Hi all,

As many of you may or may not know I am the former board President of the Black Rock Assumption Boys and Girls Club. I loved this club with my heart and soul. I put all my energies into helping this club because I believed and still believe in the good it can provide to the children of Black Rock.

In the summer of 2008 I received a notice that The Club had been awarded an $800 Crime and Safety grant from Senator Antoine Thompson. In the fall of 2008 I led a Crime and Safety fair at the Boys and Girls Club in Black Rock in the Senator’s name. All of the costs associated with the fair were fronted by club and its board of managers. In December the Program Director of the Club submitted the receipts to Jim Pavel as instructed by the senator’s office. We had to submit the receipts several times because he kept “losing” them. As of April 2009 we still had not received payment. Throughout April, May, and June I attempted to call Mark Boyd, the senator’s chief of staff, and Jim Pavel about this matter approximately 20 times. Jim Pavel was completely unresponsive. He neither answered an email or returned a phone call. Mark Boyd on the other hand told me at every phone call that he would look into it and then would never call me back.

Fast forward to FEBRUARY 2010………The Black Rock/Assumption Boys and Girls Club still has not received that $800. Other organizations are now coming forward to say they have not been paid by the Senator either. They include: BRR Little League Football, BRR Little League Baseball, The 21st Ward Independence Day Association, and Elmwood Kiwanis. Five organizations all in the 14207 zip code. Coincidence? Are there more out there?

On February 1, 2010 The Dearborn Street Community Association held a general meeting. Zach, an assistant from Sen. Thompson’s office attended this meeting unannounced. He never ever came up to Beverly Eagan (president) or myself (vice president) to introduce himself or tell us of his intent. He then proceeded to stand up and offer money for grants to the people of Dearborn. Needless to say I unloaded all my frustrations with the Senator on him.

Yesterday I received a call from Mark Boyd to get to the nuts and bolts of it. I was told that he had cancelled checks for both the Boys and Girls Club and for football that we had been paid any monies owed. Despite my certainty about the situation he stated that he had the cancelled checks but would look into the situation. Today, out of fear of bad publicity, Mark called Richard Mack, editor of the Riverside Review, and told him a different story about the situation. Will this spinning ever stop? It appears that they are in scramble mode. Why? Because it’s an election year? Will they only care about the 14207 zip code when it suits them? I am tired of playing this game with the Senator and his office. I hope he pays up but at this point when I see him and his staff begging people to take money or fill out grants I have to wince a bit and think will that grant be the one that never gets paid?

Some of you may not care about this situation. It may hit home with others. I love my community and I care about the children in this community. I’m hoping that this email will bring a change in our local officials. It will show them that they can’t pull a fast one on us….even if they think they are a rockstar!!

Dawn Schaffer

Vice President Dearborn Community Action Assoc.

Former President BR Assumption Boys and Girls Club Board of Managers

The above email was sent today to: Mark Boyd, Byron Brown, Steve Casey, John Duke, Teresa Glanowski, Councilmember Golombek, Sam Hoyt, Rich Lee, Rich Mack, Jim Pavel, Father Richard Jedrzejewski, David Spinda, Antoine Thompson, and Maria Whyte, among others.

Also today, at 3pm, Thompson is scheduled to hand over $250,000 to the City of Tonawanda for capital improvements to Niawanda Park.

Forget Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Our next big splash on ABC could be on America’s Funniest Home Videos, thanks to this heavy lifting display by State Senator Antoine Thompson.

The senator also recently presented this huge personal check for $275,000 to People With Possibilities, to combat gangs and guns. That’s a big signature.

For the second time in four days, New York State Senators sat at a table in Western New York to listen to locals beg for money. On Friday, Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Martin Malave Dilan held a hearing at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society to hear idea on how the state should spend $25 billion in capital project funds over the next five years. (Joining Dilan were local senators Thompson, Stachowski, Ranzenhofer and Maziarz, and a well-heeled delegation from NYSDOT.)

The day’s headlines, forecasting a $10 billion deficit in the state budget over the next two years, were largely ignored until the last speaker, former State Senator and Buffalo Common Councilman Al Coppola, spoke his piece. He’d been waiting three hours to get to the microphone. He and Dilan exchanged senatorial pleasantries (Dilan politely pretended to have heard of Coppola, whose stint in Albany was brief), and then Coppola held up a copy of the day’s paper, and mentioned the climbing deficit. “Kind of changes everything we’ve been talking about here today, doesn’t it?” he said.

Dilan shrugged and nodded. “It changes everything.”

Not that transportation spending has been well managed in recent years anyway. From today’s Rochester Democrat & Chronicle:

Highway and motor vehicle taxes dedicated to road and bridge repairs continue to be raided to pay the state’s operating expenses, leading to a deterioration of New York’s infrastructure, according to a report from the Comptroller’s Office.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said that since 1991, only 35 percent, or $11.6 billion, of the money in the state’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund went to repair roads and bridges.

The majority of the money went to cover debt payments and expenses at the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Transportation, DiNapoli said.

He warned that the percentage of capital spending on roads will decline to 21 percent by 2014 and the state will need to pay $4 billion from the general fund just to pay current bills over the next five years.

“This is not acceptable,” DiNapoli said. “This money should be used to keep our roads and bridges safe.”

Using most of the $33 billion fund for other expenses has left the state unable to pay for a proposed $25.8 billion five-year capital plan for roads and bridges.

Gov. David Paterson recently rejected the new capital plan presented by the DOT, saying the state simply can’t afford it.

The state Association of Counties said nearly 40 percent of the state’s 17,000 bridges are in disrepair and urged state leaders to invest in the capital plan.

Which brings us to today’s hearing, already underway at the UAW office on George Karl Boulevard in Williamsville. Senate Finance Chair Carl Kruger and State Senator Bill Stachowski (the man Kruger muscled out of the powerful committee’s chairmanship) are taking testimony on Governor David Paterson’s deficit reduction plan, which aims to cut a projected $3 billion deficit in the 2009-2010 budget by whacking 10 percent off of basically everything.

Here’s the Senate’s description of Paterson’s plan.

And after the jump is the list of groups planning to testify.

(more…)

New York State Senator Antoine Thompson will be holding a home foreclosure prevention workshop on Saturday, August 1st from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm at Bennett High School, 2885 Main Street in Buffalo.

Thompson spokesperson, Heather Zeisz stated; “With the current state of the economy, it is important to give residents of New York a cost free opportunity to meet with banks and mortgage servicers about payment programs to prevent home or property foreclosure.”

The purpose of this forum is to provide residents with an educational opportunity to learn about home foreclosure prevention through educational seminars and independent consultations with mortgage counselors.  Co-sponsors for this event are US Senator Charles Schumer and the NYS Banking Department.  For more details, you can contact Lisa Yaeger at Thompson’s District Office 716 – 854 – 8705.

Last Friday, a court case brought by the International Bottled Water Association and Nestle Waters of North America was decided by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Griesa. The result puts New York’s recently passed Bigger Better Bottle Bill (BBBB) legislation on hold until April 1, 2010. Read Griesa’s order here.

Here’s the NYPIRG press release where they call upon Governor David Patterson, Senate Majority leader Malcolm Smith, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to do something about it. After all, these three were presented awards from 50 environmental groups on Earth Day for enacting the law.

Now that photo-op has come and gone, and big, corporate lawyers have succeeded in scuttling the measure for another year at least, throwing the state budget out of whack by an estimated $115 million.

Click here to read a statement from the Bottle and Can Redemption Association (BACRA), one of the green industries that was counting on the BBBB legislation to keep struggling redemption centers afloat.

To add another layer of weirdness to this whole mess, here’s a story from the New York Post, painting Senator Antoine Thompson’s office in a less than favorable light.

I had hoped to put something about this in today’s print edition, because it sounds pretty cool to me: This Saturday at the Main Place Mall is the first Buffalo Niagara Green Expo. The event kicks off Buffalo Green Week, which ends next weekend with the American Solar Energy Society Conference at the Convention Center.
Essentially, the Green Expo is a trade show, in which dozens of vendors will demonstrate their energy-saving, renewables-sourced, carbon-footprint-reducing products and services: electronic waste recycling, green roofing materials, hay bale construction, etc.

There will also be planning and advocacy groups, too, ranging from local artists Ran Webber, with his adaptive reuse plan for the Skyway, to Buffalo First, which promotes locally owned businesses and local-sourcing of goods and services. The expo will “feature dozens of local businesses and organizations who will have information for the whole family on how to go green in your home, business, community, school and career,” says Heather Zeisz, a spokesperson for State Senator Antoine Thompson, the event’s primary sponsor.

Zeisz told Artvoice that climate change is “the number one threat to our environment” and that Thompson introduced legislation last month that would authorize the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to regulate greenhouse emissions in the state. New York State.  A similar bill passed the Assembly last year but died in the Republican-held Senate.

AV’s roving reporter Ellen Przepasniak sent in this dispatch from yesterday afternoon’s IDA reform protest, organized by the Coalition for Economic Justice:

While protestors in period costume held a tea party outside City Hall on Wednesday to protect unfair taxation, the Coalition for Economic Justice held a smaller, calmer rally a few blocks away at the Ellicott Street Post Office to remind taxpayers about IDA reform.

Roughly 30 demonstrators turned out Wednesday afternoon. The idea was to catch people filing their taxes at the last minute because they couldn’t afford to pay their tax bill. Allison Duwe, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Justice, wanted to send the message that industrial development agencies, which give tax breaks to companies for economic development work, are currently operating under an unfair system that continues to reward big corporations.

The way Duwe sees it, the current tax system is fundamentally wrong. She wants to hold businesses to more accountability of how they spend taxpayer dollars to make sure the rich aren’t getting richer. “Taxes should be levied fairly and spent wisely,” she says. “We really need to change the way we do business.”

The six IDAs in Erie County don’t have a great track record of investing wisely on development and turning a profit on projects. Duwe says too often, money is given to out-of-state contractors that support low-wage workers. She wants reform that creates solid, family-supporting jobs for local workers so that money can stay in our area to stimulate our local economy. “Now more than ever, Western New Yorkers need accountable businesses that are committed to creating quality jobs for local residents,” Duwe says. “We can’t afford to spend tax dollars on empty office parks and low-wage jobs.”

Senator Antoine Thompson and Assembly Member Sam Hoyt have both recently introduced IDA reform legislation. Duwe believes it will help to increase job standards, transparency and accountability so that taxpayers can be sure their money is being spent prudently.

Local developer Carl Paladino recently filmed a “My 3 Minutes” for Artvoice TV decrying Hoyt’s bill, which would mandate prevailing wage requirements on IDA projects. Paladino claims that the bill doesn’t make fiscal sense for Western New York developers.

At the rally, Duwe closed with a limerick she wrote:

There was a big bank looking to expand
So it went to the taxpayer and stuck out its hand
It said, give a big perk
And we’ll create lots of work
A few million in tax breaks is all we demand

Put up your dukes, Carl Paladino! There’s a challenge on the table.

According to City Finance Commissioner Janet Penksa, quoted in yesterday’s Buffalo News, the city’s proposed traffic light cameras will generate $2.75 million annually based on $50 fines. Mayor Byron Brown has been pushing the plan.

That would equal 55,000 tickets yearly. Or, 150 tickets per day, 365 days a year. This “pilot project” will involve 50 surveillance cameras at traffic lights around the city for the next five years.

The home-rule message was approved by the Common Council in a 5-3 vote on Tuesday. Mickey Kearns, David Rivera, and Richard Fontana voted against it.

According to a press release from Assemblymember Sam Hoyt’s office, issued yesterday, the bill will be approved in Albany next week. Antoine Thompson is the sponsor of the measure in the NYS Senate.

The News reports that Common Council members “would have one last chance to approve or reject the initiative,” after it is passed in Albany next week.

Proponents say it is not a “money grab.”

Put another way, the plan will mean an average of a little more than one $50 red light ticket issued every ten minutes, every hour, seven days a week, for the next 1,825 days in the city of Buffalo—totaling $13.75 million dollars in five years.

Penksa said the fines might increase to $75 if they’re paid late.

We couldn’t stop by the grand opening of Price-Rite on Sunday, but John Duke of the First Amendment Club sent us this account:

Shopping for groceries became a lot less expensive on Sunday. As a matter of fact, for the first time in a long while, food was being sold at the Rite Price in the Stuyvesant Plaza, 250 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo.

After reviewing how the city was able to bring Price Rite into what is unquestionably the Rite Location, Mayor Brown cut the ribbon to ceremoniously open the supermarket to throngs of eager shoppers, who were assisted by 130 of their friends and neighbors who are now employed by the store.

125 of the employees live within four sides of a city block. “Price Rite is environmentally friendly,” according to State Senator Antoine Thompson, “and their employees do not need automobiles to travel back and forth to work.” Price Rite also encourages the use of reusable totes. There is a charge of 10 cents per plastic bag for non-tote users.

I put two items in my tote, 17 pounds of meat, and took it to the check out line.  There I handed the cashier a $10 bill and received change back. I purchased a 12.77 lb. kosher turkey (I was surprised to find out that turkeys are religious, but then again they probably do a lot of praying around the Holidays) and a 3.48 lb. corned beef (I always wake up praying after Saint Patrick’s Day). Some how I felt I had done my Sabbath Duty.

The corned beef at $1.79 per lb. came to $6.23 and the turkey at $0.29 cents per lb. came to $3.70. On the way out I was handed a complimentary 8oz bottle of Tropical Energia and 2 cans of Pepsi.  Once home, after a tiring morning, I drank the energy drink and quickly wrote this column while doing my Spring cleaning and cooking the turkey…

I’m not big on energy drinks; I think I’ll stick to not being able to handle coffee. I’d write more, but I gotta run, I think I’m about to take up jogging. I sure hope the turkey doesn’t burn before I get back.

Two years ago, Artvoice published a cover story about the Bigger Better Bottle Bill (BBBB). The measure, which has passed a couple of times in the State Assembly, only to die on the Senate floor, is back again with more momentum than ever. In essence, the bill expands the existing nickel deposit on carbonated beverages to include the non-carbonated variety. Supporters argue the measure could generate anywhere from $118 million to $218 million for the state next year, while cleaning the environment and encouraging green business. Last week, Connecticut passed a similar law.

This is the first time the common sense measure is being considered since the departure of Republican Senator Joseph Bruno, who was deeply beholden to soda and supermarket lobbyists.

Consider this email sent two years ago to some local bill opponents by attorney Steven W. Harris, of Featherstonhaugh, Wiley, Clyne & Cordo, LLP, a firm that lobbied against the bill back then:

“As Yogi Berra once said…”it ain’t over ‘till its over”, but the Senate has officially rejected the Governor’s Expanded Bottle bill proposal during today’s negotiations.  While I won’t say that it is impossible for it to resurrect itself in the next few hours, it is very unlikely that this will be discussed further.  You can now all take a collective sigh of relief (or stop holding your breath).  The governor will reintroduce this proposal as a Governor’s Program Bill so I will still be busy the rest of session.  We can talk about what all this means in Florida in two weeks so see you all then!”

This Friday (March 6), the new Chair of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee—Senator Antoine Thompson—has scheduled a public hearing on the BBBB at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society (25 Nottingham Court) from 10am-12pm. The hearing follows another one in the State Capitol building in Albany on Wednesday (March 4), also sponsored by Thompson.

You can learn more about the issue by visiting the Container Recycling Institute Web site and find out how to take action by visiting NYPIRG.