Just after Albany enacted the $131.8 billion state budget last week, Governor David A. Paterson joked about one of its more unimportant collateral consequences. This was the announcement by motormouth, med-head radio demagogue Rush Limbaugh that he was selling his Park Avenue apartment and abandoning this state because of “these stupid, massive tax increases.”

In Wednesday’s Buffalo News, political reporter Robert McCarthy reported a story that had been circulating for some time: New York State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith intends to maintain a substantial and well-staffed office here in Buffalo, and damn the cost. (McCarthy wrote that there will be eight to 10 staffers; we’ve heard more.) Among the potential candidates for jobs, McCarthy reported, is Baby Joe Mesi, who lost his bid for State Senate last fall.

Last Friday, April 3, the Buffalo Police Department returned some of Syaed Ali’s belongings.

In the first week in March, we reported on an application by Battaglia Trucking and Demolition, down on Seneca Street for a modification of its solid waste management permit from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The modification would raise Battaglia’s capacity from 3,800 tons of waste per month to 1,600 tons per day. Battaglia also wants a new, 13,000-square-foot building and increased operating hours. The modification also suggests that Battaglia might in the future import solid waste by train, conjuring fetid memories of the garbage train that wouldn’t leave the neighborhood back in 2003.

For years Ralph Hernandez has toiled and suffered the backlash of a less than appreciative Buffalo Public Schools administration. Memorably, in March 2007, while in a political campaign to keep his West District school board seat, he became the victim of a news leak by former school board member Donald Van Every to the Buffalo News.