Artvoice: Buffalo's #1 Newsweekly
Home Blogs Web Features Calendar Listings Artvoice TV Real Estate Classifieds Contact
Artvoice Weekly Edition » Issue v8n42 (10/14/2009) » Section: The News, Briefly


Common Council Report

The Common Council made two key decisions Tuesday in the often (and often unnecessarily) opposed names of development and preservation. On one hand, they called for expanded eligibility for the city’s Urban Homesteading Program so that citizens can more easily purchase and develop plots of vacant land in the city. On the other, they butted heads against the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority to award landmark status to a home scheduled to be demolished to make way for a proposed new bridge plaza.

The High Price of Being Rich

There they go again! The editors of the Buffalo News, that is. In recent weeks they’ve engaged in another campaign in defense of those beleaguered unfortunates in our state, the wealthiest taxpayers. The News’ concern for what it seems to regard as an endangered class centers on the temporary tax-rate hikes on the highest earners that were enacted in June to help close the state’s large and growing budget deficit. In the newspaper’s argument this rate increase is so burdensome that New York is being depleted of millionaires and billionaires as they leave for greener pastures.

The 8,500 Pound Question

It was with the sorrow of losing a good friend that staff at the Buffalo Zoo said goodbye last month to Buki, the 52-year-old elephant who died on September 28. By all accounts, the 8,500-pound pachyderm, lauded for her intelligence and sweet disposition, was a charmer. She had a penchant for watermelons, loved a good rub behind the ears, and played the harmonica.



Back to issue index