City of Buffalo Common Council·September 1, 2026
The Council spent 34 of its 60 minutes on a cut it learned of from the news — the fall bulk-trash pickup — and voted 9–0 to demand it back and an explanation. Also: Golombek’s letter on two $379,000 BURA jobs goes to Finance; Halton-Pope’s discretionary-funds resolution goes to Legislation. The other 150 items passed by voice in under 20 minutes.
The resolutions were Items 152 and 153 — the second a late file, sponsored by seven of nine members, opposing “the Administration's Recent Decision to Reduce Bulk Trash Collection to One Day” and requesting the return of twice-yearly pickup — and they came up after 22 minutes of a meeting that had, until then, been a clerk reading item numbers. Rasheed Wyatt (University), the lead sponsor, framed it as he would frame it again and again on behalf of colleagues: not the decision but the silence around it. “I'm on my vacation,” he said, and a constituent called about bulk trash being eliminated. “I have no idea. My colleagues don't have an idea.” The budget conversation in the spring had covered the tax increase and the user fee at length; “I don't think anybody said, okay, now we're gonna eliminate bulk trash.” He asked the administration to “repeal their decision” for this year and bring the question back for a public process next year, and folded in a second grievance — the “additional layers” between council members and department commissioners, the subject of the Impact Team half of his resolution.
What followed was the rare Buffalo Council debate in which every district heard from itself. A member who said he lives on a narrow one-way street with alternate parking[*] described children climbing over dresser drawers to reach the school bus, and a toilet on the curb for “three, four days” when cars don't move; urban pickup, he said, “is always going to be different” from suburban, and the change “needs to be revoked first and then revisited.” Joseph Golombek (North), who voted against the budget, held up the insert mailed with the user-fee bill — “bulk trash is now as easy as one, two, three” — and read it as a promise of three weekly items that said nothing about losing a seasonal pickup: “Nowhere here does it say there's not gonna be a bulk trash pickup.” He predicted more dumping on West Avenue, then widened the aperture: city employees, he said, “have been told that they cannot talk to council members,” and he told of one in the City Hall basement who “kept looking back and forth” before saying he was not supposed to be seen with him.
Christopher Scanlon (South), the former acting mayor, kept it to a paragraph: nine months in, the administration “continue[s] to operate in an us-versus-them manner,” and “we are one entity, we are the City of Buffalo, Incorporated.”[*] Bryan Bollman (Lovejoy) asked to add his name to the resolution and for the second pickup this year.[*] Halton-Pope (Ellicott) supplied the institutional memory: this was her third budget, the cut had been proposed and rejected by the Council all three years, the savings were “about a million dollars” by prior administrations' estimate — “nearly a half a percentage” of the 19 percent tax increase — and she wanted to see the number. She noted the caucus had been told that morning the change was about public dumping and answered that it would increase it: “If people can't move their garbage, then where do you think they're going to put it?” Renters east and west of Main Street, she said, never got the insert at all.
Zeneta Everhart (Masten), the President Pro Tempore, called herself “Positive Polly” and then produced the line of the afternoon: the nine district members and the administration “are married — without an option for divorce.” She had, she said, been emailing since January about camera money for Masten and Fillmore secured through the county legislature, and learned from a reporter that day that “those cameras are up.” David Rivera (Niagara) closed. He had fought the cut “under Byron Brown” and would fight it now; residents were venting at council members “as though we're micro mayors.” Then a marker for next spring: “I will not consider voting for a budget that does not include trash pickup for two cycles.” Both resolutions were adopted without dissent, with the “remainder” sent to the Legislation Committee for September 8 (see the box). What the administration will do was not on the floor; no one from it spoke.
Council: President Joel Feroleto (Delaware), presiding; Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope (Ellicott); President Pro Tempore Zeneta Everhart (Masten); Bryan Bollman (Lovejoy), Joseph Golombek (North), Mitchell Nowakowski (Fillmore), David Rivera (Niagara), Christopher Scanlon (South), Rasheed Wyatt (University). All nine present; every recorded vote 9–0.
Invocation: a pastor introduced as Kenny Simmons[*], thanked from the dais for a 600-backpack giveaway with ponies, a train and turkey dogs.
Administration: no one spoke. Public: no speakers; Buffalo's regular sessions take no public comment.
Three resolutions Tuesday (Items 140, 152 and 153) carry the disposition “Adopted — remainder to Legislation 9/8.” The resolution's operative text — the Council's stated position and its requests to the administration — is adopted on the spot and is now the body's official position. The item itself stays alive and is referred to the Legislation Committee, where members can summon administration officials, ask for documents and continue the discussion in public on Tuesday, September 8, at 1 p.m. It is Buffalo's way of voting a position immediately without closing the file. A resolution is a statement, not a law: it cannot itself restore a pickup. The lever the Council does hold is the one Rivera named — the next budget.
Item 130, a late file, is a letter from Golombek and a co-signer the record lists as T. Cooley “concerning BURA personnel” — the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, the city's housing and community-development arm, on whose board Golombek sits. He told the floor that a deputy mayor[*] had called to say the agency was being restructured, which he appreciated, and that he had asked for everything in writing “because I believe that we've all gotten burned in the past.” The burn he meant was December, when the Council was told grant funding would cover new positions and raises and “it ended up not being true.”
The mayor has the right to restructure BURA, he allowed. But the plan as he understood it adds two positions he put at $379,000 combined — “much, much higher than the median income of the overwhelming majority” of city residents — in a year of a budget crisis and a tax increase. He asked that someone from the administration or BURA come in and explain, and said he was “all for restructuring” done “without adding more salaries and adding more long-term legacy costs.” The letter went to Finance for September 8. The figure is Golombek's; no document on the agenda states it.
The same afternoon, without discussion, the Council adopted seven appointments to its own legislative staff (Items 119–125), from a $20-an-hour intern to a Senior Legislative Assistant V at $94,860, and approved the administration's Commissioner of Administration and Finance at $177,000 on the Civil Service Committee's recommendation. Whether any of the Council positions is new or a backfill is not stated in the record.
Roughly 45 of Tuesday's 153 items were notices of appointment — lifeguards at $20 an hour, a Deputy Commissioner of Streets and Sanitation, a Fire Division Chief at $123,355. Every one was referred to the Civil Service Committee for September 8; none was acted on. When that committee reports back, the full Council either approves (a provisional or permanent civil-service post the Council must confirm) or receives and files (an exempt, at-will post the mayor fills on his own authority — the Council is merely notified). Tuesday's Civil Service report shows the split: the $177,000 commissioner and two real-estate specialists were approved; the mayor's confidential aide ($81,861), executive assistant ($87,000) and deputy directors of budget and purchase ($109,148 each) were received and filed.
Item 140, a late file from Halton-Pope with Everhart, Golombek, Wyatt, Rivera and Nowakowski, is titled “Clarifying the Authority of the Common Council Regarding Discretionary Funding.” The majority leader spent four minutes saying what it is not: “not an attempt at all to limit the Comptroller's ability to audit how we spend public dollars.” The Comptroller should require documentation and reporting, and if an expenditure is “illegal, improper or unsupported” should stop it. “But it's really important to note that oversight is not policymaking.”
The dispute, as she described it, is over the neighborhood-initiative funds the Council appropriates to each district member — the money behind the fee waivers and block-club grants that fill the resolutions section every two weeks. If a spend is legal, serves a public purpose and is documented, “an administrative policy should not be able to substitute someone else's judgment for ours about whether or not a community is in need.” Show us the law or the charter provision, she said, “and we will follow it. But this is our policy cannot become the equivalent of this is the law.” The resolution asks that substantive new restrictions not appear without Council review, and that new rules not be applied retroactively to grants made under old ones. “This really isn't about our current Comptroller or even our current Council,” she said. “This is about the institution itself.” Adopted; remainder to Legislation, September 8.
Buffalo's Comptroller is separately elected and, under the City Charter, audits and pre-audits city spending — no voucher is paid without that office's sign-off. The Common Council appropriates. Between them sits a grey zone: when the Comptroller declines to pay a Council-directed grant because it fails a policy the Comptroller's office wrote, is that an audit finding or a veto? Tuesday's resolution stakes the Council's claim that it is the latter unless a law or charter section is cited. No specific blocked expenditure was named on the floor; the majority leader said the matter had already come up in a Finance Committee meeting and would be argued out in Legislation.
Item 3, the mayor's appointments to the Citizens Planning Council, was received and filed — the Council has no vote on them — but Halton-Pope took the floor to count. The eight new members break down, she said, as one from Fillmore, two from Ellicott, three from Niagara, one from Delaware and one from South. University, Masten, Lovejoy and North — four of nine districts — have no one. The Citizens Planning Council “helps us to determine our capital projects,” she said, and she asked the administration, “and this isn't a negative criticism, it just may be an oversight,” to reconsider so that “when we're talking about capital projects, you're actually talking to the people who live all throughout the entire city.” Item 2, a separate appointment to the Buffalo City Court Housing Advisory Council, went to Community Development for September 8.
Money approved. A $390,300 contract with LiRo-Hill for the city's underground petroleum storage tanks (Item 29, a substitution); a $600,000 amendment to LaBella Associates' contract for the Peter Crotty roof (Item 32); professional-services hires for Bailey Avenue Phase 2 (C&S), Busti Avenue traffic calming and bicycle improvements (Colliers) and citywide traffic-signal coordination (Colliers); an amended hire of GPI for the 1R paving program; four change orders totaling $47,492 at the Crane and Isaias González-Soto libraries and the History Museum; acceptance of funds for the Elk Street Bridge replacement; an agreement with Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps; bids for the Porter Avenue cantilever sign and the Busti Avenue project; and, from the finance department, acceptance of a companion-animal capital grant, a DEC zero-emission-vehicle rebate, a Friends of the Animal Shelter match and 2026 Erie County Urban Initiative money for a Jefferson Avenue streetscape. Three police grants were accepted (2027 Traffic Services, 2025 Byrne JAG, 2025 Stonegarden). An agreement with Clementine Gold Group (Item 118) and a legal-research subscription for Corporation Counsel were approved.
Money sent to Finance for September 8. The $2,000,000 citywide architectural and engineering master-planning contract (Item 28); CPL's Bicycle Facility Master Plan Phase 2 (Item 34); the Comptroller's FY 2026–27 estimate and the July Fitch ratings report; a Tyler Technologies “piggyback” contract for MIS (Item 15 — first approved, then revisited, rescinded and referred in the space of 20 seconds); five police items (a Cheektowaga firing-range contract, a Peacemakers contract and sole-source approvals for Berla, LeadsOnline and Insight Public Sector); a Fire Department contract amendment; and two community-services contracts, the Summer Youth payroll administrator and the Police Athletic League's Building Better Readers program.
Demolitions. Contracts approved for 55 Clare Street (Geiter Done of WNY), 2 Stoneboro Avenue (Metro Contracting) and 247 Trenton Avenue (Hannah Demolition).
Licenses and land use. Fifteen new license applications went to Legislation — eight food stores (405 Hampshire, 2082 South Park, 3209 Bailey, 3198 Main, 2028 Genesee, 2248 Main, 896 East Delavan, 970 Kensington), two garbage collectors, a lodging house at 391 Washington, three property managers and a tobacco/hookah/vape shop at 2531–2533 Delaware. Three special-use petitions were set for October 6 hearings: a neighborhood shop at 412 Auburn Avenue (N-2R), an assembly use at 416 Wohlers Avenue (N-3R) and a rooming house at 674 Jefferson Avenue (N-3E). From the Legislation Committee's report the Council approved a tavern-with-live-entertainment special use at 617 Fillmore Avenue, a food store at 2083 Seneca Street (with conditions), Everything Auto's garbage-collector license and the Cater 2 U Kitchen food truck, and recommitted the 756 Broadway local-landmark designation, a 12 Brantford lodging house, two Lovejoy tire handlers, a used-car dealer at 1906 Genesee and the 2034 South Park hookah-lounge special use — the last of which Scanlon had discharged from that same committee at the top of the meeting (Item 151), only for the floor to send it straight back. Eleven liquor and cannabis notices were filed, including a cannabis establishment at 577 Forest Avenue. SEQR negative declarations (Item 129) were adopted.
Resolutions. Fee waivers for the G-POPS of WNY back-to-school cookout, Hood Taste of Buffalo, Movie Night at Riverside Park, Party in the Park, a Youth Empowerment celebration and three for the South Buffalo Irish Festival; a trailblazing sign honoring Mary A. Jackson; Nowakowski's Division of Water budget amendment and four fund transfers, including the Delavan Grider kitchen and the City Court elevator. Correspondence: a resident's concerns about the Chippewa Entertainment District (to Legislation), another's about the Parking Violations Bureau (to Community Development), and the Charter Revision Commission's statutory report and ballot language (filed).
Before business, the Council paused for Gregory Brown[*], an attorney and Minnesota Avenue block-club member who “wasn't bullying me but educating me,” one member said, and his late wife; for Mary Lickfeld[*], who Scanlon said kept alive the memory of the five Buffalo firefighters killed in December 1983, among them her husband; for a South Buffalo hospitality figure remembered simply as “a very good person”; and for the mother-in-law of the Assessment and Taxation commissioner. A moment of silence followed, and the minutes of July 21 were approved.
Announcements: committee day is Tuesday, September 8 — Civil Service 9:45 a.m., Finance 10 a.m., Legislation 1 p.m., Community Development 2 p.m. Halton-Pope's Ellicott District meeting returns Saturday, September 19, 10 a.m., on the Roswell Park campus. Bollman's Lovejoy District picnic is Thursday, September 10, 4–7 p.m., at Buffalo River Grove, 2299 Clinton Street. Everhart's Masten stakeholders' breakfast is Saturday, September 12, 10 a.m., at the Delavan Grider Community Center. Wyatt is hosting Charter Communications — “their whole team” — for residents' complaints about fees and service Tuesday, September 15, 5:30 p.m., at Gerard Place. And the Fourth of July fireworks, rained out, are rescheduled for Canalside this Saturday; Nowakowski said he would attend, “not blowing off fireworks.”
Built from the City's recorded vote file and summary minutes, cross-checked against the tape. Every recorded vote was 9–0 with all nine members present and no abstentions; the floor procedure is a clerk reading item numbers with Majority Leader Halton-Pope moving and a rotating seconder, so “approved/referred” below means unanimously. The docket number is the City's (e.g. 26-000309). Routine dispositions are grouped; every item that drew debate or money has its own row. Timecodes are recording positions.
Moved Halton-Pope, seconded Scanlon. Late files accepted without objection, with the President noting members' right to pause the meeting if they had not reviewed them.
Discharged from committee at the top of the meeting (moved Halton-Pope, seconded Wyatt), which brings the matter to the floor. When the Legislation Committee's report was read, Submissions Item 48 for the same address was moved “to recommit to legislation” and carried. Net effect: the application is back where it started. The record shows “Ref. to LEGISLATION”; the tape says “recommit.”
Item 3 drew Halton-Pope's remarks on district representation (see story). Item 2, appointment of A. Falicov to the Buffalo City Court Housing Advisory Council, was referred to Community Development for 9/8.
Moved Halton-Pope, seconded Wyatt. Item 13, an inter-fund loan for the Smart Grants program (26-000297), was approved.
Moved to approve and seconded (Everhart); the majority leader immediately moved to revisit (seconded Rivera), to rescind the previous motion (seconded Golombek), and to send to Finance (seconded Bollman). The City's vote record shows only the referral, with the outcome field blank (“-> ?”); the minutes say “Ref. to FINANCE 9/8/26.” Flagged for the record gap.
Items 19–27 in one motion (seconded Wyatt); Item 45 separately. Change orders total $47,491.96.
Both referred without discussion. Flagged for dollar magnitude.
Item 29 seconded Golombek; 30–33 in one motion seconded Rivera; 35–36 seconded Nowakowski.
Contracts and sole sources referred (seconded Golombek); grants accepted (seconded Rivera). Grant amounts are not stated in the item titles.
Items 75–78 in one motion, seconded Wyatt.
Two of the three houses had already been on the fire radio. Scanner traffic recorded by this publication has Buffalo Fire sent to 247 Trenton Avenue on Aug. 16 for a “hotspot” at the address, and on Sept. 3 — two days after this vote — a company clearing a call at 55 Clare Street asked dispatch to note it for the Mayor’s Impact Team to board the house up. The transcriptions are machine-generated; the dispatches describe calls, not findings.
One motion, seconded Bollman.
One motion, seconded Rivera. Items 102 (Summer Youth payroll administrator amendment) and 103 (Building Better Readers / Police Athletic League literacy contract) went to Finance; on 102 the majority leader began “motion to approve” and corrected to Finance.
Item 118, permission to enter an agreement with Clementine Gold Group, was approved separately (seconded Golombek); the record double-enters that vote.
One motion, seconded Rivera. No discussion.
Item 126's first vote line in the record is blank; a second line records 9–0.
Golombek asked that the administration or BURA appear to explain the restructuring, and that all of it be provided in writing. See story. Flagged for the dollar claim and the request for testimony.
The motion on tape was “to City Planning Board and Legislation”; the record shows Legislation only. Special-use permits in Buffalo are heard by the Council after Planning Board review, so both are likely correct in practice.
Items 4, 5, 14, 37–44, 46–63, 72, 74, 94–95, 101, 104–106. The Finnegan salary field reads “Flat 1339460,” an evident typographical error in the City's item; no figure is reported here. Item 59's vote line carries no mover or seconder in the record.
Submissions 1–34, moved by Bollman. Submission 11 (Manney, Assistant Administrator of Treasury) shows “yes 0” but “PASSED” in the record; the tape has it inside the 7–34 block. Flagged for the $177,000 commissioner.
Moved Golombek (35) and Nowakowski (36–37).
Moved Scanlon throughout. Item 45's first vote line lacks a seconder and an outcome; a second line records Golombek and 9–0.
134–135 adopted (seconded Everhart); 136–139 approved (seconded Bollman).
Halton-Pope: oversight is not policymaking; Comptroller may audit, document and stop illegal or unsupported spending, but an administrative policy may not substitute for the Council's judgment on legal, documented neighborhood-initiative grants; no retroactive rules. To be argued in Legislation Committee.
One voice motion on tape, seconded Bollman. The City's vote record for these ten items carries three to six vote lines each, several blank and, for Items 142–145, one showing seven yes votes without Scanlon and Wyatt alongside another showing nine. The tape has a single unanimous motion with all nine present; the 7-vote lines appear to be data-entry artifacts. Noted in the Editor's Note.
Moved with Item 153 (seconded Wyatt). Eight members spoke over 34 minutes; see the lead story.
Bollman asked on the floor to be added as a sponsor; the record lists him last. Scanlon and Feroleto are not listed as sponsors but voted yes. The administration's estimated saving, cited by members from prior years' budget hearings, is roughly $1 million; no administration figure was presented.
After committee announcements and district notices.
Source and scope. This brief is built from the City's posted video (audio extracted), the City's agenda-item file with recorded roll calls, and the summary minutes. The recording opens on a countdown and runs to the motion to adjourn; there is no pre-meeting or caucus audio. The caucus meeting members referred to (“we were told during our caucus meeting today”) is not public and is reported only as members described it. Timecodes are positions on the recording.
Where the record and the tape disagree. (1) Item 15 (Tyler Technologies): the tape shows approve → revisit → rescind → refer to Finance; the vote file records only the referral with a blank outcome. (2) Items 131–133: moved on tape “to City Planning Board and Legislation”; recorded as Legislation only. (3) Items 141–150: the vote file carries multiple vote lines per item, some blank and some showing 7 yes votes omitting Scanlon and Wyatt; the tape has one voice motion with all nine present and no dissent, and both are reported. (4) Submissions 48 is “recommit” on tape and “Ref. to LEGISLATION” in the record; same effect. (5) Submissions 11 records “yes 0 … PASSED.” Nothing in these gaps changes any outcome.
Speaker attribution. The chamber audio captures members but rarely the President's recognitions. Wyatt, Golombek, Halton-Pope, Everhart and Rivera identify themselves by content or are named by colleagues. Three attributions in the lead story are inferred and carry [*]: the member describing a narrow one-way street is treated as unnamed; the “us-versus-them” remarks at 30:01 are attributed to Scanlon because Halton-Pope later cites “Councilmember Scanlon” for the same line; the “add my name” remarks at 38:57 are attributed to Bollman because he is the one sponsor appended to Item 153's list and the only non-presiding member otherwise unaccounted for. Verify against the City's video before quoting either.
Corrections applied. Whisper rendered the roll call as Bowman, Farrell, “Galan back,” Hawton Pope, noakowski and Rashid; all corrected to the verified roster (Bollman, Feroleto, Golombek, Halton-Pope, Nowakowski, Rasheed Wyatt). “Bureau” throughout Golombek's remarks is BURA; “controller” is Comptroller; “Masson/Mastin” is Masten; “east and west of Maine” is Main Street. The mayor is identified as Mayor Ryan from the City's own attachment title (“Mayor Ryan Citizens Planning Council Appointments”). The street check found five valid Buffalo streets and one false positive (“Buffalo City Court”); no street corrections were needed. Entity names (LiRo-Hill, Geiter Done of WNY, Clementine Gold Group, Cater 2 U Kitchen) follow the agenda text.
Names this brief could not verify. Audio-only and flagged [*]: the pastor who gave the invocation; the deputy mayor Golombek said called him; the deceased named in memoriam (renderings “Lickfeld” and “Pankow” are not confirmed by any document and the latter is omitted). The Erie County legislator Everhart credited for camera funding is not named here for the same reason. Individuals in personnel items are named as the City's record names them, with title and salary. Correspondents (A. Falicov, S. Carmina, C. Tarr, M. Austin, T. Cooley, E. Roussanov) appear only as the record lists them.
Figures as stated. The tax increase was given as 19 percent (Halton-Pope, Rivera) and 26 percent (Golombek); the user-fee increase as 25 percent (Rivera). None is verified here against the adopted budget. The $379,000 BURA figure and the roughly $1 million bulk-trash saving are members' figures. The interests watchlist was checked against every entity, address and correspondent on the docket; no match.