After taking a little ribbing about my recent vacation and surfing in Mexico (below), WBFO News Director Mark Scott, Newell and I rolled up our sleeves and got down to Buffalo business on this segment of the Buffalo Rising Roundtable.
View image
First up was the upheaval in the Ellicott District. Now that Brian Davis has resigned, many people have let it be known that they'd like the Ellicott District council seat. The first person who came to our minds was Marilyn Rodgers (listen to the podcast above to hear why). Ellicott is a uniquely blended district that needs a free-thinking, hard worker to advocate for it. This unfolding story is going to be very interesting. Some would say the council chair isn't even cold yet, but the real problem is that it hasn't been warm in quite some time.
Next we talked about the Buffalo Powder Keg Festival. How would you like to bobsled down an entrance ramp, be part of a curling team, play volley ball in the snow? It looks like it's going to happen! Make sure you're in town on February 27th and 28th; you'll be able to say you were at the very first one. If you listen to the podcast for no other reason than to hear Newell enthuse about capitalizing on one of our biggest seasonal assets - snow - it will be worth the listen.
After that we moved on to the fastest growing business corner in North Buffalo at Hertel and Parker. You've got to hand it to the Daly's and all of their tenants for their keen vision and investment in the community. Building by building, corner by corner, it's good to know people like the Daly's are getting things done. Any more stories like this out there we need to know about? Let us in on it!
Lastly, we talked about what went wrong with the post that was looking for maternity fashions in Buffalo. The point was maternity fashion in Buffalo. Any entrepreneurs out there looking for a business idea? Maybe you'll want to go into John Daly's last remaining storefront with a shop for mothers-to-be.
We ended with a happy Thanksgiving wish for all. We hope yours is.
Image: The road to La Boca.
![[XML element 'prod_name_4' contains multiple values]](http://store.buffalorising.com/Imgs/Product_Imgs/small/BestOfBuffaloBasket_S.jpg)
The Ellicott district is gerrymandered in a way that the black voting bloc will always get a slight majority, effectively disenfranchising the Allentown and West Village neighborhoods which have the misfortune of being clumped into this nonsensical district. Good luck Marilyn!
And this is to the misfortune of the african american community which votes on race rather than competitence more often than not...though no one would accuse them of blatant racism.
Looking at the strides the allentown and west village communities have made in grass roots efforts to improve their community...and both neighborhoods are quite diverse and have an interesting mix of people to say the least...Marilyn could be instrumental in bringing knowledge from Forever Elmwood Business Association to the eastside of the Ellicott District, community gardens/farms and garden walks, tree plantings, conversion and preservation of churchs and historic buildings for readings and performances as has happened in the west village, etc.
Heck..since the ellicott district taps into the westside of the beltway and the eastside of the beltway, that could be another interesting discussion.
So...if the black community votes on race because they want a black candidate...then I think their the losers. Marilyn and the Allentown/WestVillage bring ALOT to the table that could be shared.
It won't be the community voting it will be the current council people. They need to open their eyes to change in our district.
By that logic then the white communities must vote on race too because all the white areas have white representatives.
Christine, I understand your frustration, but instead of considering certain communities electing their own, how about a different understanding like who they really trust. I think that may be the underlying issue. There hasn't been a solid trust factor here or across the city for decades now. Interesting book to read that would give a better view of what has happened to form this distrust is "Race, Neighborhoods and Community Power - Buffalo Politics 1934-1997" (Neil Kraus) - amazing reading there - it will leave you stunned if you aren't aware of the dealings of the past. And we can use that past to move forward.
.
What we truly need here is a healing and a strong effort to bring trust back to the seat. That can only be done with extreme efforts in increasing communication, particularly in the neighborhoods - a coming together, so to speak. Buffalo ReUse is really making inroads in eliminating the racial barrier to building better neighborhoods in the Cold Springs area. There are some minor issues that need to be smoothed over, but those are deep seated in the trust factor.
.
With an army of people working together, trusting that no one is attempting to one-up anyone else (big effort here - but worth every moment on it), we can bring the community together - and that includes businesses along with citizens. Then by working from border to border of the districts themselves, we can move further in the redevelopment of the city. It's been proven in small pockets - now it's time to connect the dots.
I wasn't aware of this book but I certainly will check it out, sounds like a great read.
Absolutely a great read. We need to recognize all that has been accomplished and all that has been slid under the rug to really get the trust factor back. Once we start having victories in people coming together and sharing, we can accomplish much. This is an eye-opener for everyone that only had "inklings." Not all of us are politically savvy - believe me, I am not.
.
And, I think I'd rather be that way, especially if I can just achieve this one year in that seat. I don't have political aspirations beyond the Ellicott seat. In working with folks here on the West Side as well as the East Side of the district and with businesses and developers who have come into the district, I see exactly what Christine is saying - and I have been meeting with a few people in the Fruit Belt and Cold Springs for some time now. It's all in the works,we just need time aside from making a living to getting it done. That's why the role of government, particularly in your most local representative seat, is essential - not politically, but as the duty of that representative.
.
Who signs the paycheck? The citizen. They deserve to be respected and held in esteem without using them as a shield or badge of honor - insulting the intelligence of the constituency. That's what has gone on for decades and to rebuild, we must change this immediately. But, meeting in 15 minutes - gotta go. I'll be responding to Christine soon, too.
Thanks to MRodgers for suggesting my book on racial politics in Buffalo, Race, Neighborhoods, and Community Power, and thanks to an old Buffalo friend for pointing out this discussion to me. I have not lived in NY State since 1999, but try to keep up on the news in Buffalo and travel to my hometown of Syracuse several times a year. I have lived in the Midwest for many years, and call St. Paul (MN) home now.
My book, which was published in 2000, has one main point -- the east side of Buffalo was substantially shaped by local policies. This, of course, does not make Buffalo different from many other older, post-industrial cities. The story of many cities from Illinois all the way to Atlantic is similar -- white resistance to even modest levels of desegregation in the schools and neighborhoods, and over time, segregation essentially becomes institutionalized and very hard to address. And segregation, in turn, contributes to the level of racial distrust that many people are discussing here.
The debate about the city council, including the location of district lines, takes place within this context. But it's also important to recall that the Ellicott District had had to be redrawn many times over the decades because of population loss. While the city as a whole has shurnk, lower-income neighborhoods have lost more population than other neighborhoods. Again, this is a pattern we have seen throughout much of urban America.
I just discovered that my book is available on Google books, so people could read it there. I would hope that one could purhcase it at at least some bookstores in the Buffalo area. The last time I was at Talking Leaves, which was several years ago, they had a few copies on the shelf.
bufflow, although there's politics in how all district lines are drawn for the council, I'm not sure your claim about "effectively disenfranchising the Allentown and West Village neighborhoods which have the misfortune of being clumped into this nonsensical district".
African American candidates won a third of council's 9 seats (Russell, Davis, Smith). Doesn't that almost exactly match Buffalo's population percent?
Would you also complain that due east of the Ellicott district, the African American voters who live in the Fillmore district were "effectively disenfranchised" because it had a Caucasian majority when drawn? Would you say that Fillmore is a "nonsensical district"?
As long as people can vote, they're not disenfranchised.
"Would you also complain that due east of the Ellicott district, the African American voters who live in the Fillmore district were "effectively disenfranchised" because it had a Caucasian majority when drawn?"
Short answer: Yes. Another stupid gerrymandered district that divides and disregards real neighborhoods.
bufflow>"Another stupid gerrymandered district that divides and disregards real neighborhoods."
But you didn't say Allentown was divided between districts, and it doesn't look to be. The council map shows the line between districts is North St and Porter. That seems a north bound of Allentown. The district doesn't look oddly shaped.
http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/files/1_2_1/MapDesc/dd_redist2_greyscale2.pdf
None of the district shapes look strange compared to many gerrymandering examples I've seen such as Congressional districts that twist and turns.
What you complained about was Allentown being in a majority African American council district. What would be a reason for making sure Allentown is put in a majority Caucasian district? No doubt the lines could have been drawn that way, but what would it accomplish? Should it matter?