The Civil Service Committee okayed a handful of city hires, including a meter reader, an assessor, a truck driver, and a pair of lifeguards.
 
In the Finance Committee, Deputy Comptroller Delano Dowell came in to discuss the Comptroller’s response to the acting mayor’s proposed budget. The comptroller’s office is skeptical about the long-term viability of the city’s plans, and it’s concerned about the steep hike in property taxes. Dowell also pointed to increased labor expenses as the city negotiates new contracts with the police dept, fire dept, and others.
 
Under Byron Brown’s long tenure, property taxes hardly rose at all. Instead, the city relied on “non-recurring” funds to balance the budget—e.g. using up the city’s savings, spending most of our COVID relief funds to patch holes, and even using interest from the school system’s money.
 
Now that those options are gone, the city feels it doesn’t have many other ways to raise money and that it needs to hike property taxes. As a result, the mayor’s office has looked at things like selling city-owned buildings. “We’re being very creative with regard to revenues,” Council Member Rivera said. “I hope it works,” he continued—but he’s not optimistic.
 
Committee members also discussed the sale of city-owned parking ramps. The New York State government has just approved the plan and created the Buffalo Parking and Mobility Authority (BPMA). Now, the city will sell the ramps to the BMPA, and the BPMA will own and manage the ramps moving forward. If the sale goes through, the city could get tens of millions of dollars in immediate cash. It will also mean, however, that the city might not receive annual payments from the ramps, which generate millions of dollars per year in revenue.
 
Council Member Rasheed Wyatt opposed the idea of creating yet another authority, which would have minimal oversight; it would be, he said, like the city “going into that dark night.” This might also affect electric vehicle charging rates. If the BMPA owns the ramps, it’s not clear whether the city would have any say over how much the BMPA charges for parking. Currently, the city charges well under market rate; the BMPA may raise those rates.
 
The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority (BFSA) is the city’s financial overseer, though right now, it just advises the city; it doesn’t make decisions for the city. If the city gets into more trouble financially, the BFSA could become a “hard control board,” meaning that it will decide how the city handles its finances. This week, the BFSA pointed out that Buffalo’s property taxes were half of those in Rochester and Syracuse. They said rates would have to be raised to get Buffalo on firmer financial ground.
 
All these discussions paled, however, in light of looming federal budget cuts. If hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid and education cuts come down, a BFSA economist said, “I don’t know what we’re going to do.” We would need to use all possible approaches to raising money, because the best we could do would be to “try to keep hurt to our citizens to a minimum.” “There’s going to be pain,” he concluded.
 
The Rules Committee scheduled one of its as-needed meetings to discuss a proposal about public input at council meetings. Council Member Nowakowski submitted a letter asking for better use of Robert’s Rules of Order. He also said that the council needed to clarify who their sergeant-at-arms was. A sergeant-at-arms is someone who keeps order in a meeting. The letter was received and filed.
 
President Pro Tempore Bollman and Majority Leader Halton-Pope brought a resolution which would amend council rules in several ways, including determining what members of the public could wear into chambers, and how many people can speak “on either side” of an issue before the council. The committee recommended that these rules be adopted; this matter will be sent on to the entire council for a vote next week.
 
The Legislation Committee temporarily tabled a resolution from Council Member Golombek that would reduce the number of signatures someone has to collect to qualify as a candidate for public office. Currently, to run for mayor, one needs 2000 signatures; and to get onto the ballot for council takes 500 signatures. For more explanation about what these numbers mean in reality, see last week’s summary. This resolution would halve those numbers. Golombek’s office explained that the city’s law department was looking at the language to ensure that it was legal.
 
The Community Development Committee meeting began with two speakers calling for a public hearing about the proposed new police training facility. Majority Leader Halton-Pope said that because community groups, in particular Liberation for One, Liberation for All (LOLA), had gathered thousands of signatures, a hearing would be scheduled. She had noted in the Rules Committee meeting that anyone could get a public hearing scheduled by submitting a petition with 1,000 signatures.
 
Members and guests of the Education Committee heard about many summer opportunities for students. Here were some of the opportunities discussed:
·      Workforce development programs at Say Yes Buffalo
·      Summer arts program at Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology
·      Teen Week and free programming for “little artists” and adults at Locust Street Art
·      Mentoring program from the Office of Children and Family Services
·      Programs with Buffalo Scholastic Rowing
·      Art, environmental, and emotional intelligence programs from Jalen Law
·      Sports and literacy programs from the Police Athletic League