For this summary, we will report on the Civil Service, Finance, Legislation, and Community Development meetings. ‘Council Member’ is abbreviated as CM; ‘Council President’ as CP; ‘President Pro Tempore’ as PT; and ‘Majority Leader’ as ML.
 
The Civil Service Committee meetings are generally quite brief. This week, they okayed the hiring of a senior housing policy specialist, Yessica Vazquez, and a fire lieutenant.
 
Buffalo’s most recent Cash Flow Report was the main topic of discussion in the Finance Committee. Gregg Szymanski, an investment and debt officer in the Comptroller’s office, answered questions about the figures in the report. So far, the city has taken in only $62,000 in cannabis licenses, a figure that they had expected to be nearly $3.5 million. ML Halton-Pope said that a portion of these licensing proceeds were supposed to go back to communities affected by the War on Drugs, and she would look into how this re-investment would work.
 
CM Wyatt asked about the interest—the city has received about $14 million so far this year— because the Board of Education has asked to be given their share of the interest gains.
 
In the Legislation Committee, CMs approved two housing-related ordinances. If signed by the mayor, the first law will expand the acceptable sources of income landlords must accept from renters. The second would require more transparency from people operating LLCs, or limited liability corporations. These ordinances both grew out of recommendations from the Affordable Housing Task Force report.
 
In the Community Development Committee meeting, the Department of Public Works filed its snow plan for next winter. This is the first time the council required the department to file this report in early April.
 
Several speakers came to talk about the dangers of menthol tobacco, particularly in communities of color. Philip Gardner, from the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, along with many others, strongly urged the council to pass legislation banning the sale of menthol-flavored tobacco. Sarah Pearson-Collins, from Roswell, spoke about the way that tobacco had been woven into her family’s history: from her enslaved great and great-great grandparents, who grew and picked and chewed and smoked tobacco, to her childhood memories, featuring “love, laughter, and a gigantic cloud of smoke, so thick that I would literally get sick,” to the staggering numbers of family members who died from smoking-related cancers, tobacco has shaped her life. CM Wyatt agreed that the city should pass this ban, and asked for a 30-day time frame for the city’s law department to research whether and how this might be legal.