The day after we last wrote about 15 Putnam Street (“Open House,” Artvoice v5n15)—where the students of UB architecture professors Brad Wales and Frank Fantauzzi were literally turning a condemned house on its head—city inspectors shut the project down for permitting and safety issues. Such is the negative power of positive press. (Or maybe the law of unintended consequences.)

On Tuesday, the Erie County Board of Elections released the final count in the election for the North District seat on the Buffalo school board: Attorney Catherine Nugent Panepinto, the only candidate whose name appeared on the ballot, survived a vigorous write-in campaign mounted by retired Buffalo Public Schools teacher Fred Yellen, who had the support of the Buffalo Teachers Federation. The final count, after 724 valid write-in and absentee ballots were counted, was 811-610. The total of 1,421 votes cast made the North District turnout second only to turnout in the the Park District, where city inspector Lou Petrucci ran away from his two competitors, Kevin Becker and Gerald Quinn. (The final count: Petrucci, 921; Quinn, 382; Becker, 132.) But the total turnout was, as usual, embarrassingly low—just over four percent of eligible voters in Buffalo showed up at the polls.