Tonight I’m going to see a portrait of Obama’s dog. Fowler’s paintings of the first family are at Kepa3 Gallery, and there’s an opening tonight, 6-9:30, 31 Barker Street:

Faithfully by Peter Fowler

I attended Mayor Byron Brown’s State of the City speech yesterday, and I thought it was reasonably good, as these things go. Whenever I hear the mayor speak, I am reminded how much better a face he puts on Buffalo than did Tony Masiello. Masiello, whatever his other virtues and failures, was not a great speaker. The first time I attended a Buffalo mayor’s State of the City address, Masiello opened by saying, “You know, I travel all round this country representing this city” and shoulders sagged despondently throughout the Harbour Club.

Brown, by comparison, makes us look good, so long as you don’t look too closely. I note that he is still claiming $4.3 billion in investment in the City of Buffalo, despite that April Buffalo News piece by Jim Heaney that deflated that number substantially. (I can’t find the link, but Heaney winnowed out the chaff and came up with $1.5 billion, of which $1 billion is publicly subsidized.) That $4.3 billion is puffery, and I wish he’d just be proud of the projects that are actually underway or completed, whether with public or private money, rather than include stalled and tentative products among his boasts. And I wish he wouldn’t claim so much of the credit for reaching a settlement on the Hickory Woods disaster, and for reclaiming the Broadway Market from its dysfunctional board. But I guess this was essentially a campaign speech, a running start at the coming Democratic primary against South District Councilmember Mickey Kearns, so what the hell.

I do grant the mayor this: His pride in running tight budgets is justified. The control board has helped his administration in this regard, but I don’t mind if the mayor crows about running regular surpluses and stashing money away in his rainy day fund. He should crow.

His closing left me curious:

“And to those who try to impede our progress, we will not be turned back, we will not be stopped, we will not be discouraged in our mission to keep moving our great city forward.”

To whom is this directed? Does the mayor believe that there is someone trying to sabotage the City of Buffalo? Is there someone he suspects of wishing our city ill? Is he talking about his political opponents?

ADDENDUM: I sat through the speech with attorney Peter Reese, who has a problem with the State of the City speech being a fundraiser for a private nonprofit that’s run out of City Hall. Reese was less satisfied with Brown’s speech than I. In response to Brown’s job-creation promises, especially those tied to the UB 2020 plans and investment in the medical corridor, Reese said, “I’m wondering if he lives in the same city as I do.”

You can get an official copy of Mayor Brown’s speech by clicking here.

Last night Channel 7 News reported that Syaed Ali was detained, his house searched, and his possessions confiscated back in November because Mayor Byron Brown’s security team believed he posed a threat to the safety of the mayor and his family:

It was November of last year when Buffalo Police executed a search warrant at a home on Breckenridge Street. The man who lived there is Syaed Ali. He was detained and his computer, cell phone, and personal documents were taken.

It’s been months and now police are starting to open up and say why. “Let’s just say that there are some safety concerns regarding the mayor and his family,” said police spokesperson Mike DeGeorge.

Those safety concerns were detected by the mayor’s personal security detail and considered then and now to be very serious. “It was their professional opinion that this was potentially serious enough that they forwarded it to the Buffalo Police Department. The police department has taken it and they have been investigating the matter ever since,” said DeGeorge.

Back in January Ali told Eyewitness News he did nothing wrong, and believed the move by the police was a directed from Mayor Byron Brown because of a political dispute. “They said because he made the mayor really mad,” said Ali on January 17th.

It’s been months and Ali has not yet been charged. He has filed a claim against the City of Buffalo to get his belongings back. “I want my stuff back, and all the materials back. I want these people to go away,” said Ali in January.

But that might not happen. Police tell Eye Witness News Ali could soon be facing aggravated harassment and criminal impersonation charges. They have also sought the help of outside agencies and may seek federal charges. “Could charges be upgraded, could they be elevated depending on where the investigation goes, I think that’s possible,” said DeGeorge.

Buffalo Police also tell Eyewitness News they are investigating a separate incident involving the safety of Deputy Mayor Donna Brown.

That’s more than Buffalo Police have been willing to say so far: Up until now, the line has been that the BPD will not comment on ongoing investigations—but apparently that’s not a hard and fast rule.

As long as they’re opening up, I have some questions, and here’s a half dozen of them:

1. If Ali threatened the mayor, why is the charge looming over him misdemeanor aggravated harassment?

2. We’ve talked to both the FBI and the New York Dtate Attorney General’s office, and my impression is that Buffalo Police are not going to get any help on this case from those quarters. Maybe I’m wrong, but a representative of the NYSAG’s office told me yesterday about 12 times, “It’s not our case. It’s all Buffalo Police.” So with what outside agencies is the BPD working?

3. If the mayor’s security detail had enough information about a threat to believe it was creidble and to pinpoint the source of the threat, why didn’t they get an arrest warrant for Ali?

4. If Ali is guilty of sending harassing emails to the mayor—Ali denies that, of course—that still doesn’t explain why he was detained without being arrested, allegedly told he would be arrested if he asked to speak to a lawyer or a relative, and then allegedly told to shut up about the whole incident when he was released or face arrest and criminal charges. And it doesn’t explain why the BPD still has the possessions they confiscated—not just computer equipment, Ali says, but business records, checkbooks, credit cards, cash, deodorant—three months later.

5. A lot of the stuff that Ali says was taken from his house is not covered by the warrant requested by Buffalo Police Detective Anna Mydlarz and signed by City Court Judge Craig Hannah. And the warrant cited the wrong statute (though not by much‚ off by one section). Is that grounds for suppression? What evidence did police garner from that search?

6. Ali has said police asked him to confess that South District Councilmember Mickey Kearns, who is running against Brown for mayor this year, and State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, with whom Brown has been feuding for the past four years, put him up to circulating salacious rumors about the mayor via anonymous email last summer.And that in retaliation the mayor seems to have sicced Buffalo Police on him to give him a good scare.

Let’s say that all of that is true. (I’m not saying I think it is all true, but for the sake of argument…) Let’s imagine there’s not a single fucking sympathetic character in this sordid tale. Doesn’t this then seem like a case of slander and bullying typical of Buffalo’s high-school playground politics, but escalated until it’s out of control?

It’s as if some kids playing with matches and gasoline accidentally set fire to the garage. Those damned kids are a threat to themselves.

Anyway, Ali is coming by here in about 15 minutes, so I’ll follow up with his comments.

Because I’m in a critical mood:

About that new voice over internet protocol phone system being installed in stages in City Hall: Seems like a good idea, notwithstanding the screwup that left several departments without any phone service yesterday—progressive, modernizing, money-saving over the long haul.

But in his December report on the new system to the CitiStat panel, the city’s IT chief, Raj Mehta, explained that one of the benefits of the system is that the mayor’s office will be able to order and review reports of all phone activity in City Hall. That makes a certain amount of sense, in terms of efficiency; it’s nice to know which employees are wasting time on Dial-a-Joke. (I acknowledge the anachronism.)

But government is not any an ordinary business. City Hall is political. Should Byron Brown and his chief political officer, Steve Casey, be allowed to monitor calls made and received from the offices of those they consider political opponents? If that’s okay, will they make their phone records publicly available, without requiring a lengthy Freedom of Information request process?

On Tuesday the Common Council lit into Mayor Byron Brown’s recently issued “Snow Removal Improvement Plan,” which was drafted in response to complaints that the city fell on its face during the snowstorm that hit the weekend before Christmas. A one-page summary of the plan, available on the city’s Web site, offers 10 proposals. These include using GPS devices to track the deployment of plowing crews, creating a “Snow Fighting Command Center,” enhancing “training for new and current employees,” and establishing “mandatory post-storm reports.”

Absent among these is a proposal to hire more plow drivers and field more plows, and a majority of councilmembers on Tuesday seemed to be of the opinion that lack of manpower and machinery on the streets was the principal cause of the city’s shortcomings in the last two months.

Even the North District’s Joe Golombek, who is usually more willing than most councilmembers to cut the mayor slack, said manpower was at least part of the problem, something the mayor denied. “Either it was manpower or incompetence, and I highly doubt it was incompetence,” Golombek said, according to the Buffalo News.

The mayor’s plan does call for the Public Works Department to contract with private plowing companies, and to contract with private towing companies to remove illegally parked cars that prevent plows from clearing narrow residential streets. The plan also calls for the paving over of vacant, city-owned lots, which could then be used for parking. That would mean fewer cars parked in the street and clearer sailing for city plows.

That proposal has drawn some support and also some quick criticism. What about the expense of paving those lots? Aren’t we trying to move away from creating more surface parking lots in this city? Doesn’t this city have enough trouble with stormwater runoff in the sewer system?
One need only look at the example of Allentown to see how community parking lots work out for neighborhoods with insufficient off-street parking. The city-owned lots beside Nietzsche’s and the Old Pink are less than well maintained, and primarily serve the businesses they abut—which is great, but does not help clear the road for city plows in the wee hours of the morning.

And the city-owned lots at the end of Wadsworth and at the corner of College and Allen? Well, they’re not city-owned anymore. The city sold them for peanuts to a developer and to a convenience store owner, respectively. So they’re not exactly alleviating the parking crunch either, except for those who can afford to pay for a spot. Who’s to say all the new city-owned lots proposed in the mayor’s snow removal plan won’t get sold to private parking lot operators down the road?

Upon reading of the plan, one Allentown resident responded by email, “Good planning never goes out of fashion.”

Brian Meyer of the Buffalo News reports that Mayor Byron Brown has relented: The public does not have to pay $35 to hear his State of the City speech on Thursday. Those who wish to attend need only pay if they want to be served lunch, and if they do, about a third of the price of their ticket will benefit something called Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo.

We first wrote about this practice—turning a civic event into a fundraiser for a private charity controlled by the mayor—in 2007, when Brown delivered his first annual State of the City address. (It’s worth clicking the link for the quotes from the late Jimmy Griffin at the end.) Back then, we had a hard time discovering what it is Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo intended to do. Last week, AV editor Buck Quigley looked through the not-for-profit’s paperwork and discovered it has not put a lot of money on the streets—just $8,500 by the end of 2007, when it sat on assets of $60,000. Quigley estimated the mayor’s fund will raise another $20,000 on Thursday afternoon.

Seems almost like wonder if Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo is saving up for a rainy day. I wonder if the folks who control that fund—Brown stalwarts like Steve Casey, Mike Seaman, Dana Bobinchek, and Alisa Lukasiewicz—will find more ways to spend that money this summer, when the mayoral election will be looming?

Last week attorney Peter Reese protested the mayor’s use of the City of Buffalo and CitiStat seals on invitations for what he said amounts to a private fundraiser. The mayor’s spokesperson, Peter Cutler, denied to the Buffalo News that Reese’s protest influenced the mayor’s decision to open a limited number of seats to the public free of charge.

We get mail:

Local writer Jay Joseph on Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich: Infamous Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is not only as foolish as his name and hair, but may go down as being the most arrogant and ignorant governor in American history. In case this is new news to you, Blagojevich, who is on his second-term as Democratic governor of Illinois, was arrested in December on federal charges that he attempted to sell Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat. Blagojevich has been accused of calling the seat “golden” on a wiretap, and describing this Senate seat as something he won’t “give up for nothing.”

All of this however did not stop the governor from performing his duties; in fact, he actually believes he has done nothing wrong! This is the man who campaigned for his job on a promise to clean up the government. After Blago bailed himself out, he returned to office and told the press he refuses to resign and will continue to act as governor.

Here’s where things get screwy or normal in the world of politics. Following an over-whelming cry for Blagojevich’s impeachment, the Illinois Supreme Court strangely rejected a motion to declare him unfit for office from Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. She said that his actions should not have been that of a governor’s. No one wanted to hear it though, and he remained in power. And so Blago’s ego grew even larger. The disgraced governor then hired R. Kelly’s former attorney, and held a press conference claiming he did nothing wrong, but refused to answer any questions or discuss his statements recorded on the FBI wiretaps.

Soon thereafter, in an attempt to draw attention away from himself, Blagojevich appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to Obama’s seat on December 30th 2008. Since Blago is under federal investigation, Senate Democratic leaders initially did not permit Burris to be sworn in, leading to a brand new fiasco. Burris got mad, Harry Reid got mad, majority leaders got mad and eventually Burris was appointed to the seat. Blago knew just what he was doing with that one.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, even for the gov. With growing outrage over Blagojevich, his conduct and the threat he may present to the Obama team, the Illinois House recently voted 114-1 in favor to impeach the ridiculous governor. The 21-member House committee recommended that Rod Blagojevich be impeached for abuse of power, and only one House member voted in Blago’s favor. Blagojevich criticized the decision in a news conference calling the House “biased” and stating that a Senate trial will produce a different result. He even concluded his speech by quoting a Tennyson poem—what a blowhard this guy is!

However, even with Blago’s gleam of hope and knowledge of poetry, it still wasn’t enough for him to make an appearance at his own impeachment trail. The state Senate officially began proceedings for a final impeachment trial Monday, January 26th without the governor or his attorney anywhere in sight. Boycotting the proceedings, Blago claimed they were unfair to him, and instead made appearances on programs such as Good Morning America, The View, and Larry King Live. Blagojevich told that the Illinois state government has an agenda against him, that he has “done nothing illegal” and that he even considered appointing Oprah Winfrey to Obama’s vacant Senate seat. I assure you, as ridiculous as all of this sounds, nothing has been made up.

Blago has been quite the character and really seems to be getting himself in over his head, but unfortunately he’s a dirty politician from our country’s dirtiest political state. You can put money on the fact that he will fight and fight and spend millions of dollars doing so until everyone gives up or forgets what he is on trial for. The man clearly has made a mockery of himself and Illinois for that matter, even though there isn’t much grace there to begin with. He’s being accused of trying to make a profit through this appointment, but he claims any remarks of his on the wiretaps are taken out of context. Hopefully the state Senate isn’t so easily fooled by Blago when he finally decides to attend his own trial. And hopefully he gets more than the usual slap on the wrist for our trusted politicians.

Local artist Arseno stopped by the office today with this portrait of Barack Obama made entirely of gum wrappers. (”About $40 worth,” he told us.) If you want to see the real thing, it’ll be hanging in the window at 2309 Elmwood Avenue, just north of Kenmore, where he’s opening a shop called Art Lover’s Oasis at the end of February.

Buffalo’s Common Council has vowed to stop the JW Pitts Properties hotel proposal for the Erie Basin Marina in the usual, quotidian way: by a vote. But Frank Brutus of the Buffalo Ruse has the true and infinitely more readable story:

What could have been one of the darkest days in the history of the City of Buffalo was heroically averted yesterday by South District Common Councilman Michael “Mickey” Kearns. Combining his expert political training with an 8th-grade public school education, Kearns calmly enacted a “double-bird” strike to bring down a hot-air proposal that threatened to devastate Buffalo’s waterfront for generations to come.

Hundreds of witnesses told their story to reporters who flocked to the scene of what some are referring to as the ‘Miracle on Lake Erie.’ “I was watching as Jim Pitts’ waterfront hotel plan was slowly being lifted into the air, higher and higher, by a few council members who supported it,” said Buffalo resident and eyewitness Carl “Jimbo” Brandt. “Then, all of a sudden, from out of nowhere, both of Mr. Kearns’ middle fingers shot straight up. There was a loud ‘bang’ and the proposal burst into flames, black smoke billowing from it’s edges. The last I saw, the flaming proposal was in the hands of Mr. Kearns as he ran in the direction of the Chamber exit.” Another witness recounts what happened next. Rebecca Simons, who operates a cheese cart outside of City Hall, watched as Kearns rushed by her with the fiery proposal in his bare hands. “He looked composed, he wasn’t shouting or screaming,” said Simons, who added, “He actually said to me as he rushed by that he would be back to try some of the gouda. The man is an angel sent straight from Heaven.”

Emergency rescue teams, still assembled at the Buffalo shoreline late last night, were incredulous that the incident was resolved with no reported deaths or serious injuries. “What Mickey Kearns pulled off here today is nothing short of a miracle,” said Buffalo Fire Department chief Michael Lombardo “We’re not a city equipped to deal with the sort of disaster that was looming in that proposal. If it hadn’t been safely thrown into the ice-covered lake, there’s no telling how many people might have been victimized for years to come.”

Kearns, reported by neighbors to be at home with his wife and children, declined to speak to reporters. Raised on the streets on South Buffalo, Kearns learned the power of a double-bird strike while he worked as an aide to the late Mayor James D. Griffin. Family members, who claimed that Kearns never imagined he would ever need to use his bird strike training, were effusive in their praise. “Mickey never asked to be a hero,” said his cousin Molly McGuinness. “But on the precipice of Buffalo’s darkest hour, he calmly carried out the duties that he has spent a lifetime learning.” McGuinness’ sister Maureen quickly added, “And every Buffalo resident owes him more than their gratitude. They need to vote for him when he runs for Mayor later this year.”

Mayor Brown downplayed the Councilman’s heroism. “I like to think that we are all heroes in Buffalo. Plow-drivers, police officers, taxpayers,” said the Mayor. “And I’d like to remind everyone that Mr. Kearns, in throwing the flaming waterfront proposal into Lake Erie, may have created a separate environmental problem that will take generations to correct.” Brown declined to clarify exactly what he meant by that.

Some items, possibly true and possibly not, to consider:

—Is North District Councilmember Joe Golombek considering a run for City Comptroller? If so, how does Andy SanFilippo feel about that? Both enjoy cozy relations with Mayor Byron Brown. Who would win the mayor’s support?

—I called to ask Joe, but turns out the phones in City Hall are down today. Raj Mehta, the city’s IT chief, has been overseeing the installation of a new digital VOIP phone system in City Hall. (You can learn more about it by watching Mehta’s last round with the CitiStat panel.) He says that Verizon switched off the Common Council’s old lines on Friday at 4pm instead of today at 4pm. (I emailed Joe, as well, and will relay his answer when it comes.)

—I’ve been told that the continuing battle between the mayor and the Common Council over the 2009 capital budget originated with a $200,000 streets project for the intersection of Linwood and North—a project in the Niagara District, represented by David Rivera, who beat out mayoral advisor Peter Savage for that seat. The mayor left that project out of his original capital budget; the Common Council added the project in its version, which divided infrastructure improvement funds equally among councilmanic districts instead of leaving all the spending at the mayor’s discretion. (The five-member majority coalition argued that the mayor has used the capital funds to reward and punish councilmembers over the past three years.) When the mayor vetoed the Council’s revisions, he retained funding for the Linwood-North project, admitting it was necessary, while stripping infrastructure improvement funds from the districts represented by the councilmembers who voted to revise his original budget.

—Finally, I’ve heard that a member of the Buffalo Police Department’s Mobile Response Unit has been detailed to perform a bomb search at HSBC Arena before each home Sabres game. Problem is, there’s no such duty. The BPD doesn’t do bomb searches at HSBC Arena before each home Sabres game. So what is that officer being paid to do?

UPDATE: Joe Golombek says he, too, has heard the tumor that he’s running for comptroller, but at this point he’s happy to be North Dostrict Councilmember. He says, “There are several issues that I would like to work on, including:  new and improved special police, crime stats on the internet, artist studios at the BRAC (Buffalo Religious Arts Center) which is the former St. Francis Xavier, a Main Street Project for Tonawanda Street, City Manager form of government and non-partisan elections for the City of Buffalo among others.”