The Ciminelli proposal

The J.W. Pitts proposal

—Somehow former Common Council President Jim Pitts’ proposal to develop a crappy-looking Wingate Inn attached to Shanghai Red’s beside the Erie Basin Marina has been selected as a the preferred alternative by the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency. Ciminelli Development put forth a much more ambitious, mixed-use concept that, supporters claim, would generate far greater tax revenue for the city.

You can look at more pictures and read the howling over at BuffaloRising and BuffaloPundit.

Ciminelli’s plan was dismissed because it exceeded the RFP’s size limitations—guidelines that the Ciminelli team claims they were never told about.  Common Councilmembers Franczyk, LoCurto, and Kearns, who sit on the BURA board, cried foul, but to no avail: Mayor Byron Brown and members of his administration, who comprise a majority of the BURA board, wanted to give the project to J.W. Pitts Properties. Nobody seems to know why, not yet anyway.

Oh well.

—State Senator Bill Stachowski is not going to be chair of the Senate Finance Committee after all. Instead, the position that Stachowski thought was in the bag will go to Carl Kruger of Brooklyn as a reward for threatening to caucus with Republicans and holding back support for Malcolm Smith as majority leader. Back in October, when a poll showed former Buffalo Police Detective Dennis Delano 13 points ahead of Stachowski, state Democrats rushed to Stachowski’s aid. Antoine Thompson, who was a central figure in the Democrats’ effort to gain a majority in the state senate, stood beside Stachowski on Court Street while the veteran senator explained what a devastating loss his seniority would be for Western New Yorkers.

Oh well.

—M&T Bank’s Robert Wilmers, now doing a turn as chief of Empire State Development Corporation, apparently thrilled the Buffalo News’ editorial board with his observation during a talk on Tuesday that the state ought to invest in big projects in Niagara Falls, our region’s architectural treasures, and Buffalo’s waterfront.

Oh boy.

Late last night, at the tail end of one of the few weeks in the past year in which we did not publish anything snarky about anybody, someone threw two gallons of paint on our front doors. Seems a waste; we hadn’t even earned it. Nonetheless, we were cleaning up all morning.

Last week, sure, I can see that: maybe Chris Collins, maybe Steve Pigeon. But no…those guys wouldn’t stoop so low. They don’t even return our calls. It must have been someone else.

Buck Quigley had what sounded on his end like a civil conversation with Bob Gioia earlier in the week, so I can’t believe it was him. And I can’t imagine his brother, Anthony Gioia—recently confirmed as a representative to the 63rd session of the UN—would be so undiplomatic. James Williams? No, Dr. Williams loves AV. He told me so last year. And I can’t believe anything would have changed his mind since then.

Revenge, like pizza, is best served cold, but we understand that the folks at La Nova have made peace with their neighbors. So that’s not it.

George Sax is too urbane to have caused us trouble with the Public Bridge Authority or the Erie County Democrats. And though Bruce Jackson frequently draws heat down on the paper, it doesn’t seem like the Seneca Gaming Corporation’s style. Our other Bruce, late of county government and now thinking deep thoughts about public policy at Buffalo State, is generally brisk but not offensive…unless Bob Wilmers has been nursing a grudge against Fisher and occasional AV contributor John McMahon for months.

What the hell. It couldn’t have been former Buffalo News editor Murray Light.

I’m sure the vandal didn’t issue from City Hall, the good offices of which are AV’s most frequent target, because anyone who works for the city would know that there’s one of those new surveillance cameras just up the street. The blue-light specials.

When I called B District to ask if the camera might have caught the guilty party in the act, I was told that a detective would call back later today. Then, maybe, we’ll see.