This week, the council called a Special Meeting late Tuesday afternoon to address the pending federal funding freeze. This executive order, coming down from Washington, was undone a day and a half later, but not before it caused widespread panic among the many, many organizations that rely on federal funds. This memo was thought to impact everything from Medicaid to Meals on Wheels to SNAP, the nation’s food stamp program.

In response, the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency (BURA), which manages a lot of federal money, asked the council to okay an immediate drawdown of federal funds into BURA’s account. This would hopefully protect the funds from the freeze. Funding for many city housing programs comes from the (federal) Department of Housing and Urban Development through BURA. The council voted unanimously to approve the drawdown.

In the Civil Service Committee, members heard about many new appointments to the acting mayor’s staff. For these positions, rules about overtime and minimum wage do not apply. They can be replaced at any time and for almost any reason. These are generally white collar administrative or executive employees, who get a substantial salary (in these cases between $97,000 and $148,000) rather than being paid hourly wage.

These appointments included acting police chief Alphonso Wright, who took over after the last police chief, Joseph Gramaglia, left the city two weeks ago. Nadine Marrero was also appointed as the new head of the Office of Strategic Planning and BURA. The committee decided to table discussion of these appointments pending further information about the administration’s funding.

In the Finance Committee, Acting Finance and Administration Commissioner Raymour Nosworthy spoke about the $2.5 million in American Rescue Plan funds that had been earmarked to pay property tax debt. The city transferred it to their general fund, and now they are looking at tax invoices to be paid. “That amount is currently underway right now,” he said. “We did request for all the invoices to be paid…. We’ll get those payments underway very shortly.”

Under questioning, Nosworthy explained that various city departments decided which homeowners met the criteria for tax forgiveness. However, he did not explain how this process worked or what the criteria were.

ARP funding has been delivered in a variety of ways. Sometimes, the city has given it to a contractor before the work has been done. Other times, the city has given the money out to groups only as piecemeal reimbursements after the work has been done. Some small community organizations have complained that getting reimbursed in this slow, piecemeal way makes the process very difficult for them. Some council members took issue with this. Council Member Wyatt expressed frustration to Nosworthy that the council, a lawmaking body, couldn’t change the way this money was handed out in order to speed things up so small organizations could provide necessary services.

One project that has become a particular lightning rod is the city’s funding of Braymiller Market downtown. The city loaned Braymiller money but it then went out of business. Now, city hall is considering erasing Braymiller’s debt. The decision to forgive the debt or attempt to claw it back will be discussed at a BURA loan committee meeting on February 6th at 9:30am. We are not sure if this meeting is open to the public or not. We will update this summary if we find out more information.

The Comptroller submitted the “Popular Annual Financial Report,” which is an overview of the city’s finances-- our expenditures, revenues, and the costs of all services the city provides.

The Waterfront Development Committee was cancelled; the items they planned to discuss had been discussed at length in the Finance Committee meeting.

In the Legislation Committee, the council denied a permit for Family Promise to build a new emergency shelter on East Ferry Street. Family Promise is one of only two organizations that allows families to stay together in their emergency shelters. The proposed shelter would’ve served 40 families per year. Some neighbors had objected on the grounds that their property values would go down. Council Woman Zeneta Everhart said that she had to listen to her constituents and was therefore denying approval.

Council members also discussed pending legislation establishing a City Charter Review Commission; that’s a group of people who will review and update all the city’s many structures and regulations. The council discussed many parts of the proposed law, including having open meetings, a timeline for the commission, and how many appointments the acting mayor would control. The bill’s sponsor, Majority Leader Halton-Pope, said that amendments can be offered before the bill is voted on next week by the full council.

In the Community Development Committee, Council Member Rasheed Wyatt asked Buffalo Sewer Authority (BSA) executive Charles Riley how BSA’s projects would be impacted by the federal funding freeze. “The federal administration change is extremely concerning to us,” Riley said. He noted that much of BSA’s funds come through New York State, but that projects related to climate change were in jeopardy.

The Education Committee heard presentations from community groups about food and nutrition for families and children.