A former City of Buffalo employee alleged in a now-dismissed lawsuit that she was fired for raising concerns about what she called “corruption” perpetrated by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and other top city officials.
Nona Watson, the former executive director of a city agency called the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency (BURA), said that top city officials misused federal funds meant for affordable housing programs, orchestrated a “steering” scheme to give Brown’s friends and allies contracting deals, and “harassed and threatened” her for verbalizing her concerns.
Watson filed the case on behalf of the U.S. government as a “relator.” The case was extended seven times over the course of three years before the U.S. government declined to intervene on March 21. Watson moved to drop her suit that day, prompting its unsealing on March 24.
Many of the officials and developers implicated in the lawsuit have said that the suit’s dismissal vindicated them.
“Ms. Watson’s civil case was voluntarily dismissed,” Brown said at his State of the City address on Monday. “That says all you need to know about that issue.”
Watson’s attorney, Harvey Sanders, said that Watson stands by her allegations and dropped the lawsuit “primarily” because the federal government declined to intervene, leaving Watson with the financial burden of moving forward with the case.
“I should say it was not dismissed on the merits,” Sanders said. “It was voluntarily dismissed by Ms. Watson. I know there’s been some suggestion that somehow this was a finding that there was no merit to the case. That’s not what that is.”
Watson declined to comment.
Watson’s complaint makes specific allegations of “corruption” — which she says she “personally observed” — and names several Brown administration officials and allies.
The suit alleges that the city used federal funds intended for BURA to conduct city business without reimbursing BURA, which included the city’s use of at least four specific BURA employees for city business. The city also allegedly used federal funds from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to pay off the city’s debt — including debt owed to HUD — and hid those payments in financial records.
Watson also accuses Brown and Executive Director of the Office of Strategic Planning Brendan Mehaffy of “orchestrating a ‘steering’ scheme” to give “city-owned land, federal funding, and privileged inside information” to developers allied with Brown.
“Although BURA completed the FRP process and all appears to be valid on paper, the selection process for these projects was anything but competitive,” the suit reads.
Watson said in the complaint that, based on her calculations, 20% of HOME funds had been awarded to projects involving David Pawlik, the former Deputy Commissioner of Housing and Community Development and a “close friend” of Brown’s. In addition to five other examples of “favorable treatment and conflicts of interest” regarding city projects listed in the suit, Watson alleges that one project to develop apartment buildings on Jefferson Avenue involved “land swapping, land banking and led to double dipping with assistance from Mayor Brown, Mr. Mehaffy, and Mr. Pawlik.” Less than $100,000 were invested in the land before the project began, but Mehaffy and developer Nick Sinatra sold their parts of the land for $473,684.16 and then sold the land they acquired from the city for $197,368.48.
“This type of behavior, misuse, and abuse of federal funds is also cause for delay regarding more recent projects,” the suit reads.
After voicing her concerns with some city officials’ actions, Watson says Mehaffy and then-Deputy Mayor Elizabeth Ball told her to resign or be terminated in an October 2018 meeting. When she returned to work the next day, Watson says she was locked out of city hall and had lost all access to her work accounts. She resigned over email that day.
Sanders also discounted speculation that Watson’s case was related to an eight-hour FBI raid of city hall in November of 2019. That raid was conducted in conjunction with Housing and Urban Development and centered on the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning, which oversees housing development and BURA, according to WKBW.
“I know people are saying that somehow the raid had something to do with the lawsuit. I'm not convinced that it does,” Sanders said. “That’s not something we requested, so we didn’t have anything to do with that happening.”
The FBI raid took place on Nov. 6, 2019, 13 days before Watson filed her case on Nov. 19.
A spokesperson for Buffalo’s FBI office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York declined to comment.
You can read the full complaint here.