Scanlon disputes Kleinhans “privatization” meeting

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Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon didn’t like our story on discussions he’s had about offloading maintenance costs for city-owned cultural venues such as Kleinhans Music Hall, Shea’s Performing Arts Center and the Buffalo Zoo.

Scanlon Thursday morning put out a statement calling the report “inaccurate, misleading and irresponsible.” He took particular issue with our reporting that he’d discussed “the potential of ‘privatizing’ or ‘selling’ Kleinhans Music Hall.”

“In fact, there was not and will not be any talk about selling city-owned cultural facilities as long as I’m mayor,” he wrote.

Here’s a screenshot of the acting mayor’s full statement. It was forwarded to us by a journalist at another news outlet. Scanlon’s office only sporadically includes Investigative Post in its press releases.

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Note that in disputing the idea that his administration has considered selling the venues, Scanlon wrote that he wants to form “a cultural institutions council” — his deputy mayor is quoted in our story calling it a “cabinet” — to explore the idea of some entity other than the city “taking ownership or more responsibility” for them.

“Taking ownership” sounds like it involves some sort of sale or title transfer. 

But never mind that: Let’s talk about Scanlon’s use of quotation marks around “privatizing,” suggesting the word was invented by Investigative Post.

We didn’t choose the word. His office did, in its description of a February meeting with principals from Kleinhans. Here’s a screenshot from the mayor’s daily calendar:

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While we’re at it, here’s a screenshot of the calendar entry for a meeting in which Scanlon was presented with the idea of convincing Erie County to pick up the costs of maintaining city-owned cultural venues:

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Deputy Mayor Brian Gould in a text message to Investigative Post blamed the use of the word “privatization” in the description of the Kleinhans meeting on the acting mayor’s scheduler.

“She is not fully aware or up to speed on all of the Mayor’s/administration’s initiatives,” Gould wrote.

That’s the second time the Scanlon administration has blamed others for a miscue we’ve reported.

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In December we reported that the acting mayor’s campaign had sent invitations to a political fundraiser with the mayor’s City Hall office as the return address — a violation of local, state and federal laws that prohibit public employees from using their offices for political purposes.

Gould at the time, speaking on behalf of Scanlon’s campaign, acknowledged the transgression. He called it “an error in the printing” and blamed a subcontractor to the contractor the campaign hired to do the mailing. That subcontractor, we were told, had independently come up with the idea to print “Buffalo City Hall, Mayor’s Office, 65 Niagara SQ Rm 201” on the envelopes.

Scanlon, his deputy mayor, his spokesperson — hell, even his allegedly error-prone calendar-keeper — had plenty of opportunity to discuss their thoughts on defraying the expense of maintaining what both Scanlon and Gould describe as “jewels” of the city. 

Investigative Post began working on this story Friday, after receiving Scanlon’s daily calendars the evening before, pursuant to a Freedom of Information request. 

We reached out to the acting mayor’s office that day for comment on the meetings about Kleinhans and other city-owned culturals.

We sought comment again on Monday. 

We reached out again on Tuesday morning, when the story was otherwise ready to publish. We told his office we’d hold the story until noon in hopes someone would talk to us. Around 11:30, the mayor’s spokesperson told us not to wait any longer.

At quarter to noon, Gould, the deputy mayor, called and described the plan to form a cabinet — now a “council” — to consider ways that other entities might absorb the costs of maintaining the city-owned venues. His comments are included in the story we eventually published.

Scanlon himself texted us at noon to ask, “Did you want to talk about the culturals?” We told him we’d just got off the phone with his deputy mayor but if he had more to add, then absolutely yes.

So we waited another half hour. 

When he didn’t respond, we published the story. 

A half hour after it was online, Scanlon wrote: “Just spoke with Brian. I think you should be all set.”

This is what Scanlon now regards as “irresponsible” journalism.

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So what changed between our publication of the story and Thursday morning, when the acting mayor put out a statement to every news outlet in town, except ours, condemning the story?

We can only guess. But we don’t do that, because that’s not what responsible journalists do.

In any case, all this discussion about some other entity “taking ownership” of Kleinhans specifically may be for naught. A lawyer contacted Investigative Post Wednesday to note that the deed to the property appears to prohibit the city from selling or even giving it away.

“The city shall at all times retain title to the music hall, and shall never convey the same or any part thereof to any person whomsoever,” says the fifth paragraph of section VII of the deed. 

“The city shall at all times retain control of the music hall,” says the following paragraph.