• The controversial Sycamore Village project reported offers to buy its first six houses, at prices ranging from $201,765 to $212,348. If that sounds like a lot for a new-build at the corner of Sycamore and Jefferson, bear in mind that estimates of the cost to build each house range from $400,000 to $600,000 each. That high number is due to the cost of environmental remediation of the property, not to mention tearing down and landfilling the houses that had been built there prior to the remediation.

We’re not weighing in (yet) on North District Councilmember Joe Golombek’s proposal that the city adopt a city manager model of government. In that model, the city’s top executive would be a professional executive hired by the Common Council instead of an elected mayor, a position that would either disappear or become largely ceremonial.

Last week we read in the Buffalo News that First Student, the British/American bus company that took over Laidlaw on October 1, 2007, was in a jam due to a lack of bus drivers in Buffalo. The understaffing caused many students to wait at bus stops for up to 45 minutes. According to John P. Fahey, assistant superintendent for transportation for the Buffalo Schools, the problem is that First Student is about five percent, or about 30 employees, short on drivers. This, he explains, was never a problem in the past with Laidlaw.