The BEAST: Buffalo's Best Fiend

Code Red - Everybody’s freaking out about Giambra’s proposed “red budget,” which would scale spending down to mandated minimums, and basically reduce Buffalo to some anarchic Escape From New York-style war zone within a year or two. People are understandably up in arms about the possible loss of branch libraries, the philharmonic and all arts funding (although we wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to that monumentally depressing animal Abu Ghraib we call a zoo), as well as a staggering reduction in nearly every other service, except high-level patronage jobs, of course. Frankly, our intuition tells us that these well-meaning folks are playing right into Joel’s hands. The red budget is just a scare tactic, a decoy to send us running to the expensive, tax-laden green budget, which will ensure that Giambra’s cronies will continue to suck cash out of our pockets like the monetary vampires they are. By the time the fear-mongering is over, you’ll be all too glad to accept yet another penny in regressive sales tax, which Joel claims is fair because “tourists” will share the burden. Tourists. Right.

In fact, we want to see the red budget passed. It might be enough of a kick in the ass to motivate whoever’s left after the smoke clears to finally implement some real regime change in this hellhole. Giambra blames Medicaid for the county’s woes, but don’t buy it: it’s the same Republican strategy of letting a problem grow and grow until there’s nothing left to do but cut vital services; the same strategy Bush has applied to Social Security. At one point, these guys had the means to head these problems off, but they were all too happy to push things to the breaking point, because at their very core they don’t think poor people deserve anything. Giambra’s next election is years away, so there’s a good chance you’ll all have forgotten this supersized fiscal shitburger by then. But if you vote for him again, we hope you die of genital cancer.

Rewarding Incompetence - Your state lawmakers—you know, the ones you just reelected because they’re doing such a bang up job running New York—have decided it’s time to raise their salaries in order to fix the Legislature’s broken ways! Six short years ago, they went from making $57,500 to $79,500 so it’s a pretty safe bet the next raise will put these bastards over the $100,000 mark (which they make easily anyway, when you add up all the perks).

It isn’t a done deal yet, but don’t worry; they’ll pass themselves a sweet thirty or forty percent raise soon enough. It’s a sad fact nobody gives a shit about the corruption, ineptitude and outright larceny that is our state government. You could take any average Joe and scream one example after another in his face and he might get a little worked up about it, but he’s still gonna vote for the same dickwad every election because he recognizes his name. We specifically told you not to vote for ANY incumbents, NO MATTER WHAT, so now it’s time to reap what you’ve sown.

Board Games - The city will be $10 million in the black starting next fiscal year, and that’s about $140 million better than Erie County. The city raised the money by hiking property, sales and mortgage taxes as well as doubling parking ticket fines. Our leaders have taken us to the depths of despair and now we have to bail them out of the jam; ain’t that a bitch? It is, especially when the Mayor says the surplus shows city officials are “managing the heck out of this place.” Ten bucks says the mayor couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag without hired (or state sponsored) help. Nothing to worry about, though; by this time next year we’ll hopefully have a new lazy, crooked mayor who lets the control board do all the hard work and take all the heat.

Nayled - Convicted crook and Giambra crony Doug Naylon recently got a light sentence of three years probation and a $2,000 fine (chump change for this chump) after pleading guilty to two misdemeanors in connection with the Aurora Highway Department scandal. You might remember all the trouble he caused, stealing supplies and equipment, overspending, unauthorized use of vehicles and causing huge trouble with unionized workers, all of which has cost county taxpayers big money and hijacked the services we pay for. Naylon says the whole affair has destroyed him and his family, but his only real regret is getting caught. The message behind this fluffy sentence is something we’ve learned time and again: stealing is only wrong when you’re poor.

Parking Scam - Here’s a familiar Buffalo story: control of a lucrative public entity is given over to connected private interests, and they wind up ripping off taxpayers in the guise of performing a selfless service. Such is the story of Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps or BCAR, a group of downtown businessmen and building owners who control every overpriced parking lot and ramp in the city proper. They expect taxpayers not to see a glaring conflict of interest on its face, knowing most of us are mindless dolts willing to shell out top dollar for a shitty parking spot. Seriously. Especially blowhard Carl Paladino, who not only is a member of BCAR, but owns a bunch of downtown parking lots on his own. Now you might understand why they’re all so ridiculously expensive and the price fluctuation between lots is so narrow.

People used to shop downtown, and parking was reasonably priced, but now there’s no shopping to be had and the logical conclusion of soulless, money-hungry businessmen is to gouge the only people left: office drones and service workers. It seems the jig is up, however: the lomg-slumbering City Parking Board has decided it’s time to bid out the job of running $100 million worth of city parking ramps, which bring in almost $8 million a year. Of course BCAR is bidding, along with other management companies. Seeing as the Mayor wipes his ass with Carl Paladino’s money, we expect no surprises in who winds up getting the contract. The 21st Century is upon us and we’re still doing business like it’s the 1950s. How strange is it to have to shell out major green for parking in a city that’s almost totally empty?

ECMC Scam Revisited - Way back in issue #49, we told you about the idiotic plan to mortgage ECMC so the Giambra administration could get its dirty little hands on over $100 million to plug gaping holes in the county budget. There were many problems with the concept, especially the fact there was no blueprint for the future of the hospital besides allowing private practitioners the opportunity to partner with ECMC, which would somehow turn the hospital into a profitable entity. This despite the fact that everywhere else it’s been tried it has resulted in disaster, with hospitals going under and citizens stuck with massive amounts of debt.

Finally, someone’s agreed with us. State Comptroller Alan Hevesi blasted the sale of ECMC, saying “The county forced the hospital to borrow and took the proceeds to pay for the county’s operating expenses.” Right now we owe $214 million on the 30-year loan. Funny how you can sell something and get stuck with a bill. That’s just plain retarded, but typical of Erie County’s financial buggering. What’s worse, this is just the beginning; that number will be doubling and tripling in the coming years, and oblivious citizens will be shocked when ECMC collapses under a mind-boggling debt burden.

Gravy Train Back on Track - Thank god the Department of Housing and Urban Development changed its mind and gave the city $8 million dollars to build more new houses on the East Side. If Buffalo needs anything it’s certainly new housing, what with all the abandoned buildings we already have. Kudos to the Mayor and his staff for hiring help to fill out simple request forms properly on time after repeated HUD criticisms. Must have taken an awful lot of work, but we know how hard City Hall is working to get Buffalo back on track to fiscal sobriety. HUD was upset they gave the city a ton of money to build 344 new houses and only 125 were finished before the money magically dried up. This is free money we’re talking about, just sitting there waiting to be taken and given to friendly developers and construction types attempting to bring suburban sprawl to the inner city. The Mayor can crow all he wants about how good he’s doing, but the HUD situation is merely one instance of this city’s idiotic habit of giving money away and watching it go straight down the toilet as connected businessmen default on huge loans, leaving taxpayers holding the bag.