South Buffalo Blogger

The youth of Grace Lutheran Church will present their yearly Fairy Tale Theater show on Friday, April 25th, 2008, at 7:00PM and Saturday, April 26th, 2008, at 3:00PM & 7:00PM.

This is a brand-new wacky feature based on a fairy tale, called “Beauty and the Not So Much…”

Be ready for some crazy antics, silly songs, wonderful costumes, wisecracks, and, of course, a chase scene!! Fun for all ages!!

Free Koolaid, and proceeds from Bake Sale/Refreshments raise funds to send kids to camp!

The location of all this action is Grace Lutheran Church, 174 Cazenovia Street, South Buffalo. Please call 822-0553 for tickets, which are $4.00 Presale, $5.00 at the door.

Today I took a few pictures of the casino in Cazenovia Park.

From the previous post, the pot holes were filled in the other day. The cold patch won’t last long and the City will be back out filling this spot in by mid-summer.

It’s fixed, but what a shame it still looks though.

Cazenovia Street from South Legion to Abbott Rd.

It’s always refreshing to post about the good stuff. While the infrastructure frustration lives on in the City of Buffalo, the pothole pictured from earlier this week has been taken care of.

This is how I saw it today.

By: CindyK. At a meeting addressing block club leaders on March 31, 2008, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown declared that an Assemblyman who sits on the Transportation Committe is blocking his quest for red light cameras.

As with the initiative of street cameras and putting pressure on the criminal element in the City, Brown said he’s been lobbying Albany for red light cameras for added safety.

“These cameras would protect some of our busiest intersection, protect the safety of pedestrians, as well as the safety of motorists. We believe it could reduce accidents by serving as a deterrent at some of these intersections and it would gives us the ability to more effectively and efficiently deploy our police officers to areas, again, where they can crack down on the criminal element.” he stated.

Having said the safety of every neighborhood is taken very seriously. Public safety, The Mayor stated he sees as a critical priority to strengthening the City of Buffalo.

Yet an (unnamed) Assemblyman was said to be blocking the lobby of red light cameras in Buffalo.

“There is an Assemblyman who is pretty powerful in Albany, who heads the Transportation Committee of the Assembly, and to this point he has been blocking and resisting our ability to get these red light cameras installed.” Mayor Brown said.

While he further acknowledged they’re making progress in Albany, he’s still hopeful of getting the permission of red light cameras to the security for Buffalo’s citizens, which furthermore could generate an additional 3-8 million dollars of revenue for the City.

Revenue, he says would be used in the form of putting more police on the streets, and helping to negotiate police contracts.

By: Cindyk. I got my copy of the South Buffalo News in the mail today, in it is an article expressing how Congressman Higgins is applauding $3 million in waterfront money.

From his list of legislation issues, you can see where waterfront is its own link.

Congressman Higgins is on the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, which you can click here to read about this committee.

From a few simple pictures though, you can see the infrastructure frustration that is becoming of our area. (the problems don’t end with these pictures, there are many more streets that look like these, and worse)

The question has to be asked: Is our Congressman ignoring the infrastructure that has been neglected for too long?

By: CindyK
From the March 31st meeting in South Buffalo,

Saying, “graffiti is a big emphasis with the Mayor”, Mestre also talked about Buffalo’s Anti-Graffiti and Clean City Programs.

Graffiti prevention improves the quality of life for communities and residents, and Buffalo’s Anti-Graffiti Clean City coordinator was introduced to the public.

“We take that serious. The whole idea of graffiti, that’s a quality of life call, and we want to be able to do something about it.” Mestre stated to block club leaders.

Mayor Brown, with the hiring of a new fulltime employee, plus two season staff, calls out graffiti as a quality of life problem not just in South Buffalo, but also throughout the city.

“Unfortunately in many neighborhoods across the city of Buffalo, including neighborhoods in South Buffalo there are people who are painting graffiti on buildings in our city. We hear on a regular basis from residents that they don’t like it one little bit. So we have hired someone who will be working very aggressively to remove the graffiti, to partner with our police agencies, and to partner with the division of citizen services to make sure we can reduce this nuisance problem in our city.” Brown stated.

When presented with the question of posting a camera in the area to catch graffiti down along the Cazenovia Creek, Brown said it’s not enough of a high-priority issue that City cams are to be used for. Though, graffiti in general, is warranting enough for its own department.

Myself: “You mentioned graffiti, what about the (Cazenovia) Creek? It’s a concrete wall on both sides and last year somebody came in, they painted it all, the next day it was filled up again.”

Mayor: “And then we’re going to have to clean it off again.”

Myself: “A suggestion would be to put a camera that way you can see, obviously it’s kids going down there, you can monitor a little bit better. They clean it up and by the next morning…”

Mayor: “That’s a consideration, a suggestion that we will take into consideration. Initially we’re not going to place any cameras for graffiti because we really want to crack down on the more serious crime, the more violent crime. We certainly want to reduce homicide, reduce burglary, we want to reduce assault, and so we’re going to place those cameras in locations where we can crack down on that kind of very dangerous activity in the City.”

Additionally, he continued on to say that the city wants to crack down on drugs and gangs. Saying they (the city) will probably not place a camera in the area of the creek. Instead, he suggested that the graffiti will be cleaned off based on “graffiti vandal experts” data of immediately cleaning graffiti every time it happens to demonstrate it won’t be tolerated once it’s been painted over.

Myself: “Do we wait for the city to do something, or can the citizens go down there and paint over it?”

Mayor: “What I would recommend is not to paint over it. We’re going to try and devise a system where citizens can volunteer and where they can help out. To make sure liability issues are all taken care of.”

He recommended at that point that graffiti just be reported to the City to be taken care of.

A-District Chief Strobele interjected to speak about the importance of reporting the graffiti so that the police can take pictures of it to know if it’s “tagging”

“We want to know if anything has gang implications. We want our people to take pictures of that.” Strobele stated.

Myself: “That was the whole reason of suggesting a camera, for a person like myself, I don’t know what’s what. Graffiti’s graffiti.”

Mayor: “It’s a good suggestion, that’s not the most critical priority for the cameras right now. It’s a good suggestion and at some point we might be there where we are placing cameras in areas that people are tagging all of the time.”

As part of my series of posts from a community meeting yesterday, Mayor Brown attended and spoke to a nice size crowd of block club leaders in South Buffalo.

“We take the safety of every neighborhood in the City of Buffalo very seriously, and public safety we see as a critical priority to strengthening this city, growing this city and moving Buffalo forward.” Mayor Brown stated.

The Mayor said he, along with the support of the Common Council, has taken a position that [the City] is not going to quibble about money for police and fire to protect the safety and health of the residents of the City of Buffalo.

Brown acknowledged a “historic” $117 million surplus and stated that while there was an “over-spent” for police & fire, there are extra recourses available. Specifically said, “Your taxes are not going to go up.”

He went further to say that the police department is doing an excellent job in cracking down on drugs, gangs and people trying to move guns through the City of Buffalo, but then stated that crime is down over all.

“We’re going to continue to provide our police department and our police officers with the recourses that they need and the tools, technology that they need to continue to send crime in the right direction, and send the criminals on the run.” Mayor Brown affirmed.

Also talked about was the City’s process of installing 60 high-tech surveillance cameras that he said will be a major deterrent in areas of increased crime, in neighborhood commercial districts and areas to protect homeland security.

The Mayor’s goal is to present another 40 cameras in the City’s upcoming budget, bringing the total to 100 cams throughout the City of Buffalo by the end of the year.

“Protecting our neighborhoods and putting more pressure on the criminal element.” He said.

Additionally, the Mayor is currently trying to lobby Albany for the ability to put red light cams in neighborhoods as well, serving as protection in busy intersections of motorists and safety pedestrians.

“We believe” Brown said “that it can reduce accidents by serving as deterrent at some of these intersections would give us the ability to more effectively & efficiently deploy our police officers to areas where they can, again, crack down on the criminal element.”

The Mayor stated that if the red light cams are installed, it could generate $3-8 million in revenue, of which is planned to put additional officers on the streets and use another amount to help negotiate a contract with City of Buffalo Police officers, who he said “have gone for some time without a new contract.”

Twenty-two years serving as a City of Buffalo police officer, and newly promoted A-District police chief, Brian S. Strobele as well addressed the community of block club leaders yesterday evening.

Chief Strobele was involved with the second phase of the operation of last month’s drug bust in South Buffalo, where 63 arrests were made and countless amounts of drugs and weapons were seized.

“The thing that I want to convey to everyone is that we can’t stop there, we need information to keep coming.” He said while expressing success of the Mayor’s Call & Resolution Center.