Yesterday's excellent front page story by NEWS Warner & Michel refocused the culture of cronyism & corruption that is killing Buffalo, but rarely discussed.
Ironically, it is the very kind of EXPOSE' that Comptroller Nanula's utterly unqualified staff could have done themselves. There is top Nanua-aide ($63,000) "Media icon" Tony Farina, who is writing nonsense on convicted bankrobber Illuzzi's letter, while not writing Nanula's fiscal analysis a 2nd year in a row.
Farina is incapable of doing the fiscal report, but may have been able to write the police story, The Comptroller was given broad new powers by Charter Revision to do performance audits of city departments. Obviously the police are not "performing". Much of city government is not performing . .as Nanula is utterly silent . . after giving his crony appointees raises costing taxpayers $100,000 more than Gaimbra paid.
But because Nanula is both incompetent & corrupt, such a report on police would have unleashed shots at Nanula as a target himself. He, after all, skipped work 3 days a week (I'm convinced it was not Esmond's two, I'm waiting for documented Nanula attendance) campaigning for higher office, under the protective sponsorship of Pigeon (who even may have accompanied Nanula as he reportedly put.60,000 miles & new tires? . . . on his city leased vehicle?)
And of course if Farina admitted writing such a report his non-residency might also have become an issue. Many cops despise the city they work for, happily escaping to their suburban homes on city-paid sick leave, court time, overtime etc. while too often mocking city dwellers in struggling neighborhoods with, "Why do you still live here?"
Residency is a powerful negotiating tool with both suburbs & cops, but when both Nanula & Farina both have lied about their non-residency . . that topic can't be touched either.
Nanula of all people should know how stupid the $250,000 per apartment $100 million plus & counting). He used his failed townhouse project on Mariner as his fake address, ultimately losing perhaps $140,000 on 4 units, selling them for $25,000 each not the $109,000 each he expected)
But utter silence about $1/4 million per apartment for the permanently poor, while not enhancing our plummeting tax base at all. He's too compromised t do that, after all 100 top BMHA cronies live in suburbs furthering the very plunder of the city that the cops are doing.
And of course we all know that Nanula would not be comptroller at all if it were not for his CLOSE friendship with Dem boss Pigeon . . nor would he have given new meaning to the PETER PRINCIPLE by running for NYS COMPTROLLER while apparently not being able to count in Buffalo.
But we can't talk about the nature of the Pigeon-Nanula relationship in Buffalo. To this observer that dynamic seems far more important than the world wide talk about Bill & Monica's shared cigar.
Nanula & Farina must go! NOW!
I'd suggest going to Farina's new non-address at apartment 401, 849 Delaware Ave (near Bryant) and leave a message. The bell is listed under "Parenti" who does not vote but may be related to Pigeon-crony at Bd of Elections, former sausage salesman Gary Parenti, who lives in Marine Drive Apartments . . speaking of corruption. Where we subsidize racism & cronyism on the waterfront as there is silent plotting to benefit its elect few as BMHA's lease with the 'tenant cooperative' so powerful that City Fair Housing Officer Frank Perez is afraid to make them provide required lawful disclosure of race-ethnicity-family data in a historically overwhelmingly white (& politically connected) tenancy in units costing as little as $240 per month rent, all utilizes included.
The cozy lease expires in 2004. Will taxpayers reap $125,000 (or $1/4 mil) per unit on the waterfront?
And of course, Mr. Pitts is too close to the PBA to talk about this problem either as he hammers on another Albany bailout. He needs to drive to Manhattan & see ground zero, & learn where the real economy went that kept bailing us out has gone . . as he continues to exploit BMHA's booming poverty industry, which will eventually destroy the rest of Buffalo's poor neighborhoods.
Nanula would say, if he could count, that spending $125,000 per apt for the hopelessly poor at Frederick Douglass ($50 mil) & $100 million and counting at Lakeview means that the homeowners in countless neighborhoods will continue to lose life savings in their homes.
We had 22,854 vacancies in the 2000 census. Watch that number shoot up to 25,000 as we lay off our teachers. But BMHA has always been wasteful & corrupt . . . wouldn't want to change now!
We are drowning in corruption & cronyism. When will we start doing something about it??
Sometimes one thinks bad thoughts . . . Too bad lynching spoiled rich white boys . . .
& their secret lovers?? . . .
& media icons?? is taboo!!!
But I'm open to less drastic options.
Maybe Illuzzi knows something . . this is his ever-inspiting daily scripture:
"Satan's power is overshadowed by his imminent defeat"
But doesn't Illuzzi work for Satan???????????
Barely Breathin'
In Buffalo
Dick Kern
882-2388
