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Common Council report

Odds and ends out of City Hall

■ Two partners, Timothy Eckstein and Clay Hubert, applied for a license to sell used cars at 202 Military Road. The application was complicated by Hubert’s criminal record: possession of burglary tools, criminal trespass, attempted grand larceny. Still, the Office of Licenses recommended the license application be approved, adding one caveat: “despite signage saying ‘we sell anything.’”

North District Councilmember Joe Golombek submitted a resolution suggesting that the city’s federal lawmakers seek funding in the federal stimulus package to extend the Metro Rail system to UB’s North Campus, and possibly on to Niagara Falls and east to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport. The Council voted 8-0 in favor of Golombek’s resolution, but NFTA Chairman Larry Meckler told the Buffalo News that the timing is wrong: A review of extension plans for Metro Rail is underway but won’t be completed until June.

■ The Graciano Corporation asked for and received a change order in their $3,191,970 contract to restore masonry in City Hall. The change order allows an extra $10,537 to retile a ten-and-a-half-by-nine-foot bathroom, floor and wainscoating. That does not include the cost of the tile, which the City will supply itself.

Nancy Schmid of 76 Soldier’s Place succeeded in her effort to force the City to retract the landmark status conferred on her Frank Lloyd Wright home last October. Nobody told Schmid that her house—the “Heath House,” named for Larkin Company executive William Heath—was being considered for landmark status, as is required by city law.

■ Finally, Buffalo Police Department spokesman Mike DeGeorge acknowledged to Channel 7 Eyewitness News on Tuesday that Ellicott District Councilmember Brian Davis is under investigation. The charge, apparently, is bouncing a check worth several thousand dollars.

Rumors that Davis was in some sort of legal trouble have been mounting over the past month, and reached a fever pitch at the end of last week. The stories ranged from bank fraud to bribery to a problematic silent partnership in a Buffalo nightclub.

Davis has been conspicuously absent from the public eye in the past two weeks. Now his staff says he is on medical leave, on the advice of a doctor, and that he won’t return to the office until February 17.

Davis is chair of the Common Council’s Police Oversight Committee.

geoff kelly

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