Community members hoping for progress in a legal dispute over a proposed new police training center on Buffalo’s East Side will have to wait at least a month.
A hearing planned for Wednesday now is re-scheduled for March 11. The one-month adjournment is granted on the specification that no aspects of the project will move forward, said attorney Stephanie Adams, who represents the petitioners.
Resident and petitioner Tamora Gibson still hopes the building on Paderewski Drive will be restored to a community center, like when she was a child.
“Kids need it around there … So make it back (into) a community center," she said. "So that kids can go there, go after school. Have it somewhere, have somewhere that somebody could tutor them."
University at Buffalo Urban Studies Center Director Henry Louis-Taylor says the plan by Buffalo Common Council members is a misguided vision that doesn’t put residents first.
“We're in the process of developing a plan for that area, that will point the way of how you transform and create a neighborhood for the people who live there, not for someone else," he said. "The police station, this training facility, is not for the people who live there.”
Louis-Taylor adds that the Common Council’s voting record demonstrates why the East Side has suffered despite financial investment over the past 30 years.
One of the primary arguments by petitioners is that no proper environmental impact study was performed. Pursuing the case is essential because it also sets a precedent for the future, Adams added.
BTPM reached out to Councilmember Mitch Nowakowski for comment, but the lawmaker explained that because the matter is in court, he cannot comment.
