Frustration over the City of Buffalo’s recently released winter snow plan are brewing within the Common Council chambers.
The plan was released Monday evening, ahead of the Nov. 1 deadline as required by the city’s charter.
Yet University District Councilman Rasheed Wyatt said there remains a general fear from city residents that the city has not learned from the mistakes made during last year’s winter storms, one of which claimed the lives of 47 people.
“Some of the things that the public has been questioning even during our public hearings is ‘are we prepared?’” he said. “And we've heard a sound bite, ‘we're prepared.’ But when we look through the snow plan, last year we had 44 snowplows. This year, we only have 30. Six are being lent to us by the state. I don't know if that's the right number. But if we have a severe winter like we had last year, will those snowplows be able to hold up? Again, if we can't move snow, we can't clear areas for people to get off their street and all those things. Those are issues. And I think, in some cases, the administration has lacked the real understanding of what the fear people have.”
Wyatt said other council members have shared his concern about there being a communication gap between the council and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s office regarding the snow plan.
“We found out through the media that [the mayor’s office] had a meeting with FEMA,” he said. “Not the council president, not the majority leader, were part of those conversations. How do you not include the other the legislative branch of government, when we have been the ones pushing this issue in the public sphere? It just shows the level of disrespect that we don't appreciate. I think that we've worked with the Mayor on a lot of things. But it just seems like in some cases, he goes left we go right. And it's not right. Because at the end of the day, this is about public safety. This is not politics. We want to make sure that the 47 lives that we lost last time, we don't lose not one, if there's another emergency this time. There is a great deal of frustration. We have to work together.”
In an effort to speed up the process for winter storm assessment for the next season, on Wednesday Wyatt introduced a proposal to the Common Council to amend the city charter to shift snow plan deadline from Nov. 1 back to April 1. Wyatt said there is an urgency to get a plan ready as soon as possible.
“We can make some determinations on what the needs are. We go into the budget cycle in May. And so, if there's need for equipment, we can do that, in hopes that we can even do some things earlier. But we even talked to [City of Buffalo Public Works, Parks and Streets Commissioner Nate Marton] about possibly moving up the process and even being able to request that in maybe January or February because again, he needs lead time to get this equipment in.”
Over the weekend, the city filled the positions of emergency services manager and fleet manager, two positions the Common Council has been calling for.
The Common Council is also hosting several winter storm prep events in five locations through the middle of November.
