Common Council Report	by Geoff Kelly

The parking lot wars continue

■ A few weeks back, developer Carl Paladino accused Ellicott District Councilmember Brian Davis and outgoing commissioner of the city’s Office of Strategic Planning Tim Wanamaker of stooging on behalf of Paladino’s rival in the downtown surface parking lot business, James Sandoro. In a letter addressed to the chairman of the city’s Planning Board, Paladino accused both of “political obstruction” in his effort to win site plan approval for a 150-space surface parking lot at 175 South Division Street, to be leased to Erie Community College for student and faculty parking. Paladino claims that Wanamaker wrote that letter at the behest of Davis, who is working on behalf of Sandoro, whose surface parking lots compete with those of his old rival, Paladino. Sandoro, a financial supporter of both Davis and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, lost the bid to provide ECC with surface parking, having bid $25 more per spot than Paladino and demanding that ECC lease no fewer than 400 spots.

“We suspect that [the letter] was written by counsel to our adversary James Sandoro who seeks to protect his parking lots from competition,” wrote Paladino.

At Tuesday’s Common Council meeting, Davis registered his objection to Paladino’s accusation and his proposed parking lot—by literally objecting. Paul Gregory of Paladino’s Ellicott Development Corporation had filed a petition for permission to build the lot in question; alas, the petition was filed too late to make the Tuesday meeting’s regular agenda. Ordinarily, that’s no problem—late files are allowed onto the agenda all the time. The late-filed agenda items are read aloud, then Council President Dave Franczyk asks if there are any objections to hearing the late file. Rarely does anyone ever object. Usually the result of this ballet is worked out ahead of time, in the Council’s Democratic caucus meeting. (Which, given the fact that everyone on the Council is a Democrat, ought to be titled “the Common Council meeting that doesn’t have to be televised or admit the public.”)

That was clearly the case with Gregory’s petition; the printed agenda indicated that the caucus had agreed to refer the petition to the appropriate committees.

But when Franczyk asked if there were any objections to hearing the petition, Davis said, “I object.”

Seemingly surprised, Franczyk replied, “You object?”

“Yes, I object,” Davis said.

And so the petition was effectively shelved for two weeks, until the next Common Council meeting.

■ Meantime, no one objected to hearing Davis’s even later-filed resolution that the City of Buffalo impose a moratorium on permitting the construction of new surface parking lots downtown—and specifically in the corridor where Paladino has contracted to build parking spots for ECC.

Davis’s resolution harkens back to a October 2003 Common Council resolution regarding the “adverse impact the excessive number of surface parking lots pose on the downtown living experience.” There’s an argument worth having: How does a cash-strapped city with an aging downtown core cater to commuters and promote urban living at the same time? How can downtown Buffalo provide adequate parking without becoming an asphalt prairie?

But it’s not a discussion we’ll have without more objections, poison pen letters, and some heavy politicking.

Traveling Violations

■ A trio of councilmembers—South District’s Mickey Kearns, North District’s Mike LoCurto, and Lovejoy Districts’s Rich Fontana—filed a resolution (on time) asking that all city departments and agencies, including BURA and BERC, provide detailed travels records, including associated expenses, dating back to July 2006.

Kearns said during the session that he figured, with the price of travel rising along with the price of fuel, that city employees ought to justify the trips they take at taxpayer expense. Kearns told the Buffalo News that this was not a “witch hunt,” adding “If no one has anything to hide, they’ll be forthcoming with the travel records.”

Masten District Councilmember Demone Smith asked why they’d chosen July 2006. Kearns shrugged and said there was no special reason.

Casting back in my memory, it seems the most frequent flier in the administration in that period was Tim Wanamaker, the outgoing chief of the city’s Office of Strategic Planning. In 2006, Byron Brown’s first year as mayor, Wanamaker seemed perpetually to be out of town; the rumor was that he was interviewing for new positions in other cities. (Wanamaker was a holdover from the Masiello administration.) He recently announced that he had accepted a position managing the city of Inglewood, California, a cross-country flight away. I hope he kept those receipts.

—geoff kelly