Who Else Will Get Fired?
Here’s what I want to know:
Mayor Byron Brown said that he asked Rich Tobe to resign because the city’s economic development, permit and inspection services department was being reconfigured. Well, then, who else is getting fired? Are any city inspectors losing their jobs?
Brown said that Tobe had done a good job, but that he wanted some economic development measures to move more quickly than they had under Tobe.
Are other department heads also in danger of losing their jobs for not moving quickly enough? How about John Hannon, the city’s real estate chief? He moves like a three-toed sloth, and his inaction costs the city private investment dollars.
If he wants to prove that Tobe’s firing was not politically or personally motivated, Brown is going to have to clean house thoroughly.
June 23, 2008
Update: Tobe’s Resignation
UPDATE: Here’s Tobe’s statement on his departure:
At the request of Mayor Byron W. Brown, today, I submitted my resignation as Commissioner of the Department of Economic Development Permit and Inspection Services.
Mayor Brown indicated to me on Friday June 20, 2008 that he will be announcing a reorganization of the City government in the near future and that my resignation will facilitate his plans.I am pleased that when I leave City government Buffalo will be more prosperous, better managed, and more optimistic than when I arrived two and a half years ago. We have seen record investment in both the public and private sectors, have acquired and are developing over 400 acres of former brownfields, and have faced and overcome many of the problems of the past that prevented Buffalo from moving forward. I am confident that the improvements in the City are continuing and will be permanent.
It has been an honor to have been associated with the many hard working employees of the City who strive each day to make Buffalo a better place and with the dedicated citizens of Buffalo who volunteer so much to help the City.
I will depart in two weeks and intend to conduct a smooth and professional transition. Deputy Commissioner James Comerford will serve as acting commissioner until Mayor Brown makes a determination about the permanent leadership of the Department.
My wife Susan and I will remain in Buffalo where I will seek new challenges that will allow me to continue working to improve Buffalo and the region.
The mayor still has not released a statement on Tobe’s resignation, which was promised for this afternoon.
Rich Tobe Resigns
At the request of Mayor Byron Brown, Rich Tobe is resigning his post as commissioner of Economic Development, Permits and Inspection Services. According to Brian Meyer at the Buffalo News, Brown asked Tobe to resign on Friday. His last day will be July 4—exactly two weeks notice.
Tobe has earned a reputation as a sharp administrator who did good work with a short staff and a monumental workload. It’s not clear when he began to run afoul of Brown and Deputy Mayor Steve Casey, but the first time I heard of a rift was during the city’s negotiations with the Seneca Gaming Commission over Fulton Street. Tobe had been a part of the city’s negotiating team, we were told, and then was booted off. For Tobe, it’s been downhill with Casey and Brown ever since. Casey, in particular, seemed to single out Tobe and his department for sharp criticism during CitiStat hearings.
Whatever one made of Tobe’s policies and his department generally, he was certainly the most responsive public servant in the Brown administration. He responded to email. His voicemail was set up (seriously, not everyone in City Hall bothers) and he returned phone calls, even to tell you he wasn’t authorized to respond to your questions. In a mayoral administration that keeps a tight lid on communications, Tobe frequently was the only one who would answer questions. Once I introduced him to a friend as “the only person in City Hall who’s allowed to speak with me,” and he responded, “What makes you think I’m allowed to?”
The mayor is supposed to issue a statement this afternoon. Brian Meyer has the story at the News.
June 20, 2008
Foul Rumor
Rumors of Mayor Byron Brown’s imminent resignation are apparently premature.
His denial that the rumors are true, of course, are front-page news.
Here at AV we heard these rumors earlier in the week but figured they were wishful thinking on the part of the rumormongers. Some of them said that an FBI investigation into BMHA would touch the mayor. Over at the Lefty Line, where Buffalo cops go to gripe and plot, a poster suggested that the purported investigation had to do with organized crime and money-laundering. Governor David Paterson, a Brown ally and fellow Queens native, would helicopter Brown out of the scandal and deposit him in a new, comfortable job in Albany.
The Lefty Line and Glenn Gramigna seem to have been the first to post the rumors, and their posts apparently prompted the mayor’s denial, which was delivered in writing at a press conference called yesterday for 4pm, with 17 minutes notice.
The denial, of course, sounds like a cork popping: Let flow the wild speculation.
June 12, 2008
The Mayor’s Hotline: By the Numbers
Read this to find out what Buffalonians called to complain about in the month of May.
May 15, 2008
FOILed Again: (Partial) Satisfaction
On Monday afternoon, Cavette Chambers of the City of Buffalo’s law department sent me some of the records I’d asked for several weeks ago, regarding the Mayor’s Impact Team. I originally requested all records related to the team’s budgets and expenditures dating back two years.
Here’s the letter of decision from Chambers, and here’s the gist: I was not given access to the team’s 2006-2007 budget, she said, because those records do not exist. I was not given access to audits performed on the team, because no audits had been performed up until the one launched by City Comptroller Andy SanFilippo two weeks ago. Finally, I’ve been denied all correspondence (paper, email, etc.) related to the budgets and expenditures because, she says, they are “intra/inter-agency materials.”
That last denial cites New York State Public Officers Law 87(2)(g):
2. Each agency shall, in accordance with its published rules, make available for public inspection and copying all records, except that such agency may deny access to records or portions thereof that:
…
(g) are inter-agency or intra-agency materials which are not:
i. statistical or factual tabulations or data;
ii. instructions to staff that affect the public;
iii. final agency policy or determinations; or
iv. external audits, including but not limited to audits performed by the comptroller and the federal government; or
I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t believe that the correspondence Chambers has denied access to isn’t covered by one or more of those four exceptions. Especially by (iv), given that an audit of the Mayor’s Impact team is near completion. Any lawyers out there want to enlighten me?
This is the document I was sent: Mayor’s Impact Team records. We’re sorting through it now. Meanwhile, I’m told the comptroller’s audit will be released next week. I also am told it will be thorough; time will tell.
May 8, 2008
Taking the “Public” Out of Public Hearing
Tuesday I ran down to City Hall to catch the 5:30pm public hearing on Mayor Byron Brown’s proposed 2008-2009 budget. This is not a particularly popular pastime, I know; usually only a half dozen or so of the “public” attend and address the Common Council, department heads, etc. to make known their concerns about the city’s spending habits.
I arrived at 5:40 and found every door to City Hall locked. Seriously. This sucks, I thought. Then: But at least its’s fodder for a column.
So I hung around, peering in the door, ringing the bell that surely does not work, waiting for someone to leave. At about 5:45pm I was joined by a news crew from Channel 4. We tried calling people we knew inside, but everyone was gone for the day — or in Council Chambers, attending the “public” hearing that the public was unable to attend, because all the doors were locked.
At about 5:50pm, Inspections, Permits and Economic Development Commissioner Rich Tobe exited the building but let the door close behind him before I could shout out to hold it open. “Sorry, I can’t get back in now,” he said. I told him I was trying to attend a public hearing up in Council Chambers. He agreed that locking the doors on the evening of such a hearing was curious. But not, he thought, unusual.
Nor did Deputy Mayor Steve Casey seem to consider it strange that the doors were locked, as the Channel 4 team and I raced to the elevators at 6pm, when we finally slipped in the door behind an exiting bureaucrat. “Hurry up,” he said, “it’s just about over.”
Right he was: In the absence of any “public” in the public hearing, the Council had rolled two hearings into one and wrapped the whole thing up by 6:10pm. Exactly one person had signed up to speak. Everyone in Council Chambers was on the public payroll.
Afterward, Delaware District Councilmember Mike LoCurto summed up the hearing for me: a whole lot of nothing. He too was unsurprised to learn the doors had been locked. They had been locked during the previous day’s public hearing as well, he said.
May 6, 2008
City Budget Hearing Tonight
Today at 5:30pm, Buffalo’s Common Council holds a public hearing on Mayor Byron Brown’s proposed budget for 2008-2009. This may sound like a dull, wonkish enterprise, but it’s not: It’s a pleasant excuse to visit the Common Council’s beautiful chambers, and anyone can speak. I will be there no later than 6pm to listen to what folks have to say, and will hand out AV swag to the first six people (not counting councilmembers) who figure out who I am and ask me for it.
UPDATE: If you’d like some broad, sweeping questions to ask about the budget, check out this post by Buffalo News reporter James Heaney. I’m a devil-in-the-details guy myself, but Heaney’s got the big picture nailed.
May 5, 2008
FOILed Again: Mayor’s Impact Team, Day 7
It’s been seven business days since I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the City of Buffalo for all financial records related to the Mayor’s Impact Team since January 1, 2006. In that time…
- the chief of the Mayor’s Impact Team, the venerable political hack Bill Buyers, was caught by cameramen from Channel 7 with two of his crew working on his own home on city time, using city equipment (Day 1);
- Mayor Byron Brown suspended Buyers for 15 days without pay and his two crewmembers for five days without pay (Day 1);
- Assistant Corporation Counsel Cavette Chambers acknowledged receipt of my email FOIL request and promised to answer in 10 business days (Day 2);
- Councilmembers LoCurto, Kearns, and Fontana filed a resolution requesting that City Comptroller Andy Sanfilippo audit the Mayor’s Impact Team (Day 2);
- the Office of the Comptroller announced its intention to pursue an audit (Day 3).
Today, I asked Chambers et alia to shorten the timeline for fulfilling my request, arguing that the Comptroller’s intention to perform an audit suggests that the material I requested is being compiled for that purpose. I told Chambers that I expected to receive the requested information at the same time, if not before, the City Comptroller receives it. After all, I asked first, and the law requires that public records demanded under FOIL be furnished as quickly as possible.
Meantime, on Saturday morning I stopped by the Amherst Street VFW post where Buyers hosts a monthly breakfast, to see who would show up to support him (and, I guess to eat for free). There were maybe 50 or so cars in the parking lot, and Buyers stood by the back entrance glad-handing folks as they arrived.
I stayed long enough to see North District Councilmember Joe Golombek arrive.
April 30, 2008
FOILed Again: Comptroller Will Audit Mayor’s Impact Team
It’s Day 4 since I filed a FOIL request for all records related to budget and expenditures for the Mayor’s Impact Team. The request, filed the afternoon before Channel 7 caught team leader Bill Buyers and two of his team members working on Buyers’ property on city time with city equipment, has been acknowledged but not yet fulfilled.
But at yesterday’s Common Council meeting, the City Comptroller’s office announced that it would audit the Mayor’s Impact Team. My favorite part of the Buffalo News report on the audit:
Peter K. Cutler, Mayor Byron W. Brown’s communications chief, said the administration is aware of a controversy when Buyers worked under a previous administration. He said that there were reports that some city workers might have performed personal tasks for Buyers but that there is no documentation that disciplinary action was taken.
“There is nothing in his personnel file . . . about any suspension or termination,” Cutler said.
I love that Cutler never seems to have any clear memory of the Masiello administration. He talks about it like it’s some foreign country he’s not really convinced exists, rather than an administration in which he served.
In response to all this, a defender of Buyers has posted identical comments both here and at BuffaloPundit. So I’ll share the rumor that drove me to ask a week and a half ago if the City Comptroller had ever audited the Mayor’s Impact Team, and subsequently to FOIL for the team’s financial records: I heard that the Mayor’s Impact Team has used public money to purchase goods for private use.
I don’t know if Buyers is a good guy or not, or how much good work he’s done. I know he’s been in government a long time. If he’s cheating the taxpayer, being a good guy is no defense. And if an audit shows that the Mayor’s Impact Team does this sort of thing regularly and suggests that higher-ups in the administration have turned a blind eye to the practice, then those higher-ups have no defense either.
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