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Noting a series of alarming incidents around the country, members of a citizens police oversight panel that reports to the Buffalo Common Council on Wednesday questioned Police Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood on the steps being taken to prevent a white supremacist from infiltrating the department’s ranks.
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Buffalo is slated to receive $331 million in federal stimulus funding. Half of the windfall arrived last month. The second payment is expected to come next year. All of the funds must be spent within the next four years. The Common Council will hold a public meeting for the community to weigh in on the spending.
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The vaccination campaign is running up against the independence prized in rural areas, vaccine hesitancy, lingering animosity over the governor’s public health restrictions and the continuing spread of misinformation about Covid-19. Those and other factors have contributed to the low vaccination rate in Allegany and elsewhere, experts say.
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Walton grew up poor in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, but she beat Buffalo’s four-term mayor, Byron W. Brown, with votes – and a lot of campaign help – from professionals in the city’s wealthier enclaves. And now Walton and her supporters are working to defeat Brown’s write-in bid in November and create a progressive city administration led by a self-proclaimed democratic socialist.
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As clichéd as it sounds, Buffalo’s historic June 2021 primary, in which democratic socialist India Walton won a major upset over four-term incumbent Byron Brown, is something of a tale of two cities. And it’s the same tale that Buffalonians have discussed for generations: the “East-West divide” carved by Main Street through the heart of the city.
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The expanded museum, at a cost of $168 million, is expected to reopen in fall 2022, three years since the museum closed in November 2019. When it reopens, the museum will become known as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. AKG stands for the museum’s major contributors: John J. Albright, Seymour H. Knox Jr. and Jeffrey E. Gundlach.
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The state Health Department updated the guidance because of the “current low rates of Covid-19 transmission,” it said in an email to school districts.
Schools and districts may implement the masking policies for child care, day camp and overnight camp programs, the state said. That guidance says that unvaccinated children “are strongly encouraged but not required to wear face coverings indoors as feasible.”
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Walton cruised to victory last month by emphasizing new ways to solve old problems, especially in policing. She reiterated on Wednesday her plan to reallocate $7.5 million of the Police Department budget to programs that link usual subjects of police attention to mental health services. Her Wednesday event also marked the first of many in which she is expected to highlight her proposals, backed by high-profile figures like Williams. Others with similar socialist philosophies – such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Bronx and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – are mentioned as other potential campaign allies.
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The Democratic majority of the Erie County Legislature stands poised to approve County Executive Mark Poloncarz’s $123.7 million spending plan Thursday, which would take one of the biggest windfalls in decades and use it to boost a variety of infrastructure and community improvement projects, as well as county payroll.
But the Republican-supported minority caucus is gearing up to wage a battle on the Legislature floor. They will push to sidetrack the county executive’s spending plan and replace it with a different plan that they say offers more public input.
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The City of Buffalo and the Buffalo Sewer Authority are providing relief to the more than 30,000 households that fell behind on water and sewer bills during the past 16 months. Of the $361 million the city received through the American Rescue Plan, $13 million of it will be used to wash away debt for low-income families who faced financial hardships as a result of the pandemic.
