david rivera

Street protests and the shooting of a mentally ill man on Saturday are heating up the relationship between Buffalo's Common Council and Mayor Byron Brown - but not in a good way.

By Friday, the Common Council should have the first draft of a major change in policing in Buffalo. It's likely to be called Cariol's Law, for former BPD Officer Cariol Horne, who maintains she was fired from the department for trying to stop another officer from attacking someone he was arresting. The proposed new law would require police to intervene.

The Buffalo Common Council is pushing for change in the city's police department, some longstanding issues and some growing out of the current string of protests across the world about police violence.

Buffalo Common Council members say price gouging is becoming a problem as the city deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. During Tuesday's online session, they shared reports of $4 for a stick of butter and $30 for hand sanitizer.

The 2020 Census will begin its count April 1. Local Buffalo officials met with leaders of refugee resettlement agencies Thursday night to discuss how to make sure the entire population is accounted for.

Buffalo Common Council members delayed voting on buying or leasing new police cars Tuesday so they can get more information on the advantages and disadvantages of both.

The amount of affordable housing in Buffalo is continuing to creep upward. On Thursday, the city's Common Council revised its approval of a Planned Unit Development designation for the Elmwood Crossing project. The big change mandates that 20 percent of the several hundred rental apartments must be affordable.

D'Youville College's plans for a new health hub hit a speed bump Tuesday in front of Buffalo's Common Council over the perennial West Side issue of parking.

Some City of Buffalo workers and some workers from around 20 companies doing business with the city will get raises next year. The Common Council on Tuesday approved increases in what is known as the living wage.

With Albany changing the rules on landlord and tenant relationships, Buffalo's tight housing market could be affected.

In the long debate about who in Buffalo is benefiting from the major economic boom, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says the Niagara District is and the South District isn't.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo hasn't even signed Buffalo's speed camera bill into law, but city officials have already decided on the 20 speed zones where the cameras will be watching.

Buffalo has a new weapon against bad landlords and slumlords, a tool Albany has approved after years of efforts.

Big changes are in the works for the Buffalo Police Department and many of them were greeted with derision by the Common Council Tuesday.

Buffalo Police officers will soon add body cameras to their standard. But on the same day the Common Council’s Legislation Committee gave final approval for the contract to purchase them, the department posted its policy for their use. Some complain there was no chance for public interaction with police leaders before the rules were released.

Buffalo's Common Council slapped down the Brown administration Wednesday and refused immediate passage of a contract to provide body cameras for police officers. Members bounced the proposed contract to next Wednesday's Legislation Committee meeting.

With yet another long-closed Buffalo Public School building slated to be sold for conversion to housing, neighbors aren't sure it's good for their East Side neighborhood, already dealing with parking issues and low water pressure.

The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority now has a full board and a permanent executive director. Now Common Council members want to see evidence of a turnaround.

The former Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo is empty and has been for almost a year. Thursday evening a Kleinhans Music Hall, developers shared how they want to spend $100 million to build a mini-neighborhood in and around the former hospital complex.

In recent years, downtown Buffalo has become a housing hotspot for young professionals. High end housing and a myriad of food and entertainment options are causing more and more people to move closer to the city center each year. Specifically, Niagara Street has transformed from what some considered a rundown corridor to a destination.

If you want something from the City of Buffalo, like a license, a contract or approval for a development project, you better have your taxes paid.

For supporters of Buffalo's Elmwood Village, the good news is major development along the popular shopping strip. The bad news is that there are a lot of vacant storefronts. However, there is a push to figure out why the gap.

Buffalo Common Councilmembers made minimal changes, as they approved Mayor Byron Brown's half-billion-dollar city budget proposal Tuesday, which holds the line on taxes.

Buffalo Police will be going into harm's way a little better armed and a little better protected, after Tuesday's action by the Common Council.