City residents took advantage of another public mayoral forum; this one being hosted by the League of Women voters and Black Rock Riverside Alliance. The forum included a unique combination of candidates that included Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon, State Senator Sean Ryan, former fire commissioner Garnell Whitfield and business owner Michael Gainer.
Candidates answered a unique set of questions. The first centering around littering and illegal dumping. Whitfield and Scanlon shared similar solutions, saying better police enforcement was the key to stopping this problem.
“We have police officers. We have first responders. We have people that are on duty. 24/7 in the city of Buffalo. We need to use them creatively, I believe, to monitor this illegal dumping,” said Whitfield.
“So when it comes to illegal dumping, it's about enforcement. Our Department of permits and inspections, police, we have them out there looking for this, and we've been looking to partner with as many neighbors as we can. We are installing as many cameras as we can,” said Scanlon.
Ryan meanwhile looked to a policy from Philadelphia as an example of how to prevent illegal dumping.
“We need to take a page on what happens in Philadelphia. Every vacant lot owned by the City of Philadelphia has a simple split rail fence on it prevents anyone from driving a truck up there to dump on but also, they have a policy of every 13 days, each lot is mowed, and it looks more like a lawn and less like a vacant place.”
Gainer mentioned there’s need to be a culture shift in city hall to truly combat this problem.
“It really requires a focus and a diligence and a cultural shift. I've had many conversations with city staff at public works. I've had individual conversations with police officers during their clean sweeps. Everybody's trying to solve this problem in their own silos, and there's not a collective strategy and focus and a policy approach to how we're going to solve the issue with illegal dumping.”
When it came to city development we saw much of the same as previous debates and forum. Whitfield once again lamented over the Bills stadium and the University at Buffalo North Campus not being in downtown Buffalo. Scanlon blamed inflation and the high cost of business as an obstacle.
Ryan, like many times before, touted his plan of building more houses. Gainer, however, said the focus should primarily be built on growing the city’s population.
“When I think about capacity, our city's population has largely been declining for the last 75 years. But in general, we have a city with an amazing resource, right? We have largely affordable housing. We have amazing green space and entrepreneurial sector, we have a lot of great things that are going here. We have to advertise to the world to bring more people to this city.”
The candidates were also asked to name a song or movie that best describes them.
Scanlon chose “You’ve got a friend in me” from the Toy Story franchise. The inspiration to pick the song came from his kids who are 10, 8, and 4 years old.
He believes the song further signifies his efforts in building partnerships within city government and the community, a practice he criticized the previous the mayoral administration for lacking.
Whitfield chose “What’s going on” from Marvin Gaye.
The song choice drew the laughter of the crowd. Whitfield’s reasoning for the song centered around the need for Buffalo’s next mayor to ask the “tough questions.” Further saying “We have to understand how we got here, and until those questions are asked and answered, it's impossible to have a plan that you know that's going to be successful going forward.”
Ryan chose “It’s a wonderful life,” a movie that debuted in 1947.
Ryan mentioned that in the movie there was a town that had all these great attributes, but you also had a “mean old banker” running the town and trying to keep the whole town down. He believed this signified city leadership for the past decade.
Gainer chose “A lovely day” from Bill Withers.
Explaining his choice Gainer said part of the next mayor’s vision has to be how we can all live in healthy, safe, and vibrant lives.
Candidates will get one more opportunity at Tuesday’s WKBW debate to make the case to voters why they should be the city’s next mayor. Michael Gainer will not appear on the primary ballot due to petition signature fraud, which he said was a mistake. He will be on the ballot as an independent in November.
