Opinion and Commentary since 2003
WBEN’s Steve Cichon posted a large number of color Kodachromes showing mid-50s Buffalo here, courtesy of Becky Harbinson at ClarenceGrad72.
It’s a glimpse into a world that’s long gone – the closest thing to time travel we have. These photographs are a treasure. Thanks to Becky and Steve for sharing them.
1. I am hearing that ex-County Exec Chris Collins is telling people that he’s going to run against Kathy Hochul for Congress in 2012. The redistricting issue is not yet settled, so it’s unknown what Hochul’s district will look like. If true, it immediately reminds me of the story in the Buffalo News in early 2010 whereby Collins – angrily, his natural state – confronted Hochul over whether she would be running against him for County Executive. As we all know, wealthy unemployed person Chris Lee went looking for sex with transexuals on Craigslist, resigned his Congressional seat, and Hochul went on to defeat Collins’ neighbor, Jane Corwin in May.
2. I’ve always been curious about the connection between Entercom and the SPCA – the hearts of some of the ultra-conservative hosts on Entercom bleed for animals while they have little compassion for down-on-their-luck humans. A tipster (actually, it’s the guy we all know as Doc Maelstrom, whoever he might be) emails the following with respect to the current controversy surrounding the Niagara County SPCA:
For the sake of disclosure it should be revealed that the President of the Niagara County SPCA, Brandy Scrufari, works for the President of the Erie County SPCA, Larry Robb, at WTSS radio. Robb is VP/GM of WTSS and several other Entercom radio stations where Brandy Scrufari has been working for the past 20 years. To have the Erie County SPCA scrutinize the claims of cruelty against the Niagara County SPCA is disingenuous considering the relationship Scrufari and Robb have had for two decades. Do not expect this investigation to reveal anything that Scrufari does not want revealed.
http://www.niagaraspca.org/Board%20of%20Directors_1
http://www.yourspca.org/page.aspx?pid=511
3. The atmosphere at yesterday’s Erie County Legislative reorg session was nothing like the last one, where the so-called “reform coalition” broke away to create a de facto Collins-friendly Republican legislative majority caucus. In 2009, when staffers were fired, Sheriffs were on hand to intimidate and impliedly threaten. Yesterday’s session, where Betty Jean Grant was unanimously elected chairwoman, was downright friendly. There was camaraderie among the legislators and their staffs, there were smiles, handshakes, and relief. The session took a little over an hour, whereas 2009’s went on for hours. While there is already some acrimony over borrowing versus spending from the general fund, yesterday’s session bodes well for a more functional and less acrimonious 2012 – 2014. There was some staff turnover yesterday, but I frankly detected more relief than anything even from those who didn’t know what their fate would be.
Here are some reminders from 2010:
I will never, for the life of me, understand why Kodak couldn’t have pivoted into becoming a digital imaging giant. I haven’t developed a roll of film in ten years, and Kodak owned tons of digital imaging patents. I’ll never understand why Canon, Nikon, Leica, Minolta, Pentax, and other foreign camera makers thrive on excellence and innovation, but Kodak couldn’t get it together to make a quality digital imaging product that people around the world would use. It was all unnecessary and myopic.
HT Marquil from EmpireWire.com.
HT Marquil at EmpireWire.com
The Erie County Legislature has unanimously elected Betty Jean by as Chairwoman of that body. Tim Hogues made the nomination, with seconds coming from Loughran, Mazur, and Marinelli. Republican legislator Kevin Hardwick also spoke warmly about Grant, jokingly concluding that he reserved the right to retract his remarks “the first time [she] crosses [him]”.
Feed Your Soul, a local organization headed by local foodie Christa Glennie Seychew, has now produced three seasons of “Nickel City Chef“, a local variant of the “Iron Chef” model. Local chefs battle a “Nickel City Chef” using a secret, locally sourced, ingredient. A panel of judges tastes and rates the food on taste, presentation, and use of the secret ingredient. (By way of full disclosure, Seychew is my food editor at the Buffalo Spree, she and FYS are clients of mine, and I have been honored to judge during all three seasons of Nickel City Chef.)
The purpose of the competition isn’t just to highlight the creativity and technical expertise of local chefs – some of whom are quite established, and others who are just up-and-coming – but also to promote the excellent farms and producers of high-quality food right here in western New York.
Although the audience at Nickel City Chef doesn’t get to taste the items presented for judging, each competition is catered by a well-regarded local restaurateur, and it’s fantastic to watch chefs hard at work – with expert color commentary from SeaBar chef/owner Mike Andrezejewski – and the suspense during the judging process is palpable. The competitions take place at Artisan Kitchens & Baths on Amherst Street.
Tickets for the fourth season go on sale Friday. Following on the heels of Western New York’s hottest selling holiday release, Nickel City Chef: Buffalo’s Finest Chefs & Ingredients, Feed Your Soul anticipates tickets for all four shows in 2012 to sell out within 36 hours.
Taking place in the stunning loft showroom of Buffalo’s Artisan Kitchens & Baths, Season Four’s schedule of dates is listed below. Tickets for the 2012 season go on sale at noon Friday, January 6th. Tickets are $38 each and include catered gourmet snacks and access to a cash bar during the event. Children under 16 are not recommended to attend.
Links to online ticketing will be available at NickelCityChef.com.
Nickel City Chef Krista Van Wagner of Curly’s
versus
Challenging Chef Frank Mercado of M&T’s Private Executive Dining Room
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Nickel City Chef Brian Mietus of Bacchus
versus
Challenging Chef Dunbar Berdine of Black Rock Kitchen & Bar
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Nickel City Chef Adam Goetz of Sample
versus
Challenging Chef Christopher Daigler of Encore
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Nickel City Chef JJ Richert of Torches
versus
Challenging Chef Chris Dorsaneo of Lloyd
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Ticket Link: www.NickelCityChef.com
A hearing of the Buffalo Common Council’s Legislative Committee was held yesterday on the issue of a proposed statute legalizing food trucks within the city. You can read the proposed legislation and sign a petition here.
Truck advocates are generally pleased with the proposed law, but questioned the need to carry around two 65-gallon garbage cans in their trucks, and sought clarity on the definition of “property line” as set forth in the proposed law. An added issue I have with the law is that it should be easy for kitchens to waive the 100′ ban in an informal way, if mutually agreed-to.
It is expected that the final legislation will be passed before the end of this month. This will clarify, legalize, and regulate the food trucks’ operations for the 2012 warm weather season.
Courtesy of the Buffalo News’ Aaron Besecker, you can watch video of some of the presentations made at yesterday’s hearing, and pay close attention to Zetti’s Pizza’s John Fusco, who has a request for people who would vilify him on the internet. (For what it’s worth, I like Zetti’s, and I like John, but I think he’s wrong on this issue.) Unfortunately, the Buffalo News does not permit embedding of videos.
Congratulations to Councilman Richard Fontana, who is the new President of the Buffalo Common Council. Time will tell whether his tenure in that position will be as friendly to the Brown Administration as has been presumed.
Congratulations to Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant, who is expected to be elected Chairwoman of the Erie County Legislature today at 2pm. She wasn’t in the running, really, and emerged as a consensus candidate among legislature Democrats, who were eager to leave two years of acrimony behind. The pick renders false the breathless speculation by some that key Dems would align with the Republicans, and Grant’s selection seems symbolic, as her most recent predecessor and she would get into extremely heated arguments during the last session. With a new administration and a newly downsized legislative body, there’s a chance that the legislature will feature significantly less bickering, and they’ll just do their jobs.
And then we can discuss a complete abolition of county government as a separate deliberative entity, seeing as only about 10% of its budget is at all discretionary.
Congratulations to Channel 4’s Melissa Holmes, who will be replacing the departing Marissa Bailey at WGRZ-TV Channel 2.
Congratulations to Ted Shredd and Tom Ragan from 103.3-FM WEDG (“The Edge”), whose show will be moving to morning drive. Shredd & Ragan is that rare radio talk program in Buffalo that (a) isn’t almost exclusively devoted to sports talk; (b) doesn’t feature elderly reactionaries; and/or (c) doesn’t feature short-statured mulleted half-witted omniphobes.
Congratulations to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy Party will be permitted to participate in the upcoming election. The Burmese military leadership has been liberalizing that country’s politics in recent months, as Burma has become an economic and social backwater due to economic sanctions, while many of its neighbors’ economies have been thriving.
Over the weekend, we inaugurated a new County Executive, Mark Poloncarz. After four years of being told that government needed to be run like a business, Poloncarz reminded us of government’s true reason for being.
A government isn’t a business, and shouldn’t be run like one. It exists to serve its constituents; its people. It exists exactly to provide services that the private sector cannot – or will not – provide to meet the needs of its people. It exists not to serve a small elite, but those with the least influence.
It represents a complete redirection of what the purpose of government is, and whom it serves. To that end, the first five executive orders Poloncarz signed are:
Executive Order #001—Procurement of Legal Services to Support Buffalo Bills Lease Negotiations:
This order requires the Erie County Attorney to immediate commence a process to procure the services of special counsel to support the upcoming lease negotiations with the Buffalo Bills through the issuance of a Request for Proposals from qualified law firms.
Executive Order #002—Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Task Force:
This order requires the Commissioner of the Department of Social Services, in conjunction with the County Attorney’s Office and the Erie County Comptroller’s Office, to recommend the methods and procedures to create a Medicaid Anti-Fraud Task Force.
As Comptroller, Poloncarz issued a review (6/17/2009) examining Erie County’s anti-fraud initiatives and expressing concern over the County’s lack of progress in recovering funds from providers engaging in fraud.
Executive Order #003—Time and Attendance Monitoring – Use of Swipe Cards:
This order requires every employee of Erie County, including the Deputy County Executive, commissioners, deputy commissioners and other exempt employees to abide by Erie County’s electronic time keeping “swipe card” system policy as stated in the Erie County Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual.
As Comptroller, Poloncarz issued two separate reviews (7/15/2009 and 8/11/2011) of the swipe card system, which noted that prior administrations had exempted commissioners, deputy commissioners and senior staff from adhering to the policy.
Executive Order #004—Equal Employment Opportunity Program Review and Update:
This order requires the Director of the Erie County Equal Employment Opportunity Office to review and update the Erie County Affirmative Action Manual to bring it into compliance with current law and practices. This manual has not been updated since 1981.
Executive Order #005—Review of Use of Outside Counsel by the Erie County Attorney:
This order requires the Erie County Attorney to conduct a study and submit a report on the use of retained counsel by Erie County.
Poloncarz Inaugural Speechhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/77112929/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-2i78mdgjia98tt9s4975//