15 July 2005
Spectator
The view from here
Masiello screws up another one
It's really too bad that Tony Masiello isn't older. Then he might be forgiven for being a doddering fool. But since he's not, then he has resigned himself to be remembered in the annals of Buffalo mayors as the Mayor who wouldn't stop being a legislator. When you listen to Masiello talk about the crap that's going on in City Hall, it's like talking to a random man on the street instead of the guy in charge.
Consider the recent amoral treatment of Harvey Garrett, one of the few guys in this city who puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to rehabilitating the city's housing stock. Harvey took public exception to ineptitude in the city's licensing department. More than 500 cases were backlogged because Ray McGurn wouldn't accept Housing Court Judge Henry Nowak's offer of interns to clear the backlog.
Garrett wasn't the only one who complained but he was the slowest moving target. So McGurn got his lackey-in-chief Lou Petrucci to trump up some bogus letter complaining about Garrett's property on Richmond Avenue. Forget for a minute that Garrett is actually fixing up his property and recall for a minute that Richmond Avenue was allowed to deteriorate for the two decades that Petrucci and McGurn were playing political pocket pool. Also keep in mind that Petrucci writes pious, self-serving drivel in "Buffalo Spree," the thesis of which seems to be that the city would be a much better place to live if it did what Petrucci thinks need be done.
Faced with this public criticism of their departmental ineptitude, Petrucci and his boss McGurn reverted to their Jimmy Griffin roots and went into attack mode. They wrote Garrett up for code violations even while he was working to correct them. But they didn't stop there. With no one in the Mayor's Office to hold the whip, much less crack it, McGurn and his lackey jumped Garrett's violations over 500 other violators in line for court and summoned him immediately.
That's the stuff that Masiello promised would end when he was sworn in as mayor. That's the stuff he repudiated - all that city departments that punish critics crap that Griffin foisted on the people for so long. When asked about the treatment of Garrett, the mayor said Harvey is a good guy who cares about the city and it was unfortunate that he was written up. HEY TONY!!! WAKE UP!!! You are the mayor. You are McGurn's boss. You aren't running again so you don't have to kiss McGurn's ass for political advantage anymore. It wasn't just "unfortunate." It is borderline criminal, you dolt! WE, the people, think it was "unfortunate." YOU, the Mayor, are supposed to do something about it. You, the Mayor, should tell McGurn he's embarrassed you for the last time and kick his ass out the door. Instead, you tell us you don't think there was retribution involved. So you think it was a mere coincidence that Garrett's case went to the front of the line? Do you think at all, Tony? Joel Giambra is screwing us because he won't stop being county executive. Masiello screwed the city by never starting to act like a mayor.
Signs of losersThe Common Council pitched a little hissy fit a few months back about yard sale signs in the city. (Yeah, like there was nothing else going on, right?) Do you think these mental midgets could save a little pique for political signs that are littering the public landscape? Talk about your quality of life crimes - first it was the sophomoric "Run, Kevin, Run" signs that were supposed to make you think Helfer hadn't made up his mind. They popped up along every freeway and highway in the city. Now, the insipid "Believe" are germinating on public land. There was even one placed in front of the little marker remembering the fall from Sept. 11 at Washington and Genesee Streets. There is nothing more pathetic in a political campaign than the need to use public land for sign placement. It is an irrefutable sign of a loser. If you don't have enough friends and relatives and political hangers-on, save the money and don't print signs, you losers.
Erie County's whoring Republicans
The Erie County Republican Party had a cute little march through a few streets in downtown recently to try to convince the naïve that they are the "party of reform." Nice try. Does Bob Davis think that we will soon forget the prostitution of his party to promote the candidacy of Joel Giambra? Davis had guys like Carl Calabrese ready to run and gals like Nancy Naples - candidates who were real Republicans, with at least something resembling a philosophy. But Davis dumped the real Republicans for Giambra. Why, you might ask? Why would a party chairman do something so cold and calculating and cutthroat? Simple - for the jobs. Who cares who the county executive is, as long as he hires Republicans for the patronage jobs. So Davis sold out and he got Giambra. But he also got Andy Sedita and Mike Muscarella and Angela Fillipone and Bruce Fisher. When Davis' city chairman said "thanks but no thanks" to Sedita's wanting to help pick a mayoral candidate, the chairman caught a sucker punch from the former bartender-turned-parks-commissioner. Perhaps Bob Davis and his new "reform party" might start by pledging to promote Republicans this time around, instead of embracing an anti-philosophy of political expediency.
That moron Rick SantorumIf anyone was wondering why it is getting harder and harder to fill the pews in Catholic churches these days, the Spectator has a two-word answer: Rick Santorum. Who in their right mind who embrace the same religion as that Neanderthal? Santorum recently refused to apologize for comments that it was predictable and deserving that a liberal state was hit hardest by sexual predator priest. He's also the guy who said he knew that Terri Schiavo looked into his eyes when he visited her hospital room and that he saw the light of recognition in her eyes. Of course, a doctor would later state unequivocally that Schiavo was blind because of the atrophy of that part of the brain that controls vision. And we trust this guy and a lot of morons like him to make our laws?
Copyright 2005 by Buffalo Report, Inc.