Q & A with Mayor Brown

What was the greatest challenge you faced during your first term?

Mayor Byron Brown is back for a second term in BuffaloOne of the greatest challenges was resources. Buffalo has come through financial crisis, we have lost positions over the years. From when I started as Mayor to when my predecessor first started as Mayor there is almost 1,000 less jobs in city government to do the work that needs to be done. So financial resources and staffing resources were a great challenge.

Other than adding more police offices are there other initiatives to reduce crime in Buffalo?

There are a number of different ways. We have implemented a surveillance camera initiative. We currently have 70 cameras up and operative in the city of Buffalo. By the end of the year we will have at least another 57 cameras operational. We are also going to be hiring dedicated camera monitors so that we don‘t need to have police personnel watching the cameras; we can have people who have been specifically trained to monitor the cameras doing that work. We have been partnering with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. We‘ve re-established the cold case squad that goes after old homicides to send a message to the criminal element that we will never stop looking for people who have committed the crime of homicide in our city.Whether it‘s a month old, a year old, or 30 years old. We created a unit of our police department called the Mobile Response Unit that targets guns, gangs, and drugs. We‘ve assessed that over 70% of the crime that occurs in the city is a direct result of drug activity and illegal drug trade.

Are you working with any faith based organizations to eliminate poverty?

First of all, some news organizations have acted like poverty is a new phenomenon in the city of Buffalo. Poverty in Buffalo is a decades old phenomenon. You have to look at the fact that from 1955-2005, that is before I was born and before I took office as Mayor, over 300,000 people were lost in our cities population. We are working with faith based organizations, we think it is critically important to work with faith based organizations because it‘s just not a city issue. So we need to work with faith based organizations, we need to work with the foundation community that give large sums of money, that have money that they can provide for different initiatives. They need to be more active. We need to work with the corporate and business community on this issue. We need to work with county government, state government, and federal government on this issue. There is no one entity that can tackle poverty by itself. We need the colleges and universities involved in that issue. We need our school district involved. It‘s got to be multiple entities all working together with a comprehensive plan, pulling in the same direction to impact poverty. And as one individual community activists has said, ―There is nothing that stops poverty like a job.‖ So we also need organizations that are hiring in this community to be aware and mindful of the diversity of this community. To be aware and mindful that there are a lot of people in this community that have a lot of talents and that the employment base in this community needs to reflect the residents of this community and there are unfortunately many organizations that never give that a second thought.

You recently announced a $3 million waterfront restoration project you are working on with Congressman Brian Higgins, is there anything new to report on that?

Yes we announced that we are restoring the cobblestone streets on the waterfront, that‘s Prime, Lloyd, Erie, and Hanover Streets. Just the restoration of those original streets should attract more tourists to downtown Buffalo.  The project is on schedule, and by this time next year those streets should be restored, they should be in place, and they should ready for hundreds of thousands of tourists to come into Buffalo, walk on them, see them and see what Buffalo looked like at the turn of the last century. We also just recently, the Congressman and I announced that we were jointly applying for a federal Tiger Grant. That‘s a transportation grant through the federal government for large projects in communities. A recommendation is made by the state to the federal government and then the federal government provides the funding. So myself, Congressman Higgins, and the members of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation board submitted a proposal for between $80-$90 million to build a bridge that would go between Buffalo‘s downtown inner and outer harbor to provide a connection to the outer harbor that we think could stimulate millions of dollars worthof investment and hundreds of jobs in this community for the people of Buffalo  and Western New York.

We also just secured a Restore NY grant from the state of NY. It is a grant that the state of NY grants for demolition, community revitalization, rehabilitation, economic development,in communities across the state. Buffalo was just recently notified that we received the largest grant through Restore NY in the entire state of NY, 14.3 million dollars. We will use that money to continue our demolition program, continue our rehabilitation program, and also to provide financing for some major economic projects where we are restoring older buildings in the city of Buffalo, legacy buildings that have been around for a long time but have kind of become white elephants because they are in such a state of disrepair. So that money will really be transformational for the city of Buffalo. So I urge citizens to really take a look at Buffalo this year. In another year Buffalo will be dramatically different than it was this year and in two years, and five years, it will be even more different in terms of the tremendous progress that will continue to be made.