Artvoice: Buffalo's #1 Newsweekly
Home Blogs Web Features Calendar Listings Artvoice TV Real Estate Classifieds Contact
Artvoice Weekly Edition » Issue v13n2 (01/09/2014) » Section: Letters to Artvoice


IDA Reform Needed Now

by Daniel J. Ward
True, this is one big mutual back-scratching deal—and everyone is in on it because they all have some pet project. Jacobs pays everyone, as does Uniland. (I never got any, never asked, that’s why I am here typing, and not still in office.) As long as we have a campaign finance system (or lack thereof) that is like the Wild West out there, this is bound to happen..

Amherst, Let the Sun Shine In

by Michele F. Marconi
Sunshine provides us with much needed Vitamin D.

A Buyout? Really, What Will They Think of Next!

by Barbara Seals Nevergold
On Sunday morning, December 29, 2013, the Buffalo News printed a front-page headline proclaiming that Buffalo Schools Superintendent Pamela Brown had been offered a buyout. The story, subtitled “Community Leaders hope to entice Brown to resign with $500,000 package,” proceeded to name Robert D. Gioia, head of the Oishei Foundation, as the individual coordinating the effort to raise money from “deep-pocketed,” i.e. wealthy, community members. Why do these wealthy “community leaders” want to buy-out Dr. Brown and send her packing? According to the article, they claim “she doesn’t communicate effectively, sometimes blindsides key players with decisions such as closing schools or adding dozens of staff to the payroll without first finding money to do so.” Further, the critics cite that the “state has criticized the lack of academic progress at several schools and rejected several versions of a plan to accommodate students wanting to transfer out of the lowest-performing schools.”



Back to issue index