And you thought it couldn't get any worse...
This afternoon after shoveling snow, I called Perrysburg to speak with Myrton Sprague, the town supervisor. His wife told me that he wasn’t available as he was tending the grape field. I imagine we’ll speak tomorrow.
It occurred to me that the people of Perrysburg are probably much more sane about local government than we are here in the ‘hood. Myrton has been brokering a deal with Trathen as I mentioned last week to sell the 650+ acre JN Adam site in Perrysburg and finally return it to the tax roles. He’s the top politico in Perrysburg and has been doing this on a part-time basis. He grows grapes full time. When I first spoke to him last week he seemed to me the kind of guy who is not afraid to call a spade-a-spade. Reasonable and forward thinking, like any dedicated public servant must be.
Well let’s see if your “Bull-Shit” detector is as finally tuned as Mryton’s. Yesterday at City Hall a representative from NYS who is involved in the deal told David Franczyk:
"We urge you to attend to Buffalo instead of Perrysburg, to Forest Avenue instead of Perrysburg Forest, to Erie County instead of Cattaraugus County,"
Read the rest of the story here in today’s Buffalo News.
Read the rest of the story here in today’s Buffalo News.
Read the rest of the story here in today’s Buffalo News.
David Franzcyk's coordinated counter-punch thwarted the deal last week which would have accomplished numerous objectives – eliminating Buffalo’s future liabilities and satisfying Perrysburg’s needs.
This is just another example of Franzcyk’s counter-intuitive support for policies that negatively impact our “urban core” and city life. He supported a devastating Erie County Dept. of Social Services policy which enabled welfare recipients to receive a two-party rent check and then maybe turn it over to the landlord and he authored "landlord liscening." Support for both of these policies has resulted in negative investment in Polonia and now other parts of the city. They have contributed to allowing an entire class of tenant to destroy apartments with impunity. (Only National Fuel Gas and Niagara Mohawk are able to garnish future welfare grants! Lesson, mess-up one apartment, move on to the next!) Until Kevin Helfer just recently reversed this policy, landlords were the only class of vendor for the county that had to go door-to-door to get paid.
Drive through the Fillmore district, see the scavengers pushing shopping carts full of hot-water heaters and copper plumbing pieces towards the scrap dealers on William Street. They are there right now, taking apart another recently vacated apartment!
Please tell me why 15/day are getting on the bus and voting with their feet. Remember when Ken Kesey and his gang of literary misfits, the Merry Pranksters, left New York chanting, “Either you’re on the bus, or you’re off the bus,” in their drug induced euphoria on their way across country?
Today the logic is the same "We urge you to attend to Buffalo instead of Perrysburg, to Forest Avenue instead of Perrysburg Forest, to Erie County instead of Cattaraugus County."
Saving the trees…the JN Adam site… might be David Franczyk’s solo-trip but something tells me Brian Lipke, brand new Chairman of Buffalo’s Control Board, wants nothing to do with what Franczyk et al. have been doing or where that bus is going. Ask Myrton Sprague. On a cold blustery winter's day he was out prunning his vines.
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Artspace Archive • Annals of Neglect • BAVPA • Where is Perrysburg? • Broken Promises...
Writing the City • Woodlawn Row Houses • Tour dé Neglect - 2006 • faq
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