The Buffalo Common Council has held up the appointment of members to the forthcoming Buffalo Parking and Mobility Authority over concerns about the process.
Council members sent an item that would have named the five board members back to the Community Development Committee for further discussion after some members took issue with the way the state law creating the authority sets up the board, with the mayor holding all five appointments and the ability to name the chair of the board.
Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope said after the meeting that part of the concern comes from Mayor Christopher Scanlon’s appointment of two city employees – Office of Strategic Planning director Nadine Marrero and commissioner of Finance and Administration Raymour Nosworthy – as the board positions come with stipends.
“I do have personal questions about the ethics engaged, because there are city employees that are there, and there are stipends that are assigned to each of those positions,” she said.
The Council does hold approval power over the board members and secured a memorandum of understanding committing to include the Council president as a board member, which Scanlon has done in naming acting Council President Bryan Bollman as an appointee.
On the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting are items to approve the board of directors for a newly created parking authority, which will borrow to pay the city for the ramps and operate them going forward.
Fillmore District Council Member Mitchell Nowakowski said there are also concerns about the politics of the appointments, given that some members will have terms that last the entirety of the incoming mayor’s term, who will replace Scanlon. Scanlon became acting mayor last October after former Mayor Byron Brown resigned. Scanlon will return to his South District Council seat when the winner of the November election takes the mayor’s office.
State Sen. Sean Ryan, who beat Scanlon and a field of three others in the Democratic primary in June, is the favorite in the contest, where he will face Republican James Gardner and independent Michael Gainer.
Nowakowski, who endorsed Ryan, said that with Scanlon appointing the board it could turn the entity political.
“That’s a large infusion of cash that could potentially antagonize a new mayor or not carry out the will of the administration that will have to work for the next four years alongside this empaneled authority,” he said.
Scanlon, with Council approval, has included more than $26 million in revenue from the planned sale of the ramps, which the newly created authority will borrow to pay the city, in the current fiscal year budget and $40 million over four years.
Administration leadership has maintained that the sale of the ramps will bring in at least $40 million and has the potential to raise close to $60 million, while continuing to provide a revenue stream of an estimated $2 million in annual revenues from parking fees. Last year the ramps brought in a net revenue of more than $4.5 million.
Deputy Mayor Brian Gould told The News that he expects all issues to be resolved by the next Council meeting and for the appointments to go forward.
“We have spoken with council leadership,” Gould said. “They are very, very confident that that will be done at the meeting in two weeks.”
Halton-Pope said she believes the Council will move forward with appointments once all of the members’ questions have been answered. And she has been assured by the administration that survey and title work, including professional appraisals of the value of the ramps, can go forward without a board in place.
Any concerns Council members have over the value of the ramps should be addressed by those appraisals, she added.
“I think it’s helpful if we have the valuation of those properties first, and then we can make some serious determinations on whether or not those calculations are on par, below or above what was recommended in the budget,” Halton-Pope said.
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