We Need To Work With The Mayor We Have Elected
By Betty Jean Grant
Betty Jean Grant
Donald Rumsfeld, a naval officer and U.S. Secretary of Defense, under both U.S. Presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, famously said “when people complained about the lack of adequate uniforms and equipment for the troops: ‘You go to war with the army you have; not the one you want or may have in the future.’ I thought about this quote as I read the many negative comments in the Buffalo News, the Investigative Post, on FB and other social and news media outlets, regarding the next mayor of Buffalo.
The most glaring fact I noticed was that most of the complainers did not reside in the city and more than a few lived outside the region and in states such as Florida, Nevada or any one of the many southern states. These “outside looking in,” Monday night quarterbacks got a whole lot to say about whom the voters elected but they are surely not putting any city tax dollars where their mouths are. Some of the negative nannies and their “nattering nabobs of negativity’s relatives” abandoned this city decades ago. They took their money and their votes with them as they left for states with warmer weather or no state or local income taxes!
The previous administration did not leave this city in good financial shape. All of the money that came to Buffalo was spent without the city managers putting aside resources to shore up potential rainy days. Not only is Buffalo having rainy days, but the city is also in a financial flood situation. The monies and grants received because of Covid 19, American Rescue Plan and state/ federal initiatives, did not go into poor and struggling neighborhoods on the East and Lower West Sides of Buffalo. The fact is that most monies never left City Hall. Instead of allocating some of the funds to restore neighborhood housing services, such as replacing the roof and windows on the homes of qualifying senior citizens and low-income homeowners, those resources were used to plug up the holes in the city budget or to add to an already healthy work force.
Mayor-Elect Sean Ryan is taking the reins of government at a time when it seems that the chance to invest resources to rehabilitate and improve the economic conditions of struggling Eastside commercial districts has sadly come and gone. Streets like Broadway, Fillmore, Gen esee, East Ferry and East Delavan are as desolate and shopper-free, like they were during the first year of the previous mayor’s almost 20 years stewardship of the 2nd. Fl. of Buffalo’s City Hall. But right now, regarding Eastside neighborhoods, the saddest thing of all is how the city government has failed to fix the cracked curbs and sidewalks and to repave Jefferson Ave.
Even before the Tops Supermarket Massacre on May 14, 2022, the Black community held Jefferson Ave. in a place of love and endearment, in their minds and hearts. To have the loss of ten precious lives and then having them being memorialized near the store’s parking lot is bitter sweet. But what has the city done to improve the area or street that was the physical location of so much sor row and pain within our community? This writer hopes the incoming may or will read this and make sure that repaving the street and repairing the curbs, sidewalks and potholes on Jefferson Ave, are high on his list of priorities, once he is in office.