The print edition of today’s Buffalo News features two extra editorial pages. Resembling two full-page ads, the “Buffalo News Editorial Opinion: Say No to State Government Incompetence” lists over 75 new taxes, fees, and other “revenue raising items.” But rather than let the figures speak for themselves, a large upper-case font, superimposed over the list shouts “THE STATE BUDGET IMPOSED $8 BILLION IN NEW TAXES AND FEES ON YOU.”

Makes your blood boil, doesn’t it? Here I am, Joe twelve-pack, working my fingers to the bone, and now those fat cats in Albany are trying to steal my hard earned money with the following measures sure to keep the little man down. They want to raise:

$4.78 billion by increasing the personal income tax rate by 1-2% on people making over $200,000 (We all know how hard it is getting by on 200 grand a year.)

$200 million by limiting itemized deductions, except charitable, on incomes over $1,000,000 (I work hard for my million dollars a year. Now some politician wants to limit my tax deductions? WTF?)

$10 million by imposing a tax on the sale of partnerships by nonresidents (I was in Miami over the weekend, bitching on my buddies yacht about how the founding fathers would never stand for such BS)

$5 million by closing timetable loopholes for claiming state residency (Now they want to tell me where I can and can’t live receive my mail? TYRANNY!)

$6.3 million on sales tax avoidance affecting vehicle, aircraft, and marine sales (Thank God I bought that Learjet last year)

$29 million by closing the captive insurance corporation tax (One more income-sheltering provision stolen from us little guys.)

$171.6 million by placing a 1.75% tax on accident/health premiums on for-profit Health Maintenance Organizations (Nobody gets into the health insurance business for the money. For example, Alphonso O’Neill-White, local CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield is forced to make due on $8,300/day. Now they want to cut into that narrow profit margin?)

$124 million by restoring a .35% assessment charge for hospitals (A hospital bed costs as much as a new car. How will they make ends meet if we resume this outrageous tax, especially when you consider that most of the money hospitals make comes from the State and Federal governments in the first place?)

$240 million by hiking health care premiums $45 for a WNY family policy (The money has to come from somewhere. Don’t look to Alphonso to eat some of that charge—this ain’t the USSR, yet.)

$1.2 million by increasing penalties for food safety violations (Is it not enough that my frozen hamburger company works around the clock slaughtering cows? Now I have to make sure there are no cow patties mixed in? Don’t come crying to me when you run out of food at your 4th of July cookout—I tried my best to provide.)

$5 million by increasing fees for pollutant discharge permits (Great. My company creates an insane amount of pollutants. Now I’m expected to pay more for the privilege of pouring them into the Niagara river? No thanks. Same goes for the $5 million they want to raise by doubling fees on all the pesticides I need.)

$500,000 by increasing fees for facilities that emit contaminants (See above. Let’s not forget the $300,000 they expect to raise by heaping fees and penalties on explosives handlers. Good luck with that one. Are you gonna be the one to ask for a dime from a man holding a stick of dynamite? Don’t tread on me!)

$2.7 million by nearly doubling the fees to run my nuclear power plant (Mr. Burns would never stand for such an outrage in Springfield.)

$400,000 by slapping a fine on uncertified crane operators (What’s next? Raising the cost of trying to win a stuffed animal from the Claw machine at Chuck E Cheese? I mean, how hard is it to operate a crane on a high-rise above pedestrians?)

$50 million in fees on non-LLC partnerships (Communism, plain and simple.)

$1 million by charging $10 to enter horses in races (Looks like it’s time to sell the mansion in Saratoga and move the thoroughbreds down to Florida.)

$115 million by charging a five-cent deposit on bottled water  (How many people will die of dehydration at the gym thanks to this cruel and short-sited policy? Don’t they know that water is better when it comes encased in a petroleum-based product?)

$476 million by “sweeping” cash from the NY Power Authority into the general fund (The Authority has worked hard for decades earning that $476 million. Now the state wants to take it away? Write your elected officials and demand that money be quickly returned to the Authority. THEY didn’t get us into this mess. ALBANY did.)

The list of outrages perpetrated by our elected officials against the common man goes on and on.

And look how these seemingly little changes can effect the entire economy. You ride a motorcycle? It’s gonna cost you $3.50 more to register it, Easy Rider. That will translate into fewer motorcycles on the road. Fewer motorcycles on the road translates to fewer trips by Mercy Flight next summer. Fewer trips by Mercy Flight translates to fewer hospital procedures combined with loss of revenue in the funeral home sector—not to mention fewer clients for physical therapists. Who pays in the end? YOU!

Last but not least these sickos in our state capital want to raise $14 million by bumping up the tax on a gallon of beer by 3 cents. Which one of them is gonna have the guts to explain to my daughter that her college fund will be effectively eaten up by their irresponsibility and unbridled greed?

Peace Bridge Neighborhood activist Peter Joe Certo is upset with The Buffalo News for playing fast and loose with its own policies. Here’s an email he sent around to dozens of media folks, including many writers at the daily paper. He offers real estate records and email strings as evidence. Read on…and on...

“A writer or household may be represented in the column only once in 60 days.”

This is to call your attention (again!) to a violation of your guidelines for publishing letters in Everybody’s Column.  This is not the first time you’ve violated/waived your own guideline for repeat publishing, nor is it the first time I’ve called your attention to it.  Below are links to two letters: one published today; the other less than “60 days” ago. They are written by members of the same “household”: neighborhood scribe and self-styled “legal” expert Barbara Battista and her home’s co-owner and co-habitant, Joseph Paternostro.  While both letters are ill-reasoned screeds, you certainly may publish them, but not in violation of your own guidelines.  This is not this first time I’ve brought this (same exact) violation to your attention (see attached e-mail of 11-17-08).  At that time, you promised to “check it out.” There is evidence you’ve exercised this restriction in the past; in fact, you’ve exercised it on me (see attached e-mail of 12-17-07).  Why you don’t do it with others is beyond me. (more…)

What’s the message Buffalo Students First is sending to voters this weekend promoting the incumbent candidates, three days before the school board election? That depends on where you live in the city of Buffalo.

First, here’s a mailer sent by Buffalo Students First to voters in the 144th Assembly District, represented by Sam Hoyt. The message on the back begins: “The politicians and special interest groups want to take over control of our schools. We can’t allow that to happen…”

If that’s the case, what does one make of  this mailer sent by Buffalo Students First to city voters in the 141st Assembly District, represented by Crystal Peoples? Voters there, primarily African-American, received an open letter from Mayor Byron Brown, Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples, and State Senator Antoine Thompson, endorsing the incumbent slate of Florence Johnson, Catherine Collins, and Chris Jacobs.

Are Brown, Peoples, and Thompson not politicians? And is Buffalo Students First and/or the Buffalo Niagara Partnership  not a special interest group? News Flash: THE POLITICIANS AND SPECIAL INTERESTS CURRENTLY HAVE CONTROL OF OUR SCHOOLS. And it’s clear they will spend a great deal of money in the hope of keeping it that way.

The blatant hypocrisy displayed by Buffalo Students First in sponsoring these two divergent messages should be offensive to every voter in the city. But there’s plenty of shame to go around here. Why would Brown, Peoples, and Thompson lend their support to a slate of candidates in an election that is held in May for the express reason that it should not  be political?

And why would the Buffalo Niagara Partnership hide behind a phony name like Buffalo Students First, when it is clear that they are directly involved in the funding of this campaign that preaches two different messages to urban voters based largely on the color of their skin? The evidence of their involvement is here in this one-page financial disclosure form, signed by Glenn Aronow, Director of Government Relations for the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.

Then there’s Saturday’s Buffalo News, which contains this editorial endorsing the incumbents.

(While writing this blog, I have received a report from a resident of University Heights that all the cars in the neighborhood had anonymous flyers on the windshield this morning, referencing this Buffalo News endorsement of the status quo.)

“Ideally, a School Board member encompasses a strong work ethic, willingness to do the necessary homework and the ability to ask the right questions and to come to a fair decision without undue political influence. Florence Johnson, Christopher Jacobs and Catherine Collins have done so, and deserve to continue in their current roles,” the News editorial staff opines, apparently with a straight face.

Is it not interesting that their very own columnists have offered contrary opinions? Consider Rod Watson’s May 29, 2008 article that begins, “Despite the many things the Buffalo Board of Education is probing in the McKinley High School fiasco, one critical issue has yet to surface: What to do about board members who appear to lie to the public?”

Or Donn Esmonde, who wrote on April 16, 2008: “Put the pieces together, and you get a picture of what happens when a school system is run by the integrity-lite and the ethically challenged. They all will tell you that nothing matters more than the kids. Amazingly, their noses do not grow an inch when they say it.”

Watson summed it up also on July 3, 2008 in an article entitled: School Board lacks guts to do right thing. He begins: “Of all the reforms possible in the wake of the McKinley High School fiasco, the most obvious has yet to be mentioned: Students need a union. And lobbyists. And bigger allowances, so they can make campaign contributions to buy off legislators who write the laws that Buffalo school officials are hiding behind to avoid holding anyone accountable.”

“You can thank the unions and their grip on Albany’s legislative machine, as well as their intimidating ability to affect a School Board candidacy in elections with miniscule turnouts,” he continues.

Shall we also thank the editorial staff of his paper for their ability to try to do the very same thing?

Tuesday’s school board election will be decided by city voters. It should be decided by the parents of children who attend classes every day in the city of Buffalo, and by every city resident who recognizes the critical importance of improving the quality of education for the children of our impoverished city—where only 46% of students graduate from high school in four years—a number that has worsened over the past five years under the the questionable guidance of the incumbent at-large school board members, who now seek an additional five years to finish the job.

Their biggest success, they claim, is a $1 billion “state of the art” school renovation project that is so hopelessly out of touch with progressive green-building standards that the electrical bills to run the buildings will be an albatross around taxpayers’ necks long into the future.

The title of the Buffalo News editorial nails it on the head: Tuesday’s Buffalo school board vote will determine future of district.

Wouldn’t it be a surprising miracle if, when voters step into the booth this Tuesday, May 5, they remember the little voices of the children who deserve so much better, and forget the propaganda dumped upon them by business people from Niagara Falls and the suburbs, who would have us believe that things are just fine in the Buffalo Schools?

Vote!

A story in Tuesday’s Buffalo News says that State Education Commissioner Richard P. Mills has called for the Buffalo Schools to investigate many of the charges anonymously made by a former McKinley High School Teacher. (Read the Artvoice story here.) Investigation into some of the charges such as Regents Exam fraud will be made in Albany, but Mills wants a report on the district’s internal investigation by April 18.

Here’s the original letter we posted first on Artvoice.com on March 7, sent by school board member Ralph Hernandez to Mills, the superintendent and the school board: artvoice-mckinley.jpg or artvoice-mckinley1.pdf

That puts a lot of pressure on Mark Frazier (lead community superintendent), Amber Dixon (executive director of project initiatives), Will Keresztes (associate superintendent for educational services) and district CFO and COO Gary Crosby. After all, there are a lot of people wishing the whole thing would simply go away.

Principally, Crystal Barton, who sent a letter calling for disciplinary action against Hernandez, dated March 12: barton-letter.jpg or c-barton-letter.pdf.

It’s interesting to note that I originally filed a FOIL requesting a copy of this letter via email from schools spokesman Stefan Mychajliw and schools legal counsel Kelly Eisenried on March 13. On March 31, Eisenried replied that she was unaware of any such document. By that time, it had become available from many sources, including LSlisz at Buffalo Schools, who had emailed it to me on March 20. I sent that copy back to Eisenried, telling her the letter I was requesting looked just like the one I was sending her, attached in the email. Now that I’ve shown her the letter I was requesting from her, I’ve not heard back.

The day after Barton sent that letter, the following was sent to the superintendent, board members, and Mills by local NAACP head Frank B. Messiah on March 13: naacp.jpg or naacp.pdf.

There’s lots of pressure on all the investigators involved to do the right thing.