The Caucus meeting began with an update from Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia, who was requesting permission to purchase services from Dataminr. Dataminr is a company that trawls through publicly accessible data (like social media, or the dark web) to find out about newsworthy events and to alert first responders to those events. Dataminr is a partner of X (formerly Twitter), and therefore gets special access to posted data. It’s had contracts with the White House and CNN as well. Several years ago, Dataminr was involved in a controversy when it researched Black Lives Matter protests and involved individuals, and it fed that information to police. This data would especially benefit the BPD Threat Management Department, Gramaglia said, as well as helping police keep track of orders of protection.

“When could you have that up and running?” asked Council Member Joel Feroleto. He continued, “People that are posting things publicly should have no expectation of it being private.” “It’s fair game to anybody,” Gramaglia agreed. Council Member Rasheed Wyatt said he was glad this item would go to committee for further consideration. It will be discussed next week in the Finance committee.

The Department of Public Works spoke about the Code Blue program. A new location, 129 Lewis Street, has been added.

Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope brought forth two resolutions urging the city to make an accounting of all the property they own that the city doesn’t receive rent or other payment for. She would like this accounting to also include the five unused school buildings that the city owns. The Majority Leader’s resolutions said that in light of the city’s financial crisis, the city should consider whether it should hold onto these properties or whether the city should sell them. Currently, the city owns and leases many buildings for less than market value, such as Kleinhans, Shea’s, and the History Museum. These resolutions were adopted during the Regular Meeting without being sent to a committee for open discussion.

Council members questioned the Comptroller’s Department about the city’s contract with the Erie Basin Marina, and whether Smith Boys, which manages it, is making appropriate payments to the city. Council Member Nowakowski said that the city should not be in the business of managing a marina anyway. The comptroller’s representative pointed out that New York State owns another small boat harbor, and it has a different sort of financial agreement with the manager. Sun Life Marinas manages the location, and they pay New York State a substantial fixed annual payment.

Raymour Nosworthy, from Administration and Finance, spoke about the administration’s work to get the last of the American Rescue Funds spent. One contract, for the 5-14 Memorial, was finalized, so that chunk of money will not be swept into “revenue replacement” (i.e. the city’s general fund). “I understand using [this money] for revenue, but at what cost?” asked President Pro Tempore Bryan Bollman. “What projects do we stand to lose?” Council members also wanted to know about the acting mayor’s recent announcement that the city has decided not to seek loan repayment from Braymiller Market.

In the Regular meeting, the council voted 6-1 to approve the capital budget; Council Member Wyatt’s was the only no vote. Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams, watching online, expressed disappointment at the size of the budget and the debt the city would be taking on.

Council members also approved a restructuring of the mayor’s office, with new titles and job descriptions and salaries.

Members adopted a moratorium on granting permission for more non-owner-occupied short term rentals (Airbnb-type rentals). Individual districts can opt out of the moratorium if they wish.

Additionally, the council adopted a resolution urging the city to apply for $2 million in New York State funding to stabilize and refurbish 667 Main Street, previous home to the Buffalo Niagara Youth Hostel.

The Citizen Services department submitted its monthly record of calls and requests: 618 of the calls were for water testing; 366 were reports of housing and building violations; 222 reported issues with streetlights.

The council received notification that the city was beginning to move money around to pay around $9 million in recent settlements. These latest settlements come on the heels of last year’s $43 million suit. The majority of these settlements and judgments go to victims of law enforcement misconduct or brutality.