Aug 23
2021
Aug 23
2021
Aug 20
2021
Mayor Byron Brown has said that he doesn’t want controversial developer Carl Paladino’s support for his write-in campaign against Democratic primary winner India Walton. While fielding questions from reporters following his June 28 announcement that he would stage a write-in campaign, Brown encouraged reporters to research the subject because they would find that he and Paladino “are not close.” In fact, the two have fashioned a working, if not warm, relationship over the years. Paladino is close enough to the mayor that he confirmed to a WGRZ reporter that he spoke with Brown by telephone shortly after his primary defeat[...]
Jul 28
2021
On Monday, Erie County’s lame-duck comptroller, Stefan Mychajliw, finally submitted a July campaign finance disclosure filing to the New York State Board of Elections. There are some problems, as there often are with Mychajliw’s campaign finances. First, this filing — one of two required annually of all candidates for elected office — arrived 11 days late. Second, the filing was for the campaign committee he used to run for comptroller, when in fact he is running for supervisor of the Town of Hamburg. That’s against the law: You can’t collect money for one office and use the money to run[...]
Jul 19
2021
After a delay his campaign attributed to “technical difficulties,” Mayor Byron Brown’s July campaign finance disclosure was posted to the New York State Board of Elections website on Saturday. Here’s what the filing revealed: After a flood of donations received the week before the June 22 primary, the mayor’s fundraising has been anemic compared to that of India Walton, who beat him to win the Democratic Party line in the November general election. As previously reported, Brown’s campaign continues to rely on donations from City Hall employees, patronage hires, city vendors, big real estate developers and a variety of well-to-do[...]
Jul 16
2021
Considering the odds against her, India Walton’s fundraising was pretty good prior to last month’s Democratic primary. It’s gotten a lot better since. Walton’s campaign raised nearly $178,000 in the three weeks after she beat incumbent Byron Brown in the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo, according to her campaign’s July 15 filing with the New York State Board of Elections. That’s more than she raised in the six months leading up to the June 22 election. And the total amount she raised in the current reporting period — just shy of $199,000 over the past 33 days — surpasses[...]
Jul 13
2021
When Mayor Byron Brown announced his write-in campaign inside the Statler Terrace Room last month, he was surrounded by supporters that included one of Buffalo’s most recognizable political figures. As a fiery Brown pledged to press on despite losing the Democratic primary to India Walton, standing behind him, just to his right, was Anthony Masiello — the man Brown replaced as mayor 15 years earlier. In the weeks since Brown’s announcement, Masiello has made the local media rounds, offering his thoughts on the mayor’s race and, at times, acknowledging his support for Brown’s write-in campaign. “I talk to the mayor[...]
Jul 10
2021
Susan Arbetter, host of Capital Tonight, interviews Jim Heaney on the contest between India Walton and Byron Brown. Heaney told her Brown needs to make the case to voters that he deserves another term in light of his poor track record. Walton, he said, needs to stop talking about Democratic socialism, which he considers a side issue, and instead address concerns about her lack of experience in government. Watch the interview at this link.
Jun 30
2021
The math of Byron Brown’s loss in the June 22 Democratic primary is simple. The mayor’s traditional base of voters on the East Side stayed home, while voters on the other side of Main Street — from the Lower West Side and Allentown to the Elmwood Village — turned out in comparatively high numbers and overwhelmingly chose India Walton. The result: Walton beat the four-term incumbent by 7 percent. Ken Kruly is a political analyst for WGRZ-TV, publisher of Politics and Other Stuff and author of Money In Politics for Investigative Post. In an analysis for Investigative Post, Kruly compared Brown’s[...]