It Is Getting Too Expensive to Live or Do Business in Buffalo/NYS
by Betty Jean Grant
Betty Jean Grant
Come on now, how many homeowners and small business owners cannot afford the increase in fees and taxes— property taxes, rental inspection fees, NYS & Buffalo license and inspection, permit fees— and all the other increases in services providers that I have not even named?
I endorsed Sean Ryan for Mayor of Buffalo, and I voted for him because Buffalo desperately needed a change in regime. After almost 19 years with the same administration, almost everyone felt that the Brown Administration had done all that it could do— either to ability or willingness. Even though Chris Scanlon was appointed to fulfill the last 18 months of Brown’s last term, to this writer’s belief, Chris Scanon’s mayoral administration was just a continuation of what Mayor Byron Brown had in place for the past 18 odd years.
As the South District Councilmember, Buffalo Common Council’s President Pro Tempore, and later as Council President, Councilmember Scanlon seemed to be one of Brown’s most faithful allies and a guaranteed rubber stamp for whatever Mayor Brown put before the Common Council. Fact is, Councilmember Scanlon was the lead coordinator and motivator behind the successful but potentially unethical Stamp/Write In initiative, launched by the Brown for Mayor campaign, after Byron Brown lost the 2021 Democratic Primary for Mayor of Buffalo to community organizer and activist, India Walton.
As a longtime business owner of over 46 years on the Westside of Buffalo, the almost 200% increase in the license to operate my small deli store on East Ferry St. has increased from an annual fee of $175 to $500 for the year, 2026. On top of this increase, there have been increases in City of Buffalo’s property taxes, user fees, water & sewer rates. The city is asking for more money from struggling businesses who are servicing the customers who themselves have less to spend because they are working with less or the same amount of money, those who have seen their household budget shrink because of increased fees and taxes as well.
Now, the Buffalo community is being hit with the prospect of having to ‘swallow or cough up’ a 25% city property tax increase. That is absurd and will be a great hardship to our senior citizen population and the working families with children who are having a with essential expenses—gas, electric, daycare bills, and food.
The city of Buffalo is a once glorious city that has almost been destroyed by inept and visionless politicians, who were bent on accommodating the needs of out of towners instead of making living in the city easier for those who stayed and who did not “follow” the 33 Expressway out of Buffalo. The decision to cut down beautiful, stately trees and replace them with concrete and metal in front of the Humboldt Parkway’s homeowners’ front yards was not an “I Love Buffalo” move. The idea to cut down the trees that further divided neighborhoods, was a racist act—illustrated environmental racism before we knew what that term meant!
I have a message for our new mayor. “Please make Buffalo the Lead Agency on the Restore Humboldt Parkway project. Also, work to keep Buffalo affordable for all, especially for those of us who could have left the city and moved to the suburbs but made the decision to stay because we love living here so much.”