Controversial Cover Angers Roaches, Old People p.1 - The Beast

BUFFALO in Briefs
I’ve Fallen and I Can’t
Get Elected
What an exciting time to be
Mayor of Buffalo, especially
with plans of merging the city into
the county moving into high gear.
Naturally, Tony Masiello blasted the
proposed merger plan making the
rounds because it eradicates his job,
despite the fact he’s a member of the
commission which drafted the plan.
Politics is funny like that; a guy will
sit around at the table for almost a
decade with a smile and an approving
nod then turn around and call
the fellows a bunch of assholes. It’s a
mayoral election year. Voters would
be wise to carefully understand what
the candidates think about merging
the city into Erie County and ponder
why a person would want to run for
a job that’s supposed to go the way
of the buffalo. Of course, Byron
Brown and Sam Hoyt don’t want a
merger, at least not before they can
set up shop and enjoy two or three
easy terms. So let’s get down to the
essentials here: First of all, a merger
will take many more years to accomplish;
we’re talking about the coordination
and cooperation between
many layers of bitterly opposed governments
and political players, none
of whom want to lose their jobs: the
Mayor, the Common Council, the
County Executive and the legislature,
the senators and representatives
in Albany, the Governor, and
don’t forget all the judges and
lawyers once the lawsuits get under-
Sky Falling
Four months and counting: Red
Budget, Green Budget, no budget,
who knows what we’ll wind up
with, the Yellow Budget? It’s a complete
mess; a second vote on raising
the sales tax to 9.25%, the third
highest in the nation, came up two
votes shy of the ten it received last
month after the hastily amended
not-so-Red Budget was agreed
upon in a secret meeting and passed
without any review just minutes
before the deadline would have put
the Red Budget into law. The state
legislature insists on at least ten
votes before it will consider allowing
the county to raise the tax, but
Giambra is forwarding the measure
to Albany even though it won’t get
voted upon. Joel says he’ll agree to a
.75% increase to 9 cents on the dollar,
but it would mean not sharing
with the city and other county
municipalities, which was a condition
of raising the tax in the first
place.
Now poor Joel will look really bad
firing thousands of county employees
and he’s whining about how
hard he’s working to do what’s
right for the county, and it’s all the
OTHER politicians who are screwing
us over. From a logical standpoint,
what are we supposed to do?
Keep raising taxes and fees until
4 The BEAST, January 26-February 9, 2005
Despite lagging in the polls Mayor
Masiello insists “I got mad game!”
way. Yeah, a merger’ gonna happen
real soon, eight years and counting
since the idea was unveiled.
Now as for the mayoral race, that’s
simple: Masiello couldn’t win a
fourth term unless slightly more
than half the electorate is forcibly
lobotomized. A recent poll shows
him losing in a landslide against
every other candidate. His handlers
are already looking for some
unlucky local corporation, foundation
or charity to park his doofus ass
so he can collect a fat paycheck and
shut the hell up. That leaves Sam
Hoyt and Byron Brown to duke it
out, two of the dimmest of dim bulbs
Albany has to offer. Little do they
realize the BEAST is creating our
own perfect candidate using top
secret former Soviet Union brainwashing
technology and our robot
will kick both their asses.
Giambra consults his top advisor
nobody can afford to live here
except county employees? That
would serve ‘em right, they’d all
wake up one day and realize the
only ones left to bleed dry are themselves.
Cuts need to be made, deep
cuts, across the board, painful ones,
yet they must be made if Erie County’s
going to turn its’ horrendous
financial affairs around. And that
can only start from the top down,
not the bottom up. Too bad there’s
nobody out there determined to
right the ship and damn the personal
consequences for doing what’s
needed. Oh well, anyway, nothing
for you to get worked up about, just
be prepared to cough up more of
your hard earned dollars for every
bogus effort to “fix” the problem.
Hometown Zeroes
Two unidentified firemen
found themselves not only
super-embarrassed, but in seriously
deep shit after destroying
a $600,000 fire truck while performing
a demonstration of the
big ladder for a group of
schoolchildren. The hush-hush
accident happened way back in
November outside Ladder 10
on Seneca Street and resulted in
only minor injuries to one firefighter.
The seventeen-year-old
truck toppled over like a
palsied brontosaurus, and the
investigation concluded that
standard procedures were not
followed. No shit—how hard is
it to pull this off, anyway?
Imagine if that happened
during a real fucking
fire? The two
boneheads
responsible
have been suspendedwithout
pay,
pretty
much a
guarantee
Three years after the Homicide
Squad was disbanded and
many, many unsolved murders
later, it’s been resurrected in an
effort to, well, you know, solve
some homicides. It was an
experiment worth trying by a
cash-strapped police department,
but the results are conclusive:
all them murders ain’t
gonna solve themselves. A 21
man (and woman) squad
devoted solely to solving murder
cases gets to start with a
backlog of 31 homicides from
they’ll never be allowed to do
anything again at the station
besides make coffee and order
pizza. The boys at Ladder 10
have been duly shamed and
should still be suffering daily
indignities from everyone
about “that time the truck up
and flipped over.” When the
axe inevitably falls on the Buffalo
Fire Department we bet
these guys will beg to be shut
down and transferred immediately.
Flipping over the
fire truck has
been hailed as a
monumental
fuck up
Welcome Back Copper
2004 alone. Hopefully the trails
haven’t gone cold yet. Maybe
it’s the proliferation of all the
“CSI” and “Law And Order”type
television shows that got
to the police brass. They’d prefer
looking cool and being
appreciated, not maligned in
the press all day long. So the
BEAST would like to personally
welcome the Homicide Squad
back from the dead; we hope it
means that less guys are out
writing parking tickets.
Murder, depicted below, is considered by many to be illegal
Hip Hop
Huckster
Proving just how desperate most
Buffalo area businesses really are,
third rate rap star Da’ Franchise and
his entourage blew into town like a
tornado and ran up a massive
$350,000 bill before disappearing
without a trace. Claiming Buffalo is
the rap mecca he always wanted to
visit, Da’ Franchise somehow convinced
recording and production
studios he and his posse were in
town to lay down mad tracks, shoot
a few videos, make a movie, and
film a full blown reality television
show, a grandiose vision simply
(and humbly) dubbed “The $4.4 Million
Project.” Who could resist such
a too-good-to-be-true pitch? Not any
of the local music studios (including
Chameleon West), video producers,
and talent agencies. The rappers also
took up six rooms and two jacuzzi
suites at the downtown Best Western
and skipped out after running up a
$15,000 tab. They ate like kings for
free, too, courtesy of an embarrassed
West Seneca catering firm out almost
$100,000. “They stayed 10 or 12
[days] and then fled with a tour bus
full of young girls for Boston, I
heard,” said Denis Tripi, manager of
the Best Western.
Talk about livin’ large—these guys
came in and had a blast, recording
beats, shooting videos with choreographed
dancers, renting limos, partying
all over town, nailing all our
hoes, all for free. Damn, now we’re
pissed too! Anyhow, the Buffalo trip
proved inspiring—the Boston Herald
reports that the same wankstas just
pulled the same scam in Beantown,
stiffing another catering firm and the
Residence Inn there for thousands
before taking their “project” on the
road again. Maybe they’re trying to
rack up a $4.4 million bill
Sucks to be
You
One of the dumbest things anyone
can ever do is leave a loaded gun at
home with unattended children. It’s
the first thing they tell you in Parenting
101, a mistake as obvious as
balancing your hairdryer on the
edge of the bathtub. If you’re a
Deputy District Attorney, this
should never be an issue. Unfortunately,
Mark Sacha did leave a
loaded rifle in his closet, and the
kids broke it out on a recent boring
Saturday night and, of course, the
fifteen-year-old accidentally shot his
twelve-year-old sister in the head,
killing her instantly. Two other kids
were in another room. Mom and
Dad were at the hospital where
Grandpa was dying. Talk about a
heavy load of shit. Of course, things
could be worse for Sacha—doesn’t
look like any charges will be filed
for some reason.