The announcement that Tops Friendly Markets is building a grocery store downtown wasn't the only meat to come out of the Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s State of the City Address. During Brown’s address, he also vowed to keep property taxes and assessments frozen.
That equates to a 16 percent drop in property tax and a 32 percent improvement in commercial tax since he took office in 2006.
The mayor’s proposing increased funding in education, including increased funding to peacemakers. “A good education is important to the future of our young people,” Brown said. “It is important for our young people to have the kind of future we hope for, and we dream that they will have.”
Canalside is getting a new attraction. The 1924 Heritage Carousel, which has sat in storage for decades in Ohio, is being relocated there.
The mayor also announced that all on-duty Buffalo City Police officers will soon be equipped with iPads. “They'll be able to take photographs of scenes,” Brown explained. “They'll be able to take the iPad out of the vehicle with them. We will be one of the first police departments to go to this kind of technology.”
The mayor said the initiative has been a year in the making. They'll be paid for out of the police budget. But Brown couldn't give a dollar figure for the proposal.
In fact, few figures were released for most of Brown's ideas. Still, he's confident to see these improvements through. It's all part of his plan to reclaim Buffalo's place among the greatest cities in the U.S.
We're told 1,700 attended the event. That's a record crowd for the mayor's now 10th State of the City.
