Mayor Byron Brown sure didn’t.
If you haven’t already read the article that appeared in the Sunday paper, here it is. Jim Heaney’s take? He calls it the “political self-destruction” of Byron Brown. Common Council Member David Rivera had this to say:
[HTML1]
First off, I despise people who are not handicapped, but abuse handicap placards/stickers/plates and parking spaces. If you’re too obnoxious and lazy to walk an extra few feet from your car to the store, then you probably shouldn’t be driving lest your widdle feet start to hurt from pushing the pedals. Leonard Stokes is not just a restaurateur extraordinaire, he abuses parking privileges reserved for the disabled.
Now, what Mayor Brown allegedly did on Stokes’ behalf isn’t a shocking blockbuster of an abuse of power. I’m sure every Buffalo mayor has fixed a ticket or two for a buddy. Except this wasn’t over a parking ticket, and we didn’t know Stokes was the Mayor’s buddy.
Didn’t Mayor Brown go to great lengths to distance himself from Stokes when One Sunset blew up in the city’s face? When One Sunset blew into the open, didn’t Mayor Brown do the whole Leonard-who-oh-yeah-I-know-that-guy-good-guy-hardly-know-him-though thing? I’m sure the Mayor has made many acquaintances with young entrepreneurs looking for BERC money, but I doubt many of them can get out of a theft arrest by demanding to see the Mayor, getting in, and getting off scot-free.
Now, as Rivera indicates above, it’s being alleged that the Mayor’s office is intimidating witnesses to dummy up about this. Issuing a string of “no comments”, lawyering up, and new links between the mayor and a recipient of ill-fated largesse from city agencies ought to make a lot of undecideds go, “hm”.
And this may be a very big deal indeed.
The Buffalo Record 
To quote Andy Sipowicz, “This ain’t good.”
And, in keeping with the cop motif, we can probably look for some corroboration of the details from the officers who were subject to the humiliation of frog-marching a perp into the Mayor’s office, only to see him waltz out a free man ten minutes later. My guess is the officers didn’t appreciate that. And probably don’t appreciate the muscle being laid on them by the high-priced lawyer that nobody hired to not do nuttin’.
This probably works out no better than the Little Byron stolen car gambit.
Anybody wanna bet who is Mayor come January 2nd? and who is not?
Unfortunately, this latest incident in abuse of power will probably have little impact on next week’s election. Brown will win with about 55 to 60% of the vote. The good news might come later next year when after all the investigations are completed this corrupt Mayor will face indictment and/or will be forced to resign in disgrace. Wishful thinking? Here’s hoping it’s more than that!
I find it shocking that Brian Higgins and Mark Schroeder are still working hard on Byron’s behalf. Someone should ask them if their support of Byron Brown’s re-election campaign is indicitive of their acceptance of this type of criminal behavior. I would have expected better out of Brian Higgins and Mark Schroeder.
I am not that shocked about Higgins and Shroeder. If you look closely, there’s probably a lot of their friends and family on the city payroll. Remeber that legislator Tim Kennedy’s dad is the appointed city assessor. The south Buffalo politiicians requirement has alway been about jobs, jobs, jobs. So no surprise here.
Of course he will be re-elected in a walk.One must remember that Lord Byron has always had his eye on bigger office (Congress,Senate etc).The one thing that might result from this embarrasment/criminal activity is his desire for higher office is no longer attainable. Maybe he can join a consulting firm with that other idiot King Joel Giambra.
youtube.com
type in: Slungini
funniest bit on Brown ever!
funny comic doing him at helium comedy club.