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BERC, BURA, BNRC fail to provide Common Council with financial information

Closed Doors, Closed Books

Also in Council this week, the Delaware District’s Mike LoCurto introduced a resolution reiterating a request for financial information from three city agencies: Buffalo Economic Renaissance Corporation, Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, and Buffalo Nieghborhood Revitalization Corporation.

Delaware District Councilmember Mike LoCurto

The resolution called for those three development agencies to provide information on the way they spend money—personnel, loan activities, property inventories, etc.—within a week or face Council subpoenas.

LoCurto is chairman of the Council’s Community Development Committee, which recently completed its review of the mayor’s annual plan for the use of Community Development Block Grant funds. Back on February 9, as part of that review, LoCurto requested the following information from BERC, BURA, and BNRC, all of which receive and disburse block grant money in the form of grants and loans:

■ a list of all outstanding loans, including borrower names, dates, and amounts loaned, amounts owed, and whether loans are current or in arrears;

■ a list of all loans that have been written off, as well as a list of collateral used to secure the loan and its disposition;

■ a list of all properties the agencies own;

■ a list by name of all the agencies’ officers, directors, and employees, along with their job titles and salaries for the last three years;

■ a list by name of all those possessing cell phones, Blackberries, beepers, etc., paid for by the agencies, along with providers and cost for the past year;

■ a copy of any audits or reviews of the three agencies, whether by private firms or government agencies.

In the month that followed, LoCurto says he and his staff followed up with “numerous telephone calls and email messages,” to no avail. LoCurto says that two weeks ago, nearly a month after he’d made the formal request for documents, an attorney for BERC told him that the agency was compiling the information he wanted and would have it ready early the following week. The information never came.

Last Friday, in a special session, the Common Council approved the mayor’s plan for this year’s block grant money. LoCurto and South District’s Mickey Kearns voted against the approval—a symbolic objection to the three agencies’ refusal to provide the Community Development Committee with the information it required to evaluate the plan.

“One concern we have is that there are some people—I don’t know how many—who get a salary from BERC and the city, or from BURA and the city,” LoCurto said. “I’m told that there are city employees who have cell phones paid for by BERC, and that BERC block grant funds have been used to pay travel expenses for city employees.”

The reason he requested the information, LoCurto said, was to determine whether these things are true. “We also wanted to see if the loan programs they administer are successful,” LoCurto said.

The resolution approved this week instructs the city’s law department to prepare subpoenas if the three agencies do not respond by this Tuesday, which will mark 43 days since the information was first requested.

Ellicott District Councilmember Brian Davis was the only councilmember to vote against a resolution. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Likewise, the BERC attorney who told LoCurto that the information was forthcoming did not respond to a request for comment.

geoff kelly

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