Abortion – What do you think?

We all know we see the protesters on 2500 Main Street everyday and every night.

Knuckle City Films decided to speak with them on what really motivates them and why they feel the need to make there presence felt everyday. Please leave a comment on your thoughts and personal opinions. The response on comments will result in a part 2 on the tuggle war with abortion in American society.

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Great Locally Grown Food: Where to Get it and Why You Should

Squeaky Wheel’s Buffalo Youth Media filmmaker Mario Ayoub put together this informative piece on local foods. Great interviews.

Illuzzi Blows a Gasket

For a born-again, turn-the-other-cheek, ride-that-Gospel-ship, my-check-kiting-days-are-over Christian, Joe Illuzzi certainly is given to fits of stunning vituperation. The bile he unloaded last night is particularly freighted with hate and slander.

On Cheektowaga Democratic chairman Frank Max:

One of the bloggers arrested for indecent exposure  known for fabricating stories, libel, etc. & getting paid to do it wrote Cheektowaga Chairman Frank Max beat up his wife & did jail time, true account.

However, later on Max paid him to write a retraction. Now Max says this publication  solicited an ad for Glascott for Sheriff. Absolutely not true. Max brought the ad up & we ignored him. Max would always preface his conversations with us by offering some sort of payment in kind. The fool never realized how insulted we were by that tactic. We should mention Max excoriated the blogger in question for over a year until he realized he could purchase the retraction.

We never swayed from our support of Tim Howard. We wouldn’t take money from a man who represented one of the most racist, brutal police departments in the country. However, the blogger in question took Glascott’s money & excoriated Howard for months.

But what was is true is Max beat up his wife!

On Erie County Legislator Tom Mazur:

Then this degenerate who represents a guy who beat up his wife (Max) is singing the praises of Legislator Tom Mazur was forced to resign his teaching position at ECC for sexually abusing a very young female student, more than one says a very prominent jurist.

On New York State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt:

To add insult to injury: Hoyt Sam I’ll be your lollipop Hoyt is taking full credit for the Legislature reversing itself on the license plate mandate. Hoyt sanctioned by the Assembly Speaker & kicked out of the “student intern” for having sex with one of the girls in his charge. Actually, there was more than one & one had an abortion.

On Common Council President Dave Franczyk:

We received a number of emails from readers wanting to make the point that Common Council President David Franczyk is simply a talking head. His district looks like a war zone because Franczyk has done little or nothing for his constituents. His job is to get the Black guys.

On the five members of the majority coalition on the Common Council:

The Majority on the Buffalo Common Council is trying to lynch Brian Davis.

And on an unnamed member of the Common Council:

Oh! I almost forgot! Sources say unequivocally that a Majority member of the Buffalo Common Council got caught in a extra marital tryst. Did we mention it was a gay man. The gay guys partner made him come clean if he wanted a reconciliation. No names (We have  names) just the facts – just the facts.

Come on, Joe. Don’t blow a week’s worth of character assassination in one evening. It’s only Tuesday, and your weekly dose of forgiveness is a long time coming.

The last assertion is especially egregious. Who is the old blackmailer threatening with this gossip, and why?

Consider Illuzzi’s sponsors: He is the paid man of Byron Brown and Steve Casey, who, like their opponents, are scrambling to positions for the fight to choose the successor to Brian Davis, who, according to state law, vacated the Ellicott District seat on Friday by pleading guilty to two misdemeanor violations of campaign finance law. (By the way, note that DA Frank Sedita claims there was no plea deal with Davis. Sedita says that Davis plead to exactly the crimes he committed, and if he had not, Sedita would have convened a grand jury this week to look at the case. But if Sedita was ready to convene a grand jury, then he must have had felonies to pin on Davis, not misdemeanors. Sounds like a plea deal to me.) The Council’s majority coalition wants to fill the vacancy quickly, not only because the Ellicott District needs representation but because the Council is beginning to work on the mayor’s proposed capital budget. Last year, the majority held the capital budget hostage well into the new year, insisting on changes that the mayor refused to make, and unable to force the mayor’s hand because they lacked a sixth vote to overturn Brown’s veto.

The Ellicott District seat could provide that sixth vote this year, but they need to fill the vacancy before December 15, by which date the Council must make its changes to the mayor’s $22.7 million capital budget proposal.

It may seem like the majority should be able to pick whomever they like for that seat, after advertising the position, accepting resumes, interviewing candidates, and listening to the district’s Democratic committee members, whose recommendation is influential but non-binding. But a five-to-four majority is thin, and it might be possible for Brown and Casey to peel away one ambitious majority member. One of the five, for example, might be convinced to vote for the candidate backed by Brown and Casey (Janique Curry, perhaps?) in exchange for the Council presidency, which would be determined by a new majority comprising the mayor’s bloc—North, University, Masten, and Ellicott—plus the rogue member of the current majority.

That carrot, or one similar to it, is surely being dangled right now. Perhaps Illuzzi, then, is the stick. If you don’t take the carrot, Brown and Casey may be saying, we can turn Illuzzi and his poison on you.

Brian Davis Pleads Guilty, Claims He’s Not Resigning

Brian Davis claims he will not resign the Ellicott District Common Council seat, after pleading guilty this morning to two criminal charges brought by New York State Police in Judge Thomas Amodeo’s court.

Not a lot of callbacks on this story: Brian Davis isn’t answering his cell phone (his voicemail is full); Davis’s staff isn’t answering their phones, though a friendstrolled by his office and said they’re at work today; the troopers have not returned calls.

Jim Heaney of the Buffalo News, who’s been bird-dogging Davis all year, says it was personal use of campaign funds. Davis also plead guilty to filing incomplete campaign finance disclosure forms.

Davis’s lawyer said in court that the councilman did not intend to resign. I guess we’ll see: Erie County Legislator Butch Holt was removed from office when he ran afoul of the law, under the auspices of New York State’s Public Officers Law. (Basically you can’t hold office if you’re a criminal, despite occasional evidence to the contrary.) Davis is reportedly  on his way to be fingerprinted and photographed right now. How can he stay in office if Holt had to go?

So who will fill the Ellicott District seat? Word is that Mayor Byron Brown’s camp favors moving Erie County Legislator Barbara Miller-Williams into Davis’s seat, and with Janique Curry filling Miller-Williams’s seat. Attorney Bill Trezevant has had his eye on the seat for some time, as has firefighter Bryon McIntyre, who primaried Davis two years ago.

Under the rule adopted after Mickey Kearns won the South District seat vacated by Jimmy Griffin in 2005, the Common Council must advertise the vacancy, accept resumes, interview qualified candidates in public hearings, then vote in a replacement. In the past, the recommendation of Democratic district committee members was sacrosanct when it came to filling vacant seats, but the Common Council itself has the final say. If the committee members recommend someone the majority doesn’t care for, the Council could vote in someone else.

Champ Eve, son of the the legendary Arthur Eve, controls a substantial number of Democratic committee seats in the Ellicott District, as does Niagara District Councilman David Rivera and a number of others generally opposed to Grassroots, the mayor’s political organization. (Grassroots has some committee seats, too, but was greatly weakened in Ellicott in last year’s election.) So any candidate recommended by the party in Ellicott District is likely to be independent of the mayor. The question is whether that candidate will give the current five-member mjaority voting bloc and six-member super-majority that could ovverride Brown’s veto.

Just in time for the annual haggle over the capital budget.

UPDATE: Oh, right the charges: Jim Heaney of the Buffalo News, who’s been bird-dogging Davis all year, says it was personal use of campaign funds.He also pled guilty to filing incomplete campaign finance disclosure forms.

Davis’s lawyer said in court that the councilman did not intend to resign. I guess we’ll see: Erie County Legislator Butch Holt was removed from office when he ran afoul of the law, under the auspices of New York State’s Public Officers Law. Davis is reportedly  on his way to be fingerprinted and photographed right now. How can he stay in office if Holt had to go?

Erie County DA Frank Sedita will hold a press conference at 2pm.

$8 Billion in New Taxes and Fees on Whom?

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?

Question for Brian Davis

Yesterday an anonymous commenter left this note on the long-abandoned blog of  Ellicott District Councilman Brian Davis:

Anonymous said…

November 05, 2009

How could you?

Good question.

Man vs. Machine

According to a source in City Hall, the push for red light cameras has lost momentum since the home-rule measure was passed in Albany and approved by the Common Council this past spring.

Since then, one traffic surveillance company, Redflex, has met on more than one occasion with council members to voice their displeasure at this foot-dragging. They’d stand to make a lot of money on a deal with the city, but the city has yet to issue an RFP.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the country where such cameras are already in use, humans are revolting against the machines. Several municipalities are moving to do away with them, while vandalism of the cameras is on the rise around the globe. Tragically, the robots are even managing to turn humans against one another. According to this Washington Post report, “a technician was servicing a speed camera on Loop 101 in Phoenix back in April. An irate motorist shot him to death”

The battle, brothers and sisters, has begun.

—buck quigley

Brian Davis AWOL

John Borsa at Channel 7 News reports:

Sources on Buffalo’s Common Council tell Eyewitness News that Ellicott District member Brian Davis could lose two weeks of salary on payday if he fails to show for Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting. This after Davis failed to show for a committee meeting on Wednesday.

“Avoiding state police investigators is not a valid excuse for missing a council meeting,” one source said.

A majority vote is required for any council member who wishes to miss a meeting. A request must be submitted by 2 p.m. on Thursday, said Common Council President David Franczyk.

Franczyk said Davis’ attendance has been better since the councilman missed several meetings at the beginning of the year.

Eyewitness News has learned that investigators from the New York State Police and the Erie County District Attorney’s office were at city hall Wednesday afternoon asking to interview Councilman Brian Davis.

Frank Sedita, the Erie County D.A., confirmed the investigators were present at a committee meeting that Davis was scheduled to attend.

Sources who were at the meeting said the investigators simply wanted to talk with the embattled councilman.

Eyewitness News confirmed months ago that state police were looking into Davis and his alleged role in the One Sunset scandal.

The restaurant, which is now closed, was failing when it received more than $100,000 in city funds, some of which came from Davis in the form of a grant, a city audit revealed.

Calls to Councilman Davis were not returned.

Local Groups Beg At State Senate Budget Hearing

For the second time in four days, New York State Senators sat at a table in Western New York to listen to locals beg for money. On Friday, Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Martin Malave Dilan held a hearing at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society to hear idea on how the state should spend $25 billion in capital project funds over the next five years. (Joining Dilan were local senators Thompson, Stachowski, Ranzenhofer and Maziarz, and a well-heeled delegation from NYSDOT.)

The day’s headlines, forecasting a $10 billion deficit in the state budget over the next two years, were largely ignored until the last speaker, former State Senator and Buffalo Common Councilman Al Coppola, spoke his piece. He’d been waiting three hours to get to the microphone. He and Dilan exchanged senatorial pleasantries (Dilan politely pretended to have heard of Coppola, whose stint in Albany was brief), and then Coppola held up a copy of the day’s paper, and mentioned the climbing deficit. “Kind of changes everything we’ve been talking about here today, doesn’t it?” he said.

Dilan shrugged and nodded. “It changes everything.”

Not that transportation spending has been well managed in recent years anyway. From today’s Rochester Democrat & Chronicle:

Highway and motor vehicle taxes dedicated to road and bridge repairs continue to be raided to pay the state’s operating expenses, leading to a deterioration of New York’s infrastructure, according to a report from the Comptroller’s Office.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said that since 1991, only 35 percent, or $11.6 billion, of the money in the state’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund went to repair roads and bridges.

The majority of the money went to cover debt payments and expenses at the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Transportation, DiNapoli said.

He warned that the percentage of capital spending on roads will decline to 21 percent by 2014 and the state will need to pay $4 billion from the general fund just to pay current bills over the next five years.

“This is not acceptable,” DiNapoli said. “This money should be used to keep our roads and bridges safe.”

Using most of the $33 billion fund for other expenses has left the state unable to pay for a proposed $25.8 billion five-year capital plan for roads and bridges.

Gov. David Paterson recently rejected the new capital plan presented by the DOT, saying the state simply can’t afford it.

The state Association of Counties said nearly 40 percent of the state’s 17,000 bridges are in disrepair and urged state leaders to invest in the capital plan.

Which brings us to today’s hearing, already underway at the UAW office on George Karl Boulevard in Williamsville. Senate Finance Chair Carl Kruger and State Senator Bill Stachowski (the man Kruger muscled out of the powerful committee’s chairmanship) are taking testimony on Governor David Paterson’s deficit reduction plan, which aims to cut a projected $3 billion deficit in the 2009-2010 budget by whacking 10 percent off of basically everything.

Here’s the Senate’s description of Paterson’s plan.

And after the jump is the list of groups planning to testify.

Continue reading »

Brian Davis: No on Domestic Partnership Benefits

Does it strike anyone odd that Ellicott District Councilman Brian Davis—who must represent more same-sex couples than any other Buffalo legislator—is the only member of Council to vote against a resolution asking the city’s Law Department to write up a bill that would extend domestic partner benefits

to all city employees.

He represents Allentown, the epicenter of the city’s LGBT culture. The increase in personnel costs to the city is expected to be less than one percent. It’s a resolution asking the Law Department to write a bill, it’s not even the law itself.  Davis voted against even considering domestic partner benefits.

Masten District Councilman Demone Smith voted for the resolution, even though he expressed concern about the actual cost of extending the benefits, and even though his constituency is far less likely to approve of the measure than Davis’s.

So who is Davis representing?