Is it possible that a lot of local residents are missing a bright spot amidst the dustup and controversy over Carl Paladino’s Waterfront Village residential development on the city’s lakefront? Most of the objections to the project center on the steep property-tax breaks buyers of the homes—15 townhouses and 49 condos in a tower—will receive because the development is in a New York Empire Zone. (It didn’t used to be. The zone was redrawn to include the property in the waning days of Mayor Anthony Masiello’s administration.)

We all remember the budget crisis of 2004-05, when the Erie County budget came up $108 million short. It was then that County Executive Joel Giambra, standing in front of the cameras and microphones, held up his starkly contrasting “green” and “red” budgets in a childish effort to convince the Legislature to pass, and the public to accept, a one percent hike in the sales tax. The green budget was the happy-go-lucky one that would see life here continue on an even keel, given the tax increase. The “red,” or “scorched earth,” budget was the one that he promised would end life in Erie County as we knew it: 1,000 County employees laid off, road crews reduced, library funding drastically reduced, cultural funding completely evaporated. The Legislature didn’t budge, and two months later it all became reality.

As this issue goes to press, the outgoing Buffalo School Board is meeting behind closed doors tonight at City Hall, where the agenda will include extending the contract of Superintendent James Williams. Williams, whose current contract runs through July 2008, is being brought up for a raise by the largely lame-duck school board.