Mayor acquiesces, opens free seating to his annual State of the City address

For each of the past three years, Mayor Byron Brown has charged admission to attend his annual State of the City address. Part of the ticket price paid for costs associated with putting on the event—this year’s luncheon is at the Convention Center—and the rest went to a privately run nonprofit called Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo.

We wrote about this back in January 2007, on the occasion of Brown’s first State of the City speech. Back then, we had a hard time discovering what it is Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo intended to do. Eventually, we learned from Peter Cutler, the mayor’s spokesman, that the fund underwrote things like the mayor’s summer employment program for youth, which pays the salaries of high school and college kids placed at community centers and in other do-good jobs each summer.

Last week, AV editor Buck Quigley looked through the not-for-profit’s paperwork and discovered that it has not, in fact, put a lot of money on the streets—just $8,500 by the end of 2007, when it sat on assets of $60,000. If we assume that the nonprofit’s fundraising and spending continued at the same rate in 2008, then the kitty must be close to $100,000 now. We estimate—based on the cost of the catered lunch, the technical equipment, etc.—that the mayor’s fund will raise another $20,000 on Thursday afternoon.

Seems almost as if Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo is saving up for a rainy day.

As it happens, Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo is run out of First Deputy Mayor Steve Casey’s office, and Casey is an officer of the nonprofit. So is Dana Bobinchek, who works for Casey, and whose City Hall phone number is listed on the fund’s IRS 990 forms. Other officers include Alisa Lukasiewicz, Tanya Perrin-Johnson, and Michael Seaman, all mayoral appointees to City Hall jobs.

Last week attorney Peter Reese protested the mayor’s use of the City of Buffalo and CitiStat seals on invitations to the State of the City address. Reese points out that both the official seal of the City of Buffalo and the CitiStat logo sit right at the top of the invitation, creating the impression that the event is a public function. But by all indications, it’s in fact intended to be a fundraiser for private foundation. He also questioned the legality of running a private foundation out of the mayor’s office.

In 2006, the fund raised $113,393 and listed $65,748 in “direct expenses other than fundraising expenses,” listing a net income of $47,759 including $114 in interest. That year, $4,048 was spent on legal fees and $48 went to bank fees, while only $6,500 went out as program service (unspecified, but hopefully noble)—adding up to $10,596 in total functional expenses. This left the charity with $37,163 at the end of the first year.

According to the organization’s 2007 tax return, which was filed only two months ago on November 12, 2008, the fund brought in $29,649, minus $645 in legal fees, $2,857 in postage and shipping, $1,812 in printing and publications, $1,915 on “other” expenses, and $70 on dues, whatever that means. That adds up to $7,299 in total expenses, leaving the 501c3 with $22,350. Add the $37,163 left over from the year before and you arrive at $59,513 in assets at the end of 2007.

We were at first bewildered to note that on schedule B of the 2007 form, only one contributor is listed: Erie County Medical Center to the tune of $10,000. But ECMC chief Tom Quatroche explained to us: When Buffalo Police Officers Carl Andolina and Patricia Parete were in ECMC recovering from gunshot wounds they received a visit from Brown. During that visit, then ECMC chairman Michael Young agreed to donate $10,000 toward a gun buyback program.

Information for 2008 is unavailable, and probably won’t be until they file their 2008 990 form—probably in November 2009 if their past practices are any indication.

Quigley was told by Bobinchek that only Cutler can answer questions about Thursday’s event and about Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo. Cutler stopped talking to Quigley last Friday, saying that he knew where the conversation was headed. When Quigley asked him where he thought it was headed, Cutler quickly changed course, saying he didn’t know where it was headed. Some spokesman. (And why is he the spokesman for the mayor in his elected capacity as well as the official spokesman for the mayor’s charity? Where do Cutler’s responsibilities end?)

Now the mayor has changed course, too: On Tuesday Cutler announced that the mayor had decided to open up free seating to members of the public who wish to hear what the mayor thinks about the city he governs. There will be, however, no free lunch. Cutler denied that the decision was a reaction to Reese’s complaints, telling the Buffalo News, “The decision is reflective of nothing other than Mayor Brown’s interest in demonstrating the transparency of city government and ensuring that the public can hear his message.”

That’s all to the good. But there’s still the question of how Mayor Brown’s Fund to Advance Buffalo will spend the money it has already raised and will continue to raise. The fund’s stated purpose is “to raise funds and distribute such funds to charitable organizations operating in the City of Buffalo and in Support of Community Activities for the Betterment of the Residents of the City of Buffalo.” Will the folks who control that fund—Brown stalwarts like Casey, Seaman, Bobinchek, and Lukasiewicz—find more ways to spend that money this summer, when the mayoral election looms?

—buck quigley & geoff kelly