Author: buffalopundit

Brown Signs Food Truck Law

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On Monday, Mayor Byron Brown signed Buffalo’s food truck rules into law. He waited until the last day to do so, and had he not signed it, it would have become law by default. 

The full text of the new ordinance is below. 

The law is imperfect from everyone’s point of view, but it has a built-in sunset provision, expiring in April 2013. At that time, the Common Council will review how the statute worked over the preceding 15 months and take suggestions from all sides regarding any proposed changes. 
 
The law mandates that trucks be 100′ from the exterior walls of any structure containing an open kitchen, 500′ from any special event requiring special permitting, and that the trucks pay a $1,000 annual license fee. 
 
What is different about this license from that in other cities is that there is no hidden charge – you don’t pay more for certain neighborhoods over any others (except for the CBD, which is governed by Buffalo Place). The only added charge is for parking. 
 
Furthermore, a proposal that brick & mortars were proposing would have required trucks to be limited to one truck per block face. This would have prevented events on city streets where trucks could line up in a row, due to supposed congestion issues. This was not included in the law. 
 
At some point in the near future, a Buffalo Cash Mob for the food trucks will be held at Canal Side, with ECHDC’s blessing. The date and time of that cash mob is TBD.
 
The truck owners with whom I’ve spoken are excited and relieved that this controversy is behind them, and already have potential spots scoped out. They have been waiting for this day since the middle of last year, and had been very patient. 
 
With this new statute and regulatory scheme, the food trucks are now legal, and food trucks are a fantastic way for talented people to show off the food they love – and love to make – with a much lower startup cost than a brick & mortar. Hopefully, the legalization of food trucks will lead to an even more vibrant mobile food scene in town, more innovation, and more experimentation. 
 
I’m pleased that we’ve joined the ranks of progressive, forward-looking cities that have carved out a way for food trucks to peacefully co-exist with existing restaurants, benefiting all involved. 

Buffalo Food Truck Ordinancehttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/79264224/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-217roprivh7xnikj1nhh

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Photo courtesy Where’s Lloyd via Flickr.


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Prop 8 Unconstitutional

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Yesterday, the 9th Circuit (Federal) Court of Appeals ruled that California’s Proposition 8, which re-prohibited same sex marriage in that state, is unconstitutional.

What people forget is that a lawsuit filed in San Francisco led to the California Supreme Court ruling that the state’s prohibition against same-sex marriage was unconstitutional (based on the California state constitution).

Secondly, California’s highest court determined that reserving the term “marriage” only for heterosexual couples was violative of that state’s equal protection clause.

Two same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses in California counties brought a federal action, a 12-day bench trial was held, and the Federal District Court ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional – that there was no rational basis or compelling state interest for the state to withhold the term “marriage” from same-sex couples.

Because Proposition 8 did nothing to substantively alter the underlying relationship or domestic partnerships into which California same-sex couples had committed themselves. Instead, it simply took from them the word “marriage”. But the court didn’t point this out to diminish the matter, but to highlight it. “A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of ‘registered domestic partnership’ does not. The word ‘marriage’ is singular in connoting ‘ a harmony in living,’ ‘a bilateral loyalty,’ and ‘a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.'”, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 1965’s Griswold v. Connecticut, which declared the existence of a federal right to privacy and struck down prohibitions against contraception.

In the end, the court found that constitutional jurisprudence does not permit the people to “enact laws” that “single out a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status” thus raising “the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected.” The purpose of such a law isn’t to promote some “legitimate legislative end”, but “to make them unequal to everyone else.”

In order for a law like Prop 8 to stand, with all of its “meaningful harm to gays and lesbians”, some “legitimate state interest” must justify it. More specifically, “it” isn’t whether the legal state extant post-Prop 8 was constitutional or not – the question is whether the change that Proposition 8 made in the law could be justified, in and of itself.

The U.S. Supreme Court had decided cases going back to the 60s forbidding states from a “targeted exclusion of a group of citizens from a right or benefit that they had enjoyed on equal terms with all other citizens.” A right conveyed cannot later be withdrawn without a legitimate state justification.

The court analyzed the purported “justifications” for Prop 8 and found them illegitimate. For instance, Prop 8 proponents claimed that only heterosexual marriage was good for childrearing, but the law didn’t substantively affect same-sex couples’ right to have or adopt children. The court also went out of its way to destroy the Prop 8 proponents’ arguments that taking away the use of the term “marriage” from same-sex couples will promote responsible procreation by heterosexual couples.

The court found that Prop 8 existed as “nothing more or less than a judgment about the worth and dignity of gays and lesbians as a class.” Indeed, the court found that Prop 8 was born and promoted from a fundamental disapproval of homosexuals and from homophobia – that same-sex couples are inferior, and that their relationships are undesirable. The 9th Circuit concluded saying that the people of California violated the Equal Protection Clause by using their initiative power to target a minority group and illegitimately withdrawing a right that they possessed.


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Seven Things

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1. If Chris Collins or Dr. Barry Weinstein try to get between Iraq war vet David Bellavia and the Republican nomination for the NY-26 seat currently occupied by Kathy Hochul (or whatever it gets redistricted into), expect Bellavia to go absolutely nuts on them both, but especially Collins. Bellavia stepped aside to let Chris Lee take the seat in 2008, and was repaid with Collins and Paladino strong-arming him to give the seat to Collins neighbor Jane Corwin, who went on to lose convincingly.

2. There’s one thing we’ve learned about the drawn-out process to pick a successor to Mark Poloncarz as Erie County Comptroller – it’s the kind of job that no one wants, and is wanted by too many people, simultaneously.

3. It’s rumored that Erie County Legislator Lynn Marinelli, City Councilman Joe Golombek, and Attorney Mark Panepinto are all interested in taking on Mark Grisanti in SD-60. My feeling is that Grisanti has built up enough good will across the political spectrum by proving in his first term that he’s an independent and thoughtful legislator, that he’ll likely be a shoo-in for re-election.

4. Speaking of SD-60, Mickey Kearns’ clumsy foray into the A-148 race to replace Mark Schroeder is reminiscent of Antoine Thompson’s political fumfering. While Democratic candidate Chris Fahey has all the weight, support, and money of the Higgins team behind him, Kearns is rumored to find himself going door-to-door and answering uncomfortable questions from likely voters about why he’d take the Republican nomination after spending many weeks asking for Democrats’ support. Sometimes, political feuds are silly, especially when they force people to strike crazy deals just for a shot at power.

5. When Carl Paladino starts slinging mud at Higgins through his support of Kearns and whomever runs against Higgins for Congress, will he also have every one of his many corporate entities max out to these candidates? Will the self-proclaimed champion of clean politicking and tea party reforms in New York State continue his longstanding practice of obfuscating his financial support of certain candidates? Will Paladino start his own PAC?

6. David DiPietro is running for office again – this time for the newly reconstituted Assembly district that is currently occupied by Genesee County Republican Dan Burling. As might be expected, DiPietro will come at Burling from the tea party right, for instance, demanding that welfare recipients be subjected to Soviet-style invasions of privacy. There’s little love lost between DiPietro and the Republican establishment. Recall that Paladino famously stabbed DiPietro in the back in 2010 to back ECRC favorite Jim Domagalski for Volker’s SD-59 seat.

7. The entire Republican primary process is a depressing farce to see who can out-hate traditional Republican bogeymen like Muslims, Democrats, Obama, Clowns, people in clown makeup, Muezzins, Minarets, headgear, abortions, science, the weather, the notion of a generous and benevolent God, gay people, straight people who aren’t bothered by gay people, modern economic theory, contemporary society, video games, rap music, any non-country/western music, Mexicans, any Hispanics except Cubans, the prickles on roses, clean water proponents, clean air proponents, scientists, people who believe in evolution, bilingual people, Afghani cab drivers, the poor, blacks whom they perceive to be “uppity”, the First Lady, health, safety regulations, people who advocate for renewable energy, the 99%, Occupy activists, people who help the poor, people who help people who help the poor, anyone who isn’t disgusted by the poor, Catholics, Planned Parenthood, China, Asian people with accents, anyone with a foreign accent, public schools, teachers, college professors, Canada, Albanian doormen, people who ride bicycles, unions, people who work for a paycheck, people who get sick, people who need medical attention, swearing, cartoons, movies, salacious TV shows, and the fact that there are too many “Law and Orders”. I think it’s safe to say that President Obama is going to win re-election against these dummies.

It Was the Parsnips that Did It

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Two updates to the Valenti’s saga: 

1. Verizon confirms that the restaurant’s phone was in the name of a dead woman. Commenter RoN aka Karma suspected that the reverse phone number search for D.A. Britting constituted fraud or identity theft. I suspected the online resource may have been out-of-date. 

Verizon was able to confirm that the phone number for Valenti’s restaurant (716-692-4339) was, indeed, in the name of “D.A. Britting”. Other online records show it as being in the name of Verne L. Britting.

Verne Britting died in 1985, but his wife, Dorothy A. Britting, died in 2009.

Why was the phone for Valenti’s Restaurant in the name of a woman who died 3 years ago?  Former employees charge that Valenti and Brocuglio used false social security numbers, or numbers belonging to the dead, to set up the phone lines. In one instance, Terry Valenti was heard to say that they could not pay the phone bill in person for that reason. 

2. Terry Valenti was brought before Niagara County Court Judge Matthew Murphy on Thursday morning, where he waived a hearing on his extradition. He will be held in the Niagara County Jail for up to 30 days awaiting transportation to Texas, where he stands accused of forging his name on documents to fraudulently convert, and transfer title in a motorcycle to unjustly enrich himself. Judge Murphy’s clerk says he likes the other state to pick up prisoners on warrants within 10 days.

Komen Fights More than just Cancer

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As the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation steps deeper and deeper into a steaming pile of its own bullsh*t, consider that all of this is a very calculated political move. What this is is a grave betrayal of Komen’s mission statement:

OUR PROMISE: To save lives and end breast cancer forever by empowering people, ensuring quality care for all and energizing science to find the cures.

Planned Parenthood is under attack from the right because it has the audacity to provide clinical medical services exclusively to women. Most of Planned Parenthood’s mission has to do with reproductive health and services, and yes, 3% of what they do involves abortion services. Because it performs legal, safe abortions in a clinical setting, and because the Republican platform prefers that abortions be done like they were in the old days – by quacks with hangers in alleyways, or abroad – Planned Parenthood must be destroyed.

But Komen and its former funding of PP had nothing whatsoever to do with abortions or even contraception. That’s how we know this is not principled, but political. How is Komen empowering people or saving lives if it de-funds breast exam and mammography services at Planned Parenthood?  The Angry Black Lady sums it up nicely: 

In a press release today, Planned Parenthood announced that The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation will no longer provide Planned Parenthood the more than half million dollars in grant funds which Planned Parenthood uses to provide breast health education, screenings, and referrals for mammograms.

Turns out that Komen’s new Vice-President of Public Policy, Karen Handel, is a Forced Birther, and even ran for governor of Georgia on a platform of defunding Planned Parenthood.  Thus, it seems that Komen for the Cure, the purpose of which is to help women, has been taken hostage by Karen Handel and her right-wing Forced Birth views which undermine women and women’s reproductive choices.  In her own words, “Since I am pro-life [anti-choice] I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”

The mission of Planned Parenthood? Lady, what are you talking about? Themission of Planned Parenthood is to provide health services, including breast cancer screening and education to primarily poor women who otherwise cannot not afford such services.  That is 90% of what Planned Parenthood does. The “mission” of Planned Parenthood aligns with the “mission” of Komen for the Cure — or, at least, it did.  Abortion comprises approximately 3% of the services Planned Parenthood provides.

Furthermore, just as the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion services, I presume that the Komen grant money previously provided to Planned Parenthood is used specifically for breast-health, and not for abortion.

This is part of the Republican effort to do to Planned Parenthood what they did to ACORN – destroy any foundation that exists to help the poor obtain some sort of services or rights. Exactly correct. When Komen isn’t busy pimping out the color pink, advocating against legislation to provide free breast and cervical cancer screening, and trademarking, then aggressively litigating any use of the term “for the cure”, it’s plotting to disassociate itself from Planned Parenthood for nakedly political reasons.

Komen’s official line on the reason for cutting off funds to Planned Parenthood was a newly-instituted rule that declared that the organization was not to give funds to organizations under investigation at the local, state, or federal level. According to Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, former employees of Komen told him that the rule was, in fact, designed to single out Planned Parenthood.

If the new policy is to de-fund organizations that are under some form of investigation, then we ought to all eagerly await the imminent withdrawal of Komen’s $7.5 million for the health clinic at Penn State – an institution that is under administrative investigation arising out of charges of child rape. Komen’s new Vice President in charge of Public Policy is right-wing anti-Planned Parenthood activist Karen Handel, who re-tweeted (then quickly deleted) this:

The backlash has been swift and pointed. People are abandoning Komen in droves, and Planned Parenthood has already more than made up the lost funding through donations. 

There are thousands of national, regional, and local anti-cancer charities out there, but there’s only one Planned Parenthood. If you divest your women’s health organization from providing cancer screening for the poor and the underprivileged, you risk painting yourself unnecessarily into a political corner.  Komen may now become a sweetheart of the right-wing, but it will have long ago stopped fulfilling its mission. 

Komen isn’t so much a charity as it is a business, and it’s now firmly positioned itself as a business that’s right-wing-friendly and a footsoldier in the culture war. Breast cancer doesn’t discriminate based on race, political affiliation, or voting history. That’s why Komen politicizing itself so blatantly is so shockingly sad and unnecessary. 

#BradyonBuffalo

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Yesterday morning, the story broke that a very mean meanie of a man-child who plays catch for a living deigned to say something critical of our fair burgh. As usually happens in these situations (e.g., hockey players who quite correctly criticize how dead our downtown is after business hours), our local media and commentariat freak the hell out, defending to the death the mistaken notion that Buffalo is a world-class city.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164706823868391424″]

Seeing that Channel 2 and 4 were turning this into the top story, I started the #BradyonBuffalo meme.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164729090367168513″]

The purpose of it – and most people got it – was not to mock Brady, but to mock our community sensitivity and over-reaction to what a Tom Brady thinks of Buffalo. Here’s a multi-millionaire superstar about to play in his fifth Super Bowl. He’s won three of them already. He lives in a world-class city – a Boston that just thirty years ago was a parochially-minded, predominately Catholic, faded and crumbling city with a shrinking tax base and a massive inferiority complex. Today, Boston is a world-class city, and Buffalo isn’t. It’s a simple fact that we should just accept.

Take, for instance, how Channel 4 reported on Wednesday’s meme:

Brady’s comments started a flurry of conversation on Twitter, with Buffalo Twitter users using the hashtag #BradyonBuffalo to mock Brady’s comments.

No, we used it to mock Buffalonians’ oversensitivity to outsiders’ criticism of our region. We used it to poke fun at the predictable top-story treatment this would get in all local media, complete with angry reactions from tourism officials and political figures.

You know what? With three exceptions – the Mansion at Delaware, the Hampton Inn on Chippewa, and the Embassy Suites at the Avant, Buffalo hotels are pretty crappy. I mean, have you set foot in the last Adams Mark on Earth yet? Leave it to a concrete eyesore in Buffalo to cling to a dead chain’s trademark. Tim Graham in the Buffalo News is, so far, the only local mainstream media type to get it exactly right, pointing out the small number of local hotels that can accommodate a football team (hint: the Mansion isn’t one of them).

Here are some of my favorites. Stop being such a whiny crybaby, Buffalo. Suck it up.

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[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164733607246704640″]

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The Serbian Fiat Countryman

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With the release of its Countryman mini-SUV, Mini acknowledged that some people simply need more than two doors (or, in the case of the Mini Clubman, two and a half doors). The Countryman has a distinctive dip at the rear window that looks weird, but somehow works:

I test-drove the Fiat 500 last year, and thought it was a fun little car with a small but capable engine – especially the convertible version with a manual transmission. But the back seat was just not credible. Even for small kids. Same goes for the original Mini Cooper. The Cooper S, with a supercharged engine, is even better, and Fiat is releasing its own Abarth version with a turbocharged engine, regrettable 5-speed, rather than 6-speed, manual transmission, and 160HP and 170 lb/ft of torque. While Mini sells cool Brittania, the Fiat 500 Abarth sells, well, this:

http://youtu.be/cpi2IAec9Ho

But the Fiat 500 has been a poor seller in the States mostly because it’s too small for anyone with a kid, so Fiat is bringing a new model, the 500L (large), which it will unveil at the Geneva Auto Show:

You’d almost think it was a badge-engineered Countryman, but it isn’t. I don’t dislike it, but a quick scan of the Facebook comments reveal words like “antipatica”, “brutto”, and “non ci piace”, which you don’t have to know Italian to understand.

It would be great if we got the turbo diesel they’ll get in Europe, and it’s notable that this mini-ute will be built in the same factory in Kragujevac, Serbia that brought the world the Zastava “Yugo”. It will offer seating for 5 and 7 in Europe, but only for 5 in the States.

Here’s the press release:

Fiat presented the first official images of the Fiat 500L, the new model which will have its world preview at the 2012 International Geneva Motor Show.

500L – the L stands for ‘Large’ – is the new addition to the 500 range, which, following the Abarth and Cabrio versions, furthers the brand’s strategy, with the aim of extending its offer by introducing models in a position to satisfy different types of customers.

With the ‘L’, the 500 expands and grows together with customers, to accommodate new experiences and needs once more.

With MPV passenger space combined with the feel of a small SUV on the road and the restrained dimensions and efficiency of a B segment car, the new Fiat model defies the conventional distinctions between the various segments, combining the typical characteristics of different categories in order to create a distinctive alternative to the traditional B and C segments.

With the Fiat 500L, the Fiat brand demonstrates its creative spirit once more: a marriage of functionality and emotion, it features a 5-seater single-volume structure which is 414 cm long, 178 cm wide and 166 cm high. It is a further development of the concept of ‘cab forward’ introduced by Fiat with the 600 Multipla, a precursor to the concept of the compact people carrier.

Produced at the Fiat factory in Kragujevac, Serbia, 500L is a ‘first car’ for those who won’t settle for anything less than Italian style, the versatility that comes from a functional design and engine technology that sets the bar in terms of efficiency.

The Fiat 500L will be introduced to Europe in the last quarter of 2012, with an engine range which will initially comprise two petrol engines (TwinAir and 1.4-litre) and a turbodiesel engine (1.3 MultiJet II) and the most advanced, state-of-the-art technology from Fiat Group Automobiles.

Occupy Buffalo Evicted

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Occupy Buffalo II

Occupy Buffalo, by Flickr user Nykino 2011

Last night, the Buffalo police moved in to evict Occupy Buffalo. The group’s permit to remain in Niagara Square had expired, and the city decided not to renew it. One is tempted to wonder why they were evicted, considering that they weren’t really bothering anyone.

Then again, “not bothering anyone” may not be the best strategy for demonstrating against the plutonomy and crony corporatist corruption. The Occupy movement can be thanked for bringing the patent unfairness of the U.S. tax code to light, and how it is especially designed to benefit the wealthiest 1% at the rest of our expense.

Were it not for the Occupy movement, the very serious problem that Mitt Romney has with respect to his very limited, very curious tax disclosure would not be a “thing”. Now, it’s not only a “thing”, but a thing that is the very embodiment of what Occupy was all about, and the American middle class is pissed.

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