By Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News

The Adam Zyglis cartoon above prompted this testy response from Peter Cutler, Mayor Byron Brown’s communications director, in today’s Buffalo News:

For the second time in two years, News editorial cartoonist Adam Zyglis depicted Mayor Byron Brown’s State of the City address with negative imagery.

During his address, the mayor acknowledged challenges that still confront Buffalo, but he appropriately highlighted significant progress that has occurred over the past three years.

Buffalo’s situation is not unique. The long economic decline of former manufacturing- based regions like ours is well documented. But current mayoral administrations in cities like Buffalo are compelled to make decisions and enact policies that address the aftermath of such decades-long decline that produces current problems in their cities.

In his speech, Brown outlined policies that have had a positive impact on the city’s condition, helping to lower crime and stabilize city finances. He also spoke of new initiatives that will continue this progress despite national economic problems. This is what voters elect their leaders to do and it is what they expect them to accomplish.

The Zyglis cartoon was a cheap shot. It unfairly questioned the dedication of many hard-working people in the public and private sectors who are making a difference in pulling Buffalo out of decades of decline toward a future of growth and opportunity.

Watch out, Adam. That’s two. Disseminate one more nasty cartoon about the mayor and he’ll send the Buffalo Police Department to knock down your door and confiscate your pens and drawing pads.

I attended Mayor Byron Brown’s State of the City speech yesterday, and I thought it was reasonably good, as these things go. Whenever I hear the mayor speak, I am reminded how much better a face he puts on Buffalo than did Tony Masiello. Masiello, whatever his other virtues and failures, was not a great speaker. The first time I attended a Buffalo mayor’s State of the City address, Masiello opened by saying, “You know, I travel all round this country representing this city” and shoulders sagged despondently throughout the Harbour Club.

Brown, by comparison, makes us look good, so long as you don’t look too closely. I note that he is still claiming $4.3 billion in investment in the City of Buffalo, despite that April Buffalo News piece by Jim Heaney that deflated that number substantially. (I can’t find the link, but Heaney winnowed out the chaff and came up with $1.5 billion, of which $1 billion is publicly subsidized.) That $4.3 billion is puffery, and I wish he’d just be proud of the projects that are actually underway or completed, whether with public or private money, rather than include stalled and tentative products among his boasts. And I wish he wouldn’t claim so much of the credit for reaching a settlement on the Hickory Woods disaster, and for reclaiming the Broadway Market from its dysfunctional board. But I guess this was essentially a campaign speech, a running start at the coming Democratic primary against South District Councilmember Mickey Kearns, so what the hell.

I do grant the mayor this: His pride in running tight budgets is justified. The control board has helped his administration in this regard, but I don’t mind if the mayor crows about running regular surpluses and stashing money away in his rainy day fund. He should crow.

His closing left me curious:

“And to those who try to impede our progress, we will not be turned back, we will not be stopped, we will not be discouraged in our mission to keep moving our great city forward.”

To whom is this directed? Does the mayor believe that there is someone trying to sabotage the City of Buffalo? Is there someone he suspects of wishing our city ill? Is he talking about his political opponents?

ADDENDUM: I sat through the speech with attorney Peter Reese, who has a problem with the State of the City speech being a fundraiser for a private nonprofit that’s run out of City Hall. Reese was less satisfied with Brown’s speech than I. In response to Brown’s job-creation promises, especially those tied to the UB 2020 plans and investment in the medical corridor, Reese said, “I’m wondering if he lives in the same city as I do.”

You can get an official copy of Mayor Brown’s speech by clicking here.

Brian Meyer of the Buffalo News reports that Mayor Byron Brown has relented: The public does not have to pay $35 to hear his State of the City speech on Thursday. Those who wish to attend need only pay if they want to be served lunch, and if they do, about a third of the price of their ticket will benefit something called Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo.

We first wrote about this practice—turning a civic event into a fundraiser for a private charity controlled by the mayor—in 2007, when Brown delivered his first annual State of the City address. (It’s worth clicking the link for the quotes from the late Jimmy Griffin at the end.) Back then, we had a hard time discovering what it is Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo intended to do. Last week, AV editor Buck Quigley looked through the not-for-profit’s paperwork and discovered it has not put a lot of money on the streets—just $8,500 by the end of 2007, when it sat on assets of $60,000. Quigley estimated the mayor’s fund will raise another $20,000 on Thursday afternoon.

Seems almost like wonder if Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo is saving up for a rainy day. I wonder if the folks who control that fund—Brown stalwarts like Steve Casey, Mike Seaman, Dana Bobinchek, and Alisa Lukasiewicz—will find more ways to spend that money this summer, when the mayoral election will be looming?

Last week attorney Peter Reese protested the mayor’s use of the City of Buffalo and CitiStat seals on invitations for what he said amounts to a private fundraiser. The mayor’s spokesperson, Peter Cutler, denied to the Buffalo News that Reese’s protest influenced the mayor’s decision to open a limited number of seats to the public free of charge.