Standing ovations for the Scintas, Eliot Spitzer, retirees delay the people’s business

Tanned and creased by seven years in the Las Vegas sun, the Scintas delivered a loungey take on “The Star-Spangled Banner” to a starry-eyed audience in Buffalo’s Common Council Chambers on Tuesday afternoon. The room was packed, as it is only rarely—for, say, public hearings on controversial development plans. Only this time, everyone was on the same page. The Scintas, the Buffalo born and bred family pop act, “raised real humble in the city of Buffalo” by a firefighter father, have returned to play five shows at the Seneca Niagara Casino. All five nights sold out in an hour. Jumping on top of a good thing, Ellicott District Councilman Brian Davis invited the four Scintas to receive a plaque honoring their accomplishments and declaring July 24 to be, forever on, Scintas Day in Buffalo. Mayor Byron Brown was on hand, too, to present the Scintas with a key to the city—the fifth key he has presented in his 18-month tenure.

All this singing and presenting required three separate standing ovations, which continued when the Council honored Bruna Michaux, the retiring assessment and taxation commissioner. The well-loved Michaux—who spent 43 years in City Hall—gave a speech that seemed almost as long as her career, while the afternoon’s real star, Governor Eliot Spitzer, stood ready in the wings to deliver a speech of his own. When Michaux was done speaking, she was treated to the second of two standing ovations, and took the time to give each member of Council a hug. (Later Martin F. Kennedy, a 17-year city employee, was named Michaux’s replacement; he also delivered a speech and received a standing ovation.)

Council President Dave Franczyk then introduced Brown, who introduced Spitzer, who began his remarks graciously by acknowledging Michaux’s many years of public service. He then agreed with Brown that he was the first New York governor ever to stand in Buffalo’s Council Chambers to address its members, though he added that he had done so as New York State Attorney General. He praised the beauty of the Council Chambers, which is defensible, and the wisdom of the Common Council and its discourse, which might have been another first. However, he was there to ask the Council to vote to publish a draft environmental impact statement that recognizes the possibility of expanding the Peace Bridge plaza on the American side if and when a new bridge is built. The affirmative vote—which the Council obliged to provide—moves the process forward a step. Expansion of the American plaza—which Spitzer and just about everybody in city and county government opposes—may be required if the US Department of Homeland Security does not relent in its refusal to consider a shared border management system housed on the Canadian side.

Spitzer finished, received a second standing ovation and departed. (Later there was to be a party at the Church in his honor; by the front door a slightly outdated sign reading “Spitzer for Governor” advertised the event.)

Then a retiring police officer was honored. Another speech, another standing ovation. By that time—more than an hour into the session—nearly everyone had cleared out and the people’s business could begin. It was the last Council meeting before August recess, and so there was a lot to dispatch: pushing forward the plan to build a new, $3.9 million firehouse on Bailey Avenue near Genesee Street; a request that the police department study the feasibility of implementing a system by which citizens could text-message crime tips anonymously; the designation of Niagara Street as Avenida San Juan in honor of the upcoming Puerto Rican Day parade.

There’s little or no debate, or even conversation, in Council meetings anymore—if ever there really was. CitiStat and public access television have driven dissent and debate into committee meetings and, even further removed from public ears and eyes, into caucus meetings. The result: The disposition of every item on the Council’s agenda is a foregone conclusion before proceedings are opened. Pomp and circumstance and suntanned crooners ate up more than an hour on Tuesday. With one of the longest agendas in recent months, the Common Council dispatched the people’s business in 45 minutes.

Less, if you count the ovation for the city’s new commissioner of assessment and taxation.