The national debate about drilling in natural areas is heating up locally as the U.S. Energy Development Corporation, located at 2350 North Forest Road in Getzville, NY, proceeds with plans to develop five new wells in Allegany State Park.

Recently, NYS Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, Larry Beahan, and other concerned citizens have been turning their attention to the state park, as they did over a decade ago when the Pataki administration was moving toward selling timber rights in the park. Back then, former 10,000 Maniac Natalie Merchant hopped on the bandwagon and public opinion swung against the lumber industry.

Now, Hoyt is spearheading efforts with the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation “to forever protect Allegany from commercial logging and oil and mineral mining.”

Just as pro-drilling forces are losing their perkiest national cheerleader in the form of ex-Alaska Governor Sarah (Drill, baby, drill!) Palin—their case is further compromised by U.S. Energy Development Corporation’s recent rebuke from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, for their activities just south of Allegany State Park, across the state border in McKean and Warren counties.

On July 10, the department issued a cease and desist order to U.S. Energy “for persistent and repeated violations of environmental laws and regulations. The order prohibits the company from conducting all earth disturbance, drilling and hydro-fracturing operations throughout Pennsylvania.”

Over a period of just two years, beginning in August, 2007, U.S. Energy chalked up 302 violations of the Clean Streams Law, the Dam Safety and Encroachments Act, the Oil and Gas Act, and the Solid Waste Management Act. U.S. Energy is the owner and operator of the wells in the Alleghany National Forest in Pennsylvania, which borders Allegany State Park in New York.

According to the order, one third of the violations have been corrected, but the civil penalties for those violations have not been resolved. Among the many violations cited by the DEP are the unpermitted discharge of residual and industrial waste into the ground and the waters of the Commonwealth.

In Pennsylvania, U.S. Energy has had to “cease all gas and oil well activities including, but not limited to well stimulation, well drilling, road construction, pipeline construction and any other related well activities” in the state until the DEP notifies them in writing that they have complied with all the obligations of the order. They must also stop all “earth disturbance activities” except those necessary to fix the damage they’ve already done. View the cease and desist order here.

Prior to the park’s official designation in 1921, the area was widely drilled for oil, including the first oil well in New York State, which was completed in 1864. While the state controls the surface rights to the park land, private interests have been unwilling to relinquish ownership of what lies beneath to this day.

One bill supported by Hoyt would create a sunset provision for privately held oil and gas interests beneath the park.

U.S. Energy spokesperson Matt Iak confirmed that they have access to mineral rights in Allegany State Park, and that they are “going through the various channels” to make those wells a reality.

However, a spokesperson for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation had this to report: “U.S. Energy has never applied for drilling permits in Allegany State Park. That being said, they have been drilling wells on a regular basis in other parts of Region 9 area (Western New York), and DEC does receive drilling applications from them on a regular basis.”

When asked about the Pennsylvania DEP order, Iak said, “It’s premature for us to make a comment. I can tell you that we’re both working with the same interest at heart, and it’s in very good spirit right now.”

He would not respond to any particular charges included in the order. “I’m not saying I don’t want to respond. I’m not in a position to respond until they give you the final word on what’s going on, and I think you’ll have a different opinion at that point in time.”

A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania DEP said that “the scope and magnitude” of U.S. Energy’s violations “is not commonplace, and that’s why we took the action that we did.”

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.

Syaed Ali

WNYMedia’s Chris Smith has posted some of the anonymous emails that gave birth to the Syaed Ali affair last summer:

These emails surfaced shortly after a shadowy political organization loosely affiliated with Steve Pigeon and Responsible New York called Mothers and Fathers Demanding Answers launched a scandalous and anonymous campaign targeting one of Pigeon’s longtime adversaries, State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt.  At the time, it seemed as if the internecine squabbling between various forces in the Democratic Party had reached an all-time fever pitch.  After Joe Illuzzi published emails between Assemblyman Hoyt and an intern, all hell broke loose on the media front.  No one was sure as to the veracity of WNY First’s claims, nor did anyone know who sent the messages.

Have a look and see if you agree, as I do, with Smith’s conclusions:

The content of these emails is so outrageous that no one in their right mind would have believed their accuracy.  They were so libelous as to be self-parodies.  We don’t know how it is that Ali allegedly got himself caught up in this mess, or whether he sent these emails.  We can tell you that this is the material that so pissed off Buffalo City Hall and Mayor Byron Brown that they allegedly took Ali and treated him in a way more appropriate for a third world banana republic than the second-largest city in the state of New York.

Two things:

1. What City Hall and law enforcement are alleged to have done to Ali is wrong and actionable.
2. Whoever wrote these emails is, at worst, liable for defamation. I can’t imagine what crime has allegedly been committed.

City Hall News has flow_chart that tracks who might replace who, from Hillary’s Senate seat on down (click to expand or follow the link—it’s an awkward shape):

Steve Pigeon

In making his case that Responsible New York—the political committee endowed with five million of Tom Golisano’s dollars and operated by former Erie County Democratic Party chairman Steve Pigeon—coordinated illegally with the committees of the candidates it supported, Sam Hoyt supporter Jeremy Toth refers back to North District Common Councilmember Joe Golombek’s primary challenge to Hoyt in 2004:

In that campaign, Steve Pigeon directed the expenditures of hundreds of thousands of dollars against Sam Hoyt on behalf of his opponent Joe Golombek. These expenditures, all derived from the PAC Renew NYS, which was funded primarily by then County Executive Joel Giambra, far exceeded all campaign contribution limits.

Here’s Toth’s full complaint against Pigeon and Responsible New York, which he sent to the district attorneys of Erie, Monroe, and Albany counties. Toth hopes that the circumstantial case he makes that Responsible New York staff coordinated its activities with the Barbra Kavanaugh campaign—a felony—will compel the DAs to take a closer look at Pigeon and company.

Hoyt filed a complaint about the Golombek campaign and Renew NYS with the state Board of Elections in September 2004 and followed with documentation a month later, but received no response after nine months. So he wrote the Board of Elections again. Finally, in January 2006, the Board of Elections closed the complaint against Golombek—because in the interim, Renew NYS had changed its filing status from a PAC to a a multi-candidate committee, under which its illegal activities would have been legal.

Except that Renew NYS was a PAC when it spent money against Hoyt. “It’s a little like making a horse thief simply return a stole horse after winning the Kentucky Derby with it,” Hoyt wrote to the NYSBOE in response. The message, he said, was: Break the law with impunity during the campaign, apologize later, and skate away scot-free.

Pigeon has a history of skating away from campaign finance shenanigans. Take, for example, People for Accountable Government, another PAC controlled by Pigeon.  People for Accountable Government started funneling donations and buying ads and literature for candidates in September 2007, but did not file a campaign finance disclosure form until July 2008.

That’s a minor (and all too common) infraction, whose piddling nature is somewhat offset by how easy it is simply to comply with the election law. On Monday we’ll explore allegations of more egregious violations.

Former Erie County Democratic Party chairman Steve Pigeon at the DNC in Denver.

Throughout the Sam Hoyt-Barbra Kavanaugh campaign and after it, Hoyt supporter Jeremy Toth accused Responsible New York—the commitee funded by Paychex founder and Sabres owner Tom Golisano and managed by former Erie County Democratic Party chairman Steve Pigeon—of illegally coordinating its activities with Kavanaugh’s operation.

Unauthorized committees can spend as much as they’d like to support a candidate, but they can’t coordinate their activities with that candidate’s authorized committee; if they could, contribution limits would be rendered meaningless. Such coordination is a felony.

Last week Toth present his case to Erie County District attorney Frank Clark, who this week got a hold of Buffalo News political reporter Bob McCarthy, who subsequently wrote this piece about Toth’s allegations. Clark told McCarthy he would consider the evidence of coordination Toth had presented.

Toth has sent his package of materials to District Attorney Mike Green of Monroe County (where responsible New York is headquartered) and District Attorney P. David Soares of Albany County. You can have a look at  Toth’s case for yourself. The first four pages make the argument; everything that follows is supporting evidence.

Some of the main points:

—Pigeon was an authorized check signer for Joe Mesi’s campaign, and Mesi subsequently benefited from Responsible New York once it was formed in July (Michele Ianello, one of Mesi’s primary opponents, made the same complaint to state election officials; her complaint is included in Toth’s materials);
—Pigeon associate Jack O’Donnell worked on the Kavanaugh campaign while simultaneously helping to organize Responsible New York;
—O’Donnell subsequently benefited financially from Responsible New York’s expenditures on behalf of Kavanaugh;
—further overlap between personnel associated with both those two campaigns and with Responsible New York render incredible the notion that there was no communication between the camps;
—the manner in which Kavanaugh’s campaign spent money suggests its operatives knew how and when Responsible New York would use its resources on Kavanaugh’s behalf.

Read it for yourself, see what you think. Toth acknowledged that what he’s presented to the DAs is circumstantial, but believes it is enough to warrant a more thorough investigation, including subpoena of emails, phone records, etc., which might prove or disprove his allegations.

More on this tomorrow.

Peter Koch wrote a story about the jeopardized CPO Club in Artvoice a few months back, which you can read here.

The good news is that the club’s membership is banding together and beginning to right the listing institution, as evidenced by this recent email, sent to all members:

Dear Member of the CPO Club,

Over the past several months, the club has endured dramatic changes that have affected the operation of our club. This letter is sent to you with the intent to inform you of these changes and how you can assist to keep our club alive and moving forward.

The building has been saved through historical designation, acquired by Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, and cannot be demolished. Most of the furniture in the club is still inside. Charles Poremba has resigned as board president. An interim board comprised of members who have been devoted to saving both the club and the clubhouse have been formed with Karl Page elected as interim president. This board is in the process of presenting our landlord, the Department of Military and Naval Affairs (DMNA), a concise plan for future operations of our club. We are confident that this plan will be accepted and our lease will be approved. The liquor license has been approved and extended through March 2010.

A general meeting will be held on August 19, 2008 at 1900 hours at the Maritime Charter School located at 266 Genesee St. in Buffalo, at which time all members are invited for updated information on the status of the club. Also, committees will be formed at this meeting. They are: Constitution Review, Membership, Fund Raising/Grant Writing, Entertainment, Public Relations, Building & Maintenance, House/Food & Beverage.

Many of our members have enjoyed the benefits of the CPO Club but have not been current with their dues. As a result, we need additional funding to meet operating expenses. If your 2008 dues have not been paid, please pay them now. This is still your viable club. Dues are only $40 and cover your membership and fees associated with daily club operations. Without this support, our club will not survive. Please make your check payable to the CPO Club, update the attached form and mail both to:

Your membership card will be mailed to you.

CPO Club

5 Porter Avenue

Buffalo, NY 14201-1015

We also need to address specific repairs to the building, and we are asking those who are able, to dig into their pockets for additional financial support. The main reason that the club was closed was due to state building code requirements. Those repairs still need to be addressed before we can have any public functions or gatherings in our clubhouse, and will be discussed at the general meeting. Please consider an additional contribution. This contribution will be fully refunded to you, if the lease should not be renewed. Also anyone that would be able to contribute their expertise or knowledge and can donate some time to help would be greatly appreciated.

Your support of the CPO Club is crucial in this time of need. We look forward to seeing you on August 19, 2008.

Sincerely,
Karl Page and Interim Board

If you’ve been a member of the CPO Club in the past, but didn’t receive the email, you can download an application to join or renew your membership here. Affiliate memberships are also available to “those who have not served but who possess the core values of this organization.”

In this week’s AV, I wrote an account of Tuesday night’s public hearing in the Common Council on the City of Buffalo’s 2008 Restore New York grant application. During the proceedings, Assemblyman Sam Hoyt—who wrote the legislation that led to the $300 million Restore New York program—laid some pretty heavy treads on the Brown administration.

Here are Hoyt’s remarks:

I am here to tonight to talk about the original intent of the RestoreNY program, which developed out of legislation I drafted called Repair New York, and to talk specifically about how the City of Buffalo has fallen short for the last two years in producing a thorough, thoughtful application that would maximize the potential of this funding to revitalize our City. This year’s application represents the third and final round of available RestoreNY funding, worth a statewide total of 150 million dollars, and as such there is no more room for error. New York State’s fiscal condition may not permit another round of funding. If the City of Buffalo does not produce a more inclusive and creative application this year, then three years of opportunity to transform the landscape of our neighborhoods and three years of state-funded support will have been squandered.

RestoreNY funding is intended to attract individuals, families, industry, and commercial enterprises to the city. The funding is flexible enough to allow for creativity in putting together a plan that mixes rehabilitation, restoration, deconstruction, and demolition to strategically strengthen neighborhoods. To date, the City of Buffalo has used RestoreNY funding primarily for demolition of properties, and even that has not been done in a particularly strategic way.

Statewide, the first round of RestoreNY disbursed 50 million dollars in funding for various programs. The City of Buffalo received 3 million dollars from that application, used entirely for demolition projects. Round One allocated a total of 11.8 million dollars for demolition, and 29.2 million for rehabilitation. The second round of funding provided 100 million dollars in state funding for this program. The City of Buffalo received 5.7 million dollars for demolition and 4.5 million dollars for renovation of the Trico Building. While renovating one major industrial building shows a slight shift toward rehabilitation, the fact remains that The City of Buffalo’s application requested 30 million dollars in funding and received just over 10 million. To those who say demolition is a crucial component of eliminating blight and making our neighborhoods safer, I agree completely. Demolition HAS to be part of the solution. This is so important I need to repeat it. Demolition HAS to be part of the solution. However, it does not alter the fact that the RestoreNY program was never intended to be used overwhelmingly for demolition and one commercial rehabilitation. There are other funds available for demolition. I secured 5 million dollars for thousands of demolitions that were done in 2007 above and beyond the 3 million dollars awarded through RestoreNY.

It seems to me that the City of Buffalo’s lack of creativity and vision in putting together a RestoreNY application that could be a starting point in neighborhood revitalization is part of a bigger failure of leadership on housing issues. Much of the focus has been on big picture economic development, including a large effort to draw big business to Buffalo. What is the point of bringing big business to our City if we do not have affordable, thriving neighborhoods where people would choose to relocate to work and raise a family? That is the only way to create the holistic economic development that will truly restore Buffalo to what is should be.

As a state legislator, I have always tried to be inclusive in developing legislation that would address the full scope of our housing crisis, turning to the community members and organizations who best understand the breadth and depth of the crisis and who can provide information on their own unique solutions or direct me toward best practices from similar communities. This grassroots-focused development strategy led to the Affordable Housing Corporation’s Block-by-Block program, which is going to bring a few million dollars to Buffalo to do what the City of Buffalo has not yet allowed RestoreNY to do—to acquire and rehabilitate dilapidated but salvageable properties that can anchor neighborhood reinvestment.

This grassroots-focused development strategy led me to draft legislation that would enable creation of a “land bank” to promote the acquisition, rehabilitation, management, and strategic reuse of vacant properties countywide. The City of Buffalo, which owns over 8,000 properties in Buffalo and has proved to be a very poor landlord indeed, has refused to support this legislation in the interest of gaining more control over properties they cannot currently maintain or market. Even when presented with a significant resource like RestoreNY that would enable a more comprehensive strategy for addressing these serious concerns, the City of Buffalo chooses the path of least resistance.

The City of Buffalo seeks no community input, nor does it seek to craft an inclusive strategy that would: promote strategic demolition where necessary; provide resources for rehabilitation to strengthen neighborhoods and encourage additional investment; or develop a greenspace management program to turn the vacant lots created through so many thousands of demolitions into bountiful additions to the fabric of the City.

Demolition is not the only solution to urban blight, despite the City of Buffalo’s efforts to make us believe that that is so. Demolition is an important component for a number of reasons, but we must do so much more. RestoreNY will give us the resources to allow us to do so much more. Combined with powerful community-changing initiatives like my land bank legislation and the Block-by-Block program, we can stop destroying our neighborhoods house by house, stop creating vacant lots that end up as trash-strewn fields that contribute to neighborhood blight, and stop waving goodbye to our neighbors as they move away from home. Demolition is a small part of an immense crisis, and it is time to do more. We cannot wait any longer.

I understand that the Common Council must vote to approve or reject the final RestoreNY application presented by the City’s administration, and that no Council input into the application process save that one vote has been requested nor welcomed to date. I think it is commendable that you have come together now to demand that the community be given a greater say, and I thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight. Let me just say in closing that I believe the RestoreNY program’s squandered opportunities did not come about because one person thought too small. I suggest that the bigger issue is a broader administrative failure to plan ahead, build partnerships, and foster a sense of direction and leadership in the community. Without these things, we could claim we have attracted billions of dollars in investments and still have nothing to show for it because the fabric of our neighborhoods has been so degraded. In your role as Councilmembers, I ask that you do all that you can to ensure that this year’s application focuses more on raising Buffalo up, instead of razing it to the ground.

I urge the City of Buffalo to make this year’s RestoreNY application a more inclusive process to create a more inclusive application. Thank you for your time.

The marble halls of the State Capitol in Albany are echoing once again with debate on the scandalous topic of medicinal “marihuana,” as the Assembly passed a bill (89-52) in favor of allowing doctors to prescribe the drug to very sick patients who don’t respond well to currently legal pharmaceuticals. Currently, 12 states have medicinal marijuana laws on the books.

Under the new bill, patients would be legally allowed to possess 2.5 ounces of pot for treatment of chronic pain, for example, without threat of arrest. The State would also grant them the right to grow up to 12 plants for their own use.

Under the new bill, “the department of health would monitor such use and promulgate rules and regulations for registry identification cards; (and) provides for reports by the department of health to the governor and legislature on the medical use of marihuana.” (Interesting, how the current documents adopt the same antiquated spelling as the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937—not commonly used since Louis Armstrong was a young viper.) (more…)