There was a bad fight at the Riverside School today involving 8 female students and, allegedly, a can of pepper spray. Sandy Beach’s topic today was (no joke – this is supposed to fill 3 hours?) whether James Williams was right in referring to the involved students as good kids who behaved badly.
If it wasn’t WBEN, you could almost conjure up several philosophical questions that topic might raise. You know – are people born inherently good or bad? Nature vs. nurture, etc. But instead, I heard a guy suggest that cops just handcuff and strip naked any misbehaving kid, because that would shut ’em up.
Based on the news reports I’ve seen, Rumore seems satisfied with Williams’ response to the fight and the other recent fights in Buffalo schools that have merited media attention.
The Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. will be preparing a master plan for Buffalo’s waterfront. It seems that the creation of that entity was a good idea, and that there is palpable progress being made down there, Seneca casino notwithstanding.
Our folks in Albany approved the 1/2 penny increase in the sales tax. Assembly vote was 82-49 and the Senate tally was 61-1. When in effect, our tax will be 8.75%, which is exactly where we would have been had the EC Legislature approved the penny sales tax during the red budget/green budget fiasco last year.
Speaking of the Erie County Legislature, the new crew is off to a bad start. Sheriff Howard and the legislators themselves lobbied for and/or passed several patronage hires and re-hires. Sheriff Howard’s girlfriend? You’ve got to be kidding me.
The Mayor is gearing up properly to implement his Citi-Stat plan. He has hired a dedicated deputy mayor to administer Citi-Stat, and hopefully the delivery of City services will become better organized and more effective. I think that the Mayor at least appears to almost be punting on the BMHA scandal (and that’s what it is – a scandal). He could be coming out more strongly on that.
For these reasons, and the upcoming gubernatorial race, 2006 is an extraordinary year for Buffalo.