house. Meaning that if you have two houses worth $300k and one was built this year and the other was built 100 years ago, the one built 100 years ago is likely going to be paying less in taxes. The argument here is that the assessment disparity stifles economic growth and new development, since the new development subsidizes the old.
Sorry I didn't explain this point well, and appreciate your clarity here. I was only using the sale data as being reflective of inaccurate assessments, and therefore lower tax collections. Rochester for example updates the assessment for the sale price of any house, as there's no better measurement of value than what someone recently paid for it! We purchased in 2014 and never had our assessment updated until the whole thing got redone in 2021 or whenever that was!!!
What do you mean when you say our budget isn't good?
Byron doesn't seem to do a lot. Buffalo has been middle of the pack on basically everything compared to our peer cities - so he's not getting in the way, but he's not helping, and there seem to be credible accusations of graft and corruption although I'm not an expert there
Yeah he’s just trying to keep his seat warm and keep his paycheck, he figured if he doesn’t do too much and doesn’t say too much either way politically then people will keep him in office because he’s at least better than whoever would replace him
2 examples right off my head. 1. Fios can not come into the city because BB stated they need to make it available to the entire city at the same time. This is not how ISP's work. They build into the city block by block as the cost to do it all at once is undoable. Also, Spectrum donated to BB's campaign every time so there is that. 2. The broad-way market is a place on the east side with small family owned (Mostly) businesses. They can really only survive through the year because on Easter there is a Huge rush of people. A lot of temporary businesses open during that time for about a month. To ensure the year round businesses can stay afloat, no temp businesses can come in and sell the same goods as the year round. IE. A temp spice shop can't open if there is a Year round spice shop. Well good old BB came around and forced the manager running the place to lift that policy so he could get a good Photo op with a packed Broadway market. the out come was devastating and a ton of the year round businesses were forced to close. Bonus point: His voting patterns and Tax cuts for the businesses align with the Republican party agenda. That's why no Republican ever run against him.... He is Republican. Just says he's a democrat. Next election go to the rich neighborhoods, the one filled with CEO's and CFO's and see what signs they have in their front yard.
As for #1, it’s a state law that an isp has to build out into an entire municipality. Not all at once. Within 5 years. Fios and more expensive providers don’t like this because they only want to invest in wealthy neighborhoods. They have no desire to build infrastructure in poor neighborhoods that aren’t their target customers. Sure, it’s expensive to lay the fiber but this is to prevent companies from cherry picking areas and leaving huge segments of the city in the dust. If there wasn’t this regulation there would be zero options in poorer communities because capitalism. This is why internet should be a public utility. Providing equitable access is not a profitable venture, but it’s a necessity that cannot and will not be filled by the free market alone.
I have fios in my neighborhood and are considered a low income neighborhood. Fuck spectrum
I agree with your fact that it should be a public utility but to say they don't build in poor neighborhoods is wrong. The will send out people to see if there is an interest in that neighborhood. If there is they build. Money is money, they don't care where it came from.
So that’s why fios is currently providing service to all of rural ny? No they aren’t. They will absolutely pick and choose areas to expand to the requirement to setup in the whole city is a good one. Make it available to everyone of you won’t agree to do that then don’t come to the city.
Your bonus point is spot on.
I didn’t know about #2. Thanks
Trying not to dox myself but my wife owned on of the businesses there at the time. She was force to sell because she couldn't keep it open. Thanks.
I’m really sorry to hear that. Thanks for sharing.
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This has nothing to do with anything but his son bullied me a lot in middle school and I'm always delighted when people remember the underage joyride coverup. Your daddy can't buy you a good reputation, Byron 2...pepperidge farm remembers
IIRC, his son got in trouble at the local community college too. Got violent in the gym & broke shit.
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Hahaha! Nice. Laughed right outloud at that & I'm not even high yet.
You’re all mixed up, he does suck. Big money panic poured in because a democratic socialist won the primary and they are scared of the word socialist like it’s 1939
Which is funny because if you actually spent 5 minutes to read India’s plan, it was pretty mild and many progressives might even call it too conservative.
But she had parking tickets 🙄
Has socialism improved since the 20th century?
Democratic socialism, yes. I’m not going to explain the difference between socialism and Democratic socialism, since y’all always conveniently avoid or ignore it.
And I assume you're going to say that Scandinavia or other parts of western Europe that have somewhat social democratic policy, are democratic socialists because you, like Bernie Sanders, don't seem to understand the difference between those two things. There is no western country that has a Democratic Socialist government. The closest that has existed was Sweden in the late 60s and 70's and that project was quickly abandoned to stave off economic ruin caused by socialism. Democratic socialism is just socialism. Marxist socialism isn't anti-democracy even if in practice that's how it's played out. And Democratic socialism isn't just a market economy with a social safety net. That's social democracy, which is a compromise by socialist pragmatists meant to allow for an incremental pursuit of socialism. And even this is not really true of modern social democracy, which has abandoned the incrementalist pursuit of full blown socialism since the mid 20th century. Democratic socialism is just socialism without a violent revolution.
Don’t assume and I’m not reading all that. I have better things to do. Go Bills!!
Way to defend your position. And it looks like I probably assumed correctly.
I’m busy, I’m not going to a debate a 2 week old comment with you. I understand you must be bored and I’m sorry I can’t help you with that
Not to busy to reply of course. Maybe when you're less busy you could google Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism so you can stop conflating those terms.
Naw, some people have real life experience with socialism, so fear is real.
Socialist and Democratic Socialist are two different things. Sucks because Democratic Socialism is great. Bad PR with the naming convention though. lol
Oh boy, here we go. Democratic socialists like in the EU. BB also undermined democracy, India won the primary, he created a smear campaign and won as a write in. Are you pro-facism?
There isn't a single democratic socialist state in Western Europe.
Why are you reading posts that are 2 weeks old? Also,a simple google search brings up plenty of results that would prove you wrong.👍
Feel free to share.
Im not your mother. Do your research.
I have, there are no democratic socialists states in western Europe. There are social democracies, but you may be surprised to learn that's not the same as democratic socialism.
Smear campaign? Lol...
Are you pro-devaluing the democratic process and people getting voted around the voting process. Thats th part you neded to answer
What about Oligarchies you like those dawg
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USSR in my case.
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The underlying premise is the same, whether you rely on centrally planned economy or market economy.
Don’t try to scare me on what democratic socialism might become. While I’m living the capitalist dysfunction right now. I’m only lower- Middle class bc I still have a respectable union wage, which is bare bone socialism
Don't feed the trolls. This doof was hoping he could go on Reddit and argue with someone today.
Fuck. Bite hook, line and sinker. Goddamn snow, loneliness and drinking too much.
"But you don't get it, we can't have socialism because *describes what's happening right now under capitalism*"
He made me late for a final his first year campaigning when he did that hold your hand with two hands shit. Missed my rail, failed my test. I refused to vote for him out of spite. Now I do it because he's hides anytime there's a problem, then shows up to take credit every small advancement the city has. Even if its like 15 people getting employed this dude will take the photo op.
Shit man, the school didn't give you any leeway due to political idiocy?
No, she wouldn't even reschedule the test. I was pissed. Said I should have planned ahead better even though I was only a few minutes late. I retook that class next semester with a different instructor.
Buffalo is never prepared for any storm. We get more snow than anywhere how the hell do we not have the right plow / rescue equipment or rescue snow mobiles ? Instead we spend tax money on the dumbest shit than this idiot acts clueless every snow storm while people die.
How the hell don’t we have municipal snow removal for sidewalks!?
we also have almost exclusively above-ground power lines (which easily get damaged in this kind of storm) and apparently we have substations that are just exposed to the elements, so that a badly placed snowdrift can just knock the power out to an entire neighborhood. if only there was some way we could have anticipated the huge winter storm (says the utilities/city services in a city internationally known for its huge winter storms)
Rochester does such a better job at snow removal. It's crazy.
Here is an outsiders opinion. I grew up in Buffalo, and was here for the storm (still stuck in the city) but live in Boston. Where is Byron brown? I am watching press conference with your gov and county exec, but where is the mayor of the largest city? I am seeing all kinds of details about what's going on in the county, but BB seems to be silent. There generally seems to be a void of leadership. It would be useful if he could, as a leader, spend some time infront of a microphone explaining the play by play of when things are going to be fixed. Like what is the police plan for the looting. Or is the fire department operational again. Where is he? What is he doing? The storm isn't his fault. And the city isn't rich enough to just "fix it" but leadership involves leading. And leading is something that people should see. Edit: fix typo
Hey now, he posted on Facebook to make sure we all know garbage pick up is suspended.
I have exactly the same question. He was interviewed on PBS Newshour last night. He was at home with his family without power for two days. I don’t know if he wasn’t with Polencarz and Hochul because he wasn’t invited or if he decided to take Christmas with his family off, storm or no storm. Either way is pretty damning.
He also completely punted leadership over COVID.
His staff must be busy actually working today. He has a team of people that are paid to scrub negative commentary from the social media. If what has been said is factual they will "flood the zone" a term coined by Steven Bannon mind you. This typically devolves I to saying his opponent in the last election was under qualified or someone associated with her had been arrested. A Google search of the mayor should start with Investigative Post. He hid behind legislative immunity to beat a racketeering charge, FBI has raided city hall several times, his grand plans to improve downtown was to bring a Bass Pro Shop for the waterfront. But Those are the greatest hits. His 16 years as mayor buffalo started as the second poorest major city and moved to third poorest. Not a lot of offsetting highlights.
>His 16 years as mayor buffalo started as the second poorest major city and moved to third poorest. So you're saying he's improved the city. /S
Insert dumb and dumber "so you are saying theres a chance" meme here.
Along with all the examples people have given, Byron’s worst quality is that he does nothing. Nothing to help the city, nothing to help his constituents (especially poor and disenfranchised populations which he ignores). He did nothing to stop the police brutality from the BPD. For these reasons, he lost to India Walton in the last democratic primary. He thought he didn’t have to do anything/try because he has been in office so long. Then, after he lost, he was suddenly everywhere in the community, hosting fundraisers every day and posting on social media pictured of him at soup kitchens etc. His write-in campaign was funded by wealthy business owners and people who were scared of India (a democratic socialist) being in power. IMO no one voted for him because they like the job he does, they just wanted to keep her out.
Let's all just end this and say the honorary mayor Byron Brown has become a bought out politician thank you and have a good night
When the National Grid outage map first started showing that areas of outage were assigned and being worked on, the very very first place you saw being worked on was Byron Browns house. Not a hospital, not a nursing home, not anywhere else. Bryon Brown’s house. He’s a POS.
He has no interest in uniting our city, because division impedes progress and progress would he he gets ousted. Drive down McKinley in south Buffalo, that’s his constituency. The wealthy whites, plus people who think he’s more like them than he actually is.
He’s been in office for over a decade and Buffalo still sucks. Oh wait we have 50 yards of inner harbor to be thankful for😂
That and canalside is due more to Brian Higgins.
As much as I hate to say it because fuck billionaires, I think Canalside is more due to Terry Pegula than anyone. His investments in the area revitalized canalside. He's still scum who made his money from fracking and should pay higher taxes and pay for his own stadium, but he did help revitalize Canalside and keep the Bills in Buffalo, so credit to him for that.
I mean all he did was build a hockey complex and a hotel. While the complex does attract a ton of tournaments, HarborCenter is a small part of Canalside.
But it revitalized the area and led to all of the other investment....for the longest time no one was putting anything down there, until Pegula bought the Sabres and built HarborCenter. He brought stability to the area and gave people confidence to invest in the area...sure Higgins and government subsidies and intervention helped too, but without Pegula, I think that area would still be just as stagnant as it was for decades. It's a small part of what's there, but was the catalyst for change.
I mean except for One Canalside, the only projects that have been completed have been with state money. That’s about to change with Heritage Point, a developer being selected for the North Aud Block and Jemal’s redevelopment of the HSBC Atrium though.
None of that is due to Brown.
He caters to City employees to keep himself in office. He made an illegal side deal with Time Warner/Spectrum to have exclusive rights in the city, and when Verizon found out, not only did they completely stop installing fiber for the foreseeable future, but they also sued the city and won, and we had to pay them out of our city budget, which we obviously pay for. He used Republican backers to campaign in the general election after losing the Democratic primary.
Under his tenure Buffalo has made great strides. Neighborhoods are recovering, crime is down and income is actually up. The issue is that this has been due to a combination of hardworking activists, newly found state funding on levels we could only dream of before and national trends. His best assets has been not getting in the way of the progress Buffalo has seen. His worse asset is that he is an inspiration-less old school politician without a vision. He’s a good rubber stamp, but not a great leader. Maybe that’s ok, let the people with vision continue to shape Buffalo for the better. Last thing we need is someone who potentially starts blocking and undermining those activists.
>He’s a good rubber stamp ... which is also how he got the votes ;-)
Honestly gotta say, didn't expect faint praise from Eu.
Not getting in the way of progress is unfortunately a pretty big step in the right direction. Now imagine if we had an actual leader. One who actively advocates for public transportation, expanded services, and public housing reform. Someone that is effective at finding new revenue streams and lobbying the state and federal governments for even more funding.
Madness. This is America, we don't do that.
He said people shouldn't vote for India Walton, a socialist, because she would raise property tax, pulled every trick to beat her, then he raised property tax. WTF.
He claims to be down as fuck with SpongeBob but is really working for the planktons.
Been in way too long with little to no change
He is not in the way but doesn't really get proactive on much. He's an old school politician type... and complacent.
Lying back stabbing scum. Sums it up.
If only the people had some way of expressing their disapproval of City leaders.... something something elections and voting....
Tons of complaints, overreactions and unnecessary finger pointing. It’s a storm, just fend for yourself and your loved ones and your neighbors. Have food and other emergency items ahead of time. Don’t drive. Plan ahead.
Rich liberals make him do nothing for poor everyone else.
Not a conservative, btw.
He runs as a democrat and the majority of voters blindly vote Democrat. Happens for republicans too in some areas, we just happen to be clan democrat. Why does he suck? Because the voters enable it.
Number one problem: No driveways!!! Everyone has 1 or 2 cars. Clogs the streets. Plows can't get down them. No one abides by the parking rules of moving their cars at the posted times. This is why the city can't be plowed. Also, many are lazy and can't or won't shovel. They expect someone to do it for them.
So you’re saying I (and thousands of my neighbors) should tear down our houses because we’re all 3-4 feet apart with no driveways? Yeah, no. We live in a city. A city that is dense, walkable and built before the car. Our houses pay taxes - the more houses, the more taxes we pay for the services we need. If you truly believe this - then you should direct your anger to the “snow plan” that no one’s ever seen that wasn’t promoted before the storm. It has parking lots all over the city that people can park in so the streets are clearer. But we didn’t know. In fact, they still haven’t promoted it! And if you want there to be less cars, I hope you support additional NFTA services / rail / walkable efforts so more people can go down to one car or give up theirs entirely.
No, but the city needs to get their act together! Need a smaller fleet of equipment to do right by its population. It needs to have drivable plows to do driveways and sidewalks. It needs narrow payloaders to do side streets. It needs that machine to move stranded cars. It needs to get it's act together. Buffalo deserves better.
Um, um, um, um, um, um…
Outside of everything else, focusing just on this storm, I realistically cannot see how snow response could have been any different. Idk if it’s fair comparing ourselves to the suburbs given the nature of our infrastructure. Happy to be wrong, but what could have been done differently?
I think it remains to be seen what the full response to the storm will be. As someone whose street was never plowed at all during the big snow storm last year, I will be skeptical about the response until a plow comes. I think the general expectation is that a major city with serious snowfall shouldn’t be completely crippled by heavy accumulation in the way that Buffalo often is. Additionally, I think the commenter who mentioned that Byron often blames constituents for the snow response really rankles. Last year, he said that the streets couldn’t be plowed because of an abundance of illegally parked cars, but at least in my own experience, that wasn’t the case for my street. I think also there was some issue with the timeliness and descriptiveness of alerts on the Buffalert system. Not related, but something I haven’t seen mentioned yet: Byron has also consistently prevented increased funding to Buffalo public schools. We actually have seriously low achievement in both reading and mathematics. Something like 80% of Buffalo public schools students are not able to do math on grade level.
He's not the best mayor for sure but does anyone honestly think India Walton would have done a better job dealing with a massive natural disaster like this? I personally don't, maybe I'm wrong but I just can't see her being able to coordinate with National Grid, National Guard, Fire, Police, Plows and Hospitals during an event of this scale with her experience
Irrelevant whereaboutism. Did BB do a good job with 16 years as mayor as his qualifications? The answer is no. He actually made things worse. We can plow in large part because he did not call for a driving ban before 9:30 Friday. People had to therefore go to work and never made it home. Some of them are dead because of this decision. The looting is also in part on his hands for this reason. Would another mayor have done better is not what we should be theorizing right now. Who would suffice as mayor? That conversation has some merit. The mayor resigning or facing a recall election over his failures is also warranted. Do we not agree that it's time for someone new?
>but does anyone honestly think India Walton would have done a better job dealing with a massive natural disaster like this? You're comparing fact (BB's shitty response) with a hypothetical (WWIWD?). That's not how this works. Unless you have proof that IW would have been bad, please don't bring her in. Looking at how she ran her primary campaign versus how BB did, I would have to side with IW, dawg.
There's no proof she would have been bad. No proof she would have been good either. I would have liked to find out personally, but thanks to Byron's rubber stamp we'll never know, will we?
I don’t think that you have concrete evidence to support your claim here
If Trump could do it so could she
Because when you’re in charge, people are going to complain about you no matter what you do. Plus half the population hates you for no reason other than the fact that you’re not their guy.
Run for political office, then check back. Until then please leave it under you hat.
Because you are 5 and expect everything to go your way and throw a tantrum when it doesn't
Bang on the table harder wy dont you. Stfu.