fix buffalo today, archive

Did you miss the irony?

In today’s Buffalo News we learn that Sharon West, Executive Director of BMHA -- Buffalo Municipal Housing Agency and NY’s second largest municipal housing agency, is leaving for Tampa. She stayed just long enough here in Buffalo making $90,000/year to trigger a 54K retirement package! In Tampa she will be the new manager of housing and community development.

She said, "The one thing I wish I could take with me from Buffalo, is the people!" Sharon they are on the way. People are leaving Buffalo at the rate of 15/day! Totally flat and disappointing piece from Deidre Williams at the Buffalo News. Deidre did you miss the $80 million over at Lakeview?

• Richard Kern, local pundit and gadfly - on a bicycle in any weather, swings a double edged sword. He weighs in over at Altpress as part of an open letter to Mayor Masiello.
  

• Kern’s critique is on the mark when he laments how the civil rights movement of the 60’s has become a Civil Rights Bureaucracy and municipal housing has become a Federal Plantation system. Please help me understand why large federal programs administered by HUD should dictate what's right and approriate for our neighborhoods?

• Less than a year ago the Buffalo Preservation Board had a few choice words for the Sharon West legacy!

• James Ostrowski - Local lawyer, libertarian and writer about our shrinking city (Check this out! Ouch!!) ditto's and develops Kern's critique about BMHA's desecration of our urban landscape in this article...

It isn’t enough, apparently, that this agency destroyed many Buffalo neighborhoods, built horrendous housing projects Stalin would have loved, and is a den of waste, corruption, and patronage...

Gillian Brown, has told me on many occasions about the waste and complete lack of oversight at BMHA. He should know. He's their lead counsel. Perhaps he will help reform the agency and do something more than "remodel and demo" now that Sharon West has flown the coop. He's got a long way to go with over 1000 vacancies Sharon leaves behind.

Buffalo News misses the mark again in their continuing development of "Loserville Journalism." I'm so confused. Didn't Warren Buffet just issue a new year's resolution? Maybe we'll hear something from Bruce Jackson over at Buffalo Report. Wonder if Bruce has read James Ostrowski's book?

Excellent piece about Sam Hoyt, today Bruce.

Sharon, glad to see you go. Bloggers in Tampa.....hello!