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.