“Our federal government is actively terrorizing everyday people—whether it’s by withholding food stamps, cutting funding for homelessness services, or kidnapping our neighbors. The decisions made by our local governments now carry greater weight than ever before. This is where we can focus our efforts. This is where we can make a change,” said Sarah Wooton, Interim Director at Partnership for the Public Good.

Each fall, Partnership for the Public Good (PPG) leads a democratic process among its more than 390 partners to determine the Community Agenda for the coming year.

The 2026 Community Agenda includes ELEVEN policy change priorities:
1.     Disrupt the School-to-Prison Pipeline
2.     NY4All: Prohibit Collusion of State and Local Agencies with Federal Enforcement
3.     Establish a Municipal Office of Urban Agriculture and Food Policy in the City of Buffalo     
4.     Communities Not Cages: Pass Prison and Parole Reform in New York State
5.     Prioritize Community Health in the Humboldt Parkway/Kensington Expressway EIS Scoping Phase and Draft Review 
6.     Establish a Human Rights Commission for the City of Buffalo
7.     Enact an Ordinance in Buffalo Prohibiting Federal-Local Collusion in Civil Immigration Enforcement
8.     We Want Care—Not Corruption—in New York State
9.     Pass the Youth Justice and Opportunities Act
10.  Create a Department of Arts and Culture within the City of Buffalo
11.  Pass Good Cause Eviction Protections and Keep Housing Affordable in Buffalo

The full text of each plank is available at PPG’s web site, 
A video of the event with all participant remarks is available on PPG’s Instagram page and Youtube page.

On plank #1, “Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” Sam White of the Western New York Law Center said, “Buffalo has been in a school suspension crisis for a decade…. Now is the moment for the Western New York [legislative] delegation to act, to step up and co-sponsor the Solutions Not Suspensions Bill.” This bill will limit the causes and length of suspensions, promote restorative practices, and will include charter schools in its mandate. These policies have the potential to increase graduation rates, test scores, educational attainment, and the financial prospects of communities of color impacted by school suspensions.

Michael June of Peaceprints WNY stated, “Each year, more than 130,000 New York State students are suspended from school, often for nonviolent or developmentally appropriate behaviors. This criminalization of young people's conduct does not correct behavior, improve grades, or increase attendance. But it does lead to higher rates of juvenile justice involvement and incarceration.”

The #2 Community Agenda plank advocating to pass New York For All (S2235A/A3506A) would end municipal and state collaboration with federal ICE agents. Hagar Hafez of the New York Immigration Coalition explained, “In Western New York, we’ve seen a lot of the local and state agencies colluding with federal immigration agents. Passing New York For All would establish a basic sense of safety when community members are commuting to work, when they’re going to school, and when they’re going to the hospital to seek help.”

Thomas Gant of Center for Community Alternatives spoke about the importance of passing  Communities Not Cages legislation (plank #3). Gant explained, “there is a humanitarian crisis inside New York’s prisons. The harm is not limited to what people endure behind the walls. It extends to their families, their communities, and the economic burden New Yorkers have carried for far too long. But there is a solution: the Communities Not Cages campaign.” This legislation would address mandatory minimums, reduce unnecessarily long prison terms, expand opportunities for resentencing, and allow people to return home when they have demonstrated growth.

Several elected officials, including our new City of Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan, joined the meeting to voice their support for items on the Community Agenda.

City of Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan spoke about creating an executive order banning collusion between the city and federal immigration officials. Mayor Ryan said, “We are a city that’s growing. We are a city that’s becoming economically stronger. We are a city with less vacant houses and less vacant storefronts—for one prime reason: we have new Americans moving into the city of Buffalo…. We have to realize that—just like tariffs, just like the fight with Canada— stopping immigrants from coming into the city of Buffalo is bad for our economy…. I’m going to put an executive order in place making sure that no apparatus of city government interacts in any way with federal immigration officials. That’s going to be from building inspectors to garbage collectors to police officers.”

NYS Senator April Baskin spoke in support of plank #1, which advocates for the New York State Legislature to pass the Solutions Not Suspensions Bill (S134/A118). She explained, “for nearly a decade, Buffalo has been at the top of suspending school districts in NYS. We need to ask deeper questions about why this is happening. What circumstances are facing our students?.... How many students—that we suspend every single day—are the children of immigrants? How many are growing up in households that are facing economic instability, job insecurity, or housing challenges? How many babies are growing up being raised by a parent who–that parent themself–was caught up in the school to prison pipeline? We don’t talk about these types of issues. We don’t want to address the root cause or have conversations about how we got here. We always want to react to the present situation. That can’t be our reality anymore…. punishment alone will never ever solve a systemic issue.”

NYS Assemblymember Jon Rivera spoke in support of plank #2, “New York For All: Prohibit Collusion of State and Local Agencies with Federal Enforcement.” Assemblymember Rivera said, “We know that there’s a problem. It’s happening all over the country, and it’s happening in our back yard—where local law enforcement are engaging with the federal government absolutely to trap people and to destroy families…. This is real, it’s happening, and it’s happening in every neighborhood in the state…. As long as people are afraid to go to church, to send their kids to school, to go to work, we’re never going to have a thriving community.”

City of Buffalo Board of Education Member Cindi McEachon also spoke in support of Plank #1, Solutions Not Suspensions. She said, “As you know, the school to prison pipeline refers to the national pattern of students—especially those of color or with disabilities—being funneled from schools and into our criminal justice system. Across our nation, this is due, in part, to outdated policies, inadequate in-school social supports structures and services. And that results in a reliance on punitive disciplinary measures, such as short and long-term suspensions.”