This cat was saved by City Kitty.

It may not be “kitten season” yet, but it’s definitely time for last season’s batch of cuties to get spayed or neutered, in order to ward off an even bigger kitty explosion come spring. This semi-annual fundraiser helps “build the kitty for the kitties,” meaning proceeds benefit City Kitty, basically a one-woman cat rescue mission in the form of Robin Johnson. Vilardo Printing, Johnson’s business, is located at 326 Connecticut St., where she has has been tending to neighborhood strays since 2001. While the cats/kittens come in various stages of disease or neglect, at about six or seven months old, nearly all of them need to be spayed or neutered, which is the biggest cost of care for these “outdoor pets,” far surpassing medicine and flea control in expense. With approximately five cats that need “fixing” at any given time, it’s time for a fundraiser to help with costs. This one is at Nietzsche’s on Sunday afternoon (Nov. 8), from 2-8pm. Music provided by All of Them Witches, Bev Beverly, Fouren, Odiorne, and Wooden Waves on the front stage; on the back stage we’ll get Rose Bond, Susan Peters, Kathy Puleo, and Liz Abbott.

2-7pm. Nietzsche’s, 248 Allen St. $10 donation plus cat food appreciated.

Tonight (Nov. 7), Artvoice is presenting a Jeff Garbaz production, in tribute to Pink Floyd and the best in audio-visual psychedelia. You don’t have to be an aficionado to know that Floyd was seriously into pigs, and featured inflatable, custom-designed porcines as props at their live shows dating back to the mid-1970s. The first Pink Floyd pig was reportedly named “Algie” and designed by Roger Waters himself for the cover of the 1977 album Animals. Reflecting Orwellian themes during the heyday of punk rock’s reign, Animals has often been tagged by rock historians as the band’s “forgotten” album, though its iconoclastic status is indisputable today. Perhaps such a deep dive into symbolism and psychedelia (the song “Dogs” on the album is 17 actual minutes long—basically the entire A side) wasn’t easy to receive in the Sex Pistols-enthralled culture of late 1970s Britain. But the album is largely dedicated to pigs, with three songs out of its five titled on that subject (Waters’s Orwell-inspired political commentary is quite fitting in these late aughties, no?), and the other two songs being the aforementioned “Dogs” and the 10-minute “Sheep.” Still, don’t expect any 10- to 20-minute overtures from the bands playing on Saturday night. The set list will be more in keeping with the kind of Floyd you don’t have to lay down in a dark room all alone to listen to. Garbaz’s head-spinning visual FX and set design will accompany choice covers from local bands Appestra, Cowboys of Scotland, Peanut Brittle Satellite, the Project, Relics of WNY, Rogue Science, Stu Fuchs, and the Vegetable Men. And even if you think you’ve heard it all before, just show up to see some pigs fly.

8pm. Nietzsche’s, 248 Allen St. $6.

Each month for the past year, 15-20 local and regional artists have exhibited their work at the College Street Gallery (which recently celebrated its 12-year anniversary), and it’s time to celebrate. The Co-op’s first anniversary celebration will be held during Allentown’s monthly First Friday Gallery Walk on Friday (Nov. 6). Besides College Street, particiating galleries this month include Allen Street Hardware, Betty’s Restaurant, Buffalo Big Print, El Buen Amigo, El Museo, Hallwalls, Hero Design Studio, Indigo, Kepa3, Merge Restaurant, Sp@ce 224, Starlight Studio, Studio Hart, and Sugar City.

Venues are scattered throughout the Elmwood/Allen area, all the way to Tupper and Delaware (where Hallwalls is, at Babeville). Back to College Street, where this month’s exhibitors number 18, the reception goes on from 5-10 pm and it’s as good a place (or better) as any to start.

There’s also the Allentown Artfest Music festival at Nietzsche’s (248 Allen St.), all day and night on Saturday starting at 2pm, and all day on Sunday from 2-9pm, a different band every hour.
Sonic Garden plays at The Bend (250 Allen St.) right next door, on Sunday from 2-6pm.

Tonight at 7pm, there’s a meeting at the Allendale Theatre (203 Allen Street) concerning a possible reuse for Buffalo Public School #36, which sits on the northwest corner of Days Park in Allentown and fronts on Hudson Street as well. At the meeting, the Elmwood Village Charter School (124 Elmwood Avenue) will make a pitch for reusing the school, which is slated for closure—as a school.

Three years ago Days Park was on a list of schools the BPS wanted to close. (We wrote about it back in 2006.) It didn’t close back then, in large part because the Herman Badillo school was not yet ready to absorb its students, but it will close in June. Knowing that, neighbors have been casting around for someone interested in developing the site or reusing the existing building—anything to prevent the blight that an abandoned hulk of a building would inflict on the surrounding blocks.

Plans for some sort of residential development went nowhere. But now the Elmwood Village Charter School has come forward with an idea. The state board that regulates charter schools has given permission for the Elmwood Village Charter School to expand. The school can’t expand in the building its using now, and so is interested in acquiring School #36.

It seems a perfect match: BPS wants to close a school, and another, successful school would like to move in. But to move along the process—whereby the BPS decommissions the school and turns it over to the city’s real estate department, which can negotiate a deal with the charter school—the BPS wants to see some sign of community support.

Tonight’s meeting is the time to learn about the project and decide whether you’re in.

Here’s UB President John Simpson stumping for his UB2020 plan to “over 600 community leaders” last September at Babeville. Looks like a healthy cross-section of our community, huh? You can read the press release from the UB News Center here.

Now, the plan is coming under criticism from United University Professions, NYSUT, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the AFL-CIO and several other labor unions, expressing grave concerns about the plan’s impact on workers, and the potential for it to radically change the public nature—not only of UB, but of the entire SUNY system.

Here’s a link to the story as reported on the University Heights Answer Lady blog, and below, as reported on Monday by Tom Campbell at WNY Labor Today:

The University At Buffalo’s A-S/2020 Bill Runs Into Trouble With
Organized Labor/Union Officials Say Present Draft Is Anti-Labor (more…)

Thanks once again to everyone who came out to Mardi Gras 2009! To our Queens of Mardi Gras, bands and performers, parade participants, bars and clubs, and everyone else involved – thank you for making this year another great success.

We’ve put together a photo gallery so you can either reminisce, or see what you missed. This first group of photos are care of Artvoice photographer Rose Mattrey. We’ll be adding some more Mardi Gras 2009 media soon.

Start the slide show!

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.”

Tonight at 6:30pm in the auditorium of the downtown library, everyone is invited to attend a public hearing on the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus—North End Projects. Among the projects planned are a 300,000 square foot Medical Office Building to be owned and operated by Ciminelli Development Company, Inc., which will lease medical office space to a variety of tenants. Also planned is a 200,000 square foot skilled nursing facility, and a “multi-modal transportation structure that can accommodate 1,200 to 1,600 cars”—not to be confused with a parking garage.

The most ballyhooed project is the 500,000-600,000 square foot Global Vascular Institute, which, according to the report sponsored by BNMC, Kaleida Health, Ciminelli Development Compan, Inc, and the University at Buffalo, will be a “first-of-its-kind, multi-dimensional medical institute focused on the full spectrum of vascular health care, and will bring together physicians, researchers and educators to address heart and vascular diseases.” The report states that the Institute will be operated by Kaleida Health and the University at Buffalo.

The plans call for the removal of six residential structures, the closure of Goodrich Street, the demolition of the Community Mental Health Facility, and would require the removal of two properties eligible for recognition by the National Register of Historic Places.

The lead agency holding tonight’s meeting is the City of Buffalo Planning Board. The report, and relevant maps can be downloaded at the links below.

DRAFT GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT

MAPS

The deadline for written comments regarding the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement is November 18, 2008. Written comments should be sent to:

William P. Grillo

c/o City of Buffalo Planning Board

901 City Hall

Buffalo, NY 14202