Tweet
************************************************** ******************
This Message Is Reprinted Under The FAIR USE
Doctrine Of International Copyright Law:
_http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html_
(http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html)
************************************************** ******************
FROM: ARTVOICE
_http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n23/greed_
(http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n23/greed)
Greed
by Bruce Jackson
(http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n23/greed/print)
(http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n23/letters_to_artvoice)
(photo: Bruce Jackson)
Barry Snyder and his Seneca gambling operation made two huge PR moves in
Buffalo last week, both of them designed to shore up the Seneca Gaming
Corporation’s claim that a Buffalo casino is a done deal and that all opposition is,
therefore, pointless.
One of the moves, aided and abetted by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, was based
on in-your-face bullying; the other, aided and abetted by the Buffalo News,
on not-very-subtle extortion.
1. The scene at the site.
Drive south out of downtown Buffalo along the I-190. Near the Louisiana
Street exit, you will see on the right the mutilated cadaver of the H-O Oats
grain elevator, which is being knocked down by a huge wrecking crane wielding a
1,500-pound, U-shaped chunk of cast iron.
If you are driving northward along that same section of I-190, all you will
see right now is the elevator with its familiar block letters saying “H-O OAT
”—the silo with the final “S” is gone—and the tall crane rising above and
beyond it. That is because all the destroyed silos are on the north side of
the elevator. In a week or so, the letters you see from the northbound lanes of
the I-190 will be gone and everyone will be able to see wrecked silos from
either direction, and a few weeks further on you’ll see nothing at all, unless
the Senecas decide for some reason to abandon the destruction project.
Only a few workers are on the site. A medium-sized bulldozer moves rubble
near where Fulton Street reaches the Michigan Avenue side. A Seneca police car
sits just inside where Fulton Street is blocked off on the Marvin Street
side. Every time I’ve gone there there have been more signs saying
NO TRESPASSING
PROPERTY OF THE
SENECA NATION
OF INDIANS
VIOLATORS WILL
BE PROSECUTED
Except for cleaning up rubble that falls into Perry Street, all the
demolition work is done by one man. He sits in the crane’s cab and raises the iron U
maybe 20 feet above the rim of one of the silos. He lets it drop. Concrete
and asbestos dust bursts into the air and chunks of rubble fall to the ground
below. He raises the iron U again and again lets it drop, and again there is a
burst of concrete and asbestos dust and a shower of rubble.
After a while, he has cut a deep notch into the side of the silo maybe 30
feet long. He moves the iron U away, raises it a bit, then begins moving the
crane back and forth. Almost in slow-motion, the iron U at the end of the long
steel cable swings in a wider and wider arc until it smashes into the column
it had, by the repeated chopping, isolated from the silo wall.
Sometimes it takes two hits to collapse the section, sometimes just one. The
isolated section tilts, breaks up and falls, sending huge billows of
concrete and asbestos straight up and off to the sides. Where the section had been
is now just air, save for the curling and bent strands of one-inch steel
reinforcement bars, sheared by the U-shaped device as if they had been tired
strands of frayed cotton on an old shirt, and the high dust, glowing and
dissipating in the afternoon light.
The wrecking crane was at work all through the Memorial Day weekend and all
through this past weekend. Each time I was there, within minutes, my car, my
camera, my lenses and I were covered with that dust that drifted over the
neighborhood all day, every day, while the destruction workers did their work,
probably being paid double- or triple-time for the Sundays and Memorial Day
holiday. Money to pay people to work on holidays or do work they might
otherwise not wish to do is not a problem for the Seneca Gaming Corporation.
Whenever the wrecking crane is working a single water-misting device sprays
the air between the crane and the silos. At first I thought the misting
device was there to keep the dust off the Perry Street projects just a block away,
but then I realized it was there to clear the air in front of the crane
operator so he could see where he was dropping and swinging the huge iron U.
Nothing kept the dust from the street and the streets beyond.
When I visited the site last Sunday there was something new: signs warning
of asbestos in the air. I don’t know what prompted the Seneca Gaming
Corporation to post the signs so late in the process. The signs are only on the fence
of the site itself. There are no signs to the east, where even the slightest
breeze constantly blows the fine concrete and asbestos dust. There are no
signs anywhere downwind, where the Perry Street projects are, where there are
streets on which people walk and children play.
A view of the demolition site from the west.
(photo: Rose Mattrey)
2. Why is Barry Snyder taking down the H-O Oats elevator and why is Byron
Brown helping him do it?
There’s no pressing need for the Seneca Gaming Corporation to be tearing
down the H-O Oats grain elevators right now. If they get to build a casino on
that site they may have to, but that would depend on the design, and at this
point they don’t have a design. All they’ve got is a preliminary design
concept, which is just a piece of paper.
So far as I can tell, the single reason for this destruction project that is
it is a dramatic way of telling anyone traveling into or out of Buffalo on
I-190, “This is a done deal. You can’t stop us. The county executive tried to
stop us and he couldn’t do it. There are environmental laws that apply to
anyone doing this sort of thing, but they don’t apply to us. It’s a done deal.
You can’t do anything about the toxic dust coming off our property and
blowing into a densely populated area. It’s a done deal. You can’t do anything
here we don’t want you to do, and all we want you to do is come and gamble and
give us your money. You got a problem with that, you can kiss our ***. It’s a
done deal. **** you.”
None of that is true, but that’s what they’re saying with that wrecking
crane and the 1,500-pound, U-shaped slab of cast iron.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who has pretended to be giving thought to all
this foolishness, turns out to be complicit in it: Without any public hearings,
he had two city streets blocked off and wired in so the Seneca Gaming
Corporation could carry on this demolition work and he has helped the Senecas avoid
the kind of environmental impact studies any other organization would have to
do before engaging in huge demolition projects and releasing all kinds of
garbage into the air adjacent to populated areas. I asked Brown’s staff if they
knew of any environmental studies that had been done prior to this
demolition and thus far they have come up with nothing at all.
It may very well true be that nobody can do anything about anything done on
Indian land. But nobody argues Byron Brown’s authority to interdict an action
pouring vile stuff into the city’s air supply. He can have those trucks
coming into and leaving the Seneca property blocked; he can block off the city
streets one block away from the Seneca land; he can ask the new Secretary of
the Interior to force the Seneca Gaming Corporation to obey the law.
But he has done and is doing none of that. The question is why. Why would he
betray his trust as mayor? Why would he betray the East Side community that
was for so long his political base?
For one thing, Byron Brown needs the casino, not just for what the casino
developers may be handing him or his campaign in the way of support funds, or
promising him for a possible future run for Louise Slaughter’s seat in
Congress, but also for the budget with which he hopes to get the city’s control
board off his back. He’s projected $5 million a year in city income from the
casino to offset other losses in city income in his budgets three and four years
out.
to be cont....
This Message Is Reprinted Under The FAIR USE
Doctrine Of International Copyright Law:
_http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html_
(http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html)
************************************************** ******************
FROM: ARTVOICE
_http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n23/greed_
(http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n23/greed)
Greed
by Bruce Jackson
(http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n23/greed/print)
(http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n23/letters_to_artvoice)
(photo: Bruce Jackson)
Barry Snyder and his Seneca gambling operation made two huge PR moves in
Buffalo last week, both of them designed to shore up the Seneca Gaming
Corporation’s claim that a Buffalo casino is a done deal and that all opposition is,
therefore, pointless.
One of the moves, aided and abetted by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, was based
on in-your-face bullying; the other, aided and abetted by the Buffalo News,
on not-very-subtle extortion.
1. The scene at the site.
Drive south out of downtown Buffalo along the I-190. Near the Louisiana
Street exit, you will see on the right the mutilated cadaver of the H-O Oats
grain elevator, which is being knocked down by a huge wrecking crane wielding a
1,500-pound, U-shaped chunk of cast iron.
If you are driving northward along that same section of I-190, all you will
see right now is the elevator with its familiar block letters saying “H-O OAT
”—the silo with the final “S” is gone—and the tall crane rising above and
beyond it. That is because all the destroyed silos are on the north side of
the elevator. In a week or so, the letters you see from the northbound lanes of
the I-190 will be gone and everyone will be able to see wrecked silos from
either direction, and a few weeks further on you’ll see nothing at all, unless
the Senecas decide for some reason to abandon the destruction project.
Only a few workers are on the site. A medium-sized bulldozer moves rubble
near where Fulton Street reaches the Michigan Avenue side. A Seneca police car
sits just inside where Fulton Street is blocked off on the Marvin Street
side. Every time I’ve gone there there have been more signs saying
NO TRESPASSING
PROPERTY OF THE
SENECA NATION
OF INDIANS
VIOLATORS WILL
BE PROSECUTED
Except for cleaning up rubble that falls into Perry Street, all the
demolition work is done by one man. He sits in the crane’s cab and raises the iron U
maybe 20 feet above the rim of one of the silos. He lets it drop. Concrete
and asbestos dust bursts into the air and chunks of rubble fall to the ground
below. He raises the iron U again and again lets it drop, and again there is a
burst of concrete and asbestos dust and a shower of rubble.
After a while, he has cut a deep notch into the side of the silo maybe 30
feet long. He moves the iron U away, raises it a bit, then begins moving the
crane back and forth. Almost in slow-motion, the iron U at the end of the long
steel cable swings in a wider and wider arc until it smashes into the column
it had, by the repeated chopping, isolated from the silo wall.
Sometimes it takes two hits to collapse the section, sometimes just one. The
isolated section tilts, breaks up and falls, sending huge billows of
concrete and asbestos straight up and off to the sides. Where the section had been
is now just air, save for the curling and bent strands of one-inch steel
reinforcement bars, sheared by the U-shaped device as if they had been tired
strands of frayed cotton on an old shirt, and the high dust, glowing and
dissipating in the afternoon light.
The wrecking crane was at work all through the Memorial Day weekend and all
through this past weekend. Each time I was there, within minutes, my car, my
camera, my lenses and I were covered with that dust that drifted over the
neighborhood all day, every day, while the destruction workers did their work,
probably being paid double- or triple-time for the Sundays and Memorial Day
holiday. Money to pay people to work on holidays or do work they might
otherwise not wish to do is not a problem for the Seneca Gaming Corporation.
Whenever the wrecking crane is working a single water-misting device sprays
the air between the crane and the silos. At first I thought the misting
device was there to keep the dust off the Perry Street projects just a block away,
but then I realized it was there to clear the air in front of the crane
operator so he could see where he was dropping and swinging the huge iron U.
Nothing kept the dust from the street and the streets beyond.
When I visited the site last Sunday there was something new: signs warning
of asbestos in the air. I don’t know what prompted the Seneca Gaming
Corporation to post the signs so late in the process. The signs are only on the fence
of the site itself. There are no signs to the east, where even the slightest
breeze constantly blows the fine concrete and asbestos dust. There are no
signs anywhere downwind, where the Perry Street projects are, where there are
streets on which people walk and children play.
A view of the demolition site from the west.
(photo: Rose Mattrey)
2. Why is Barry Snyder taking down the H-O Oats elevator and why is Byron
Brown helping him do it?
There’s no pressing need for the Seneca Gaming Corporation to be tearing
down the H-O Oats grain elevators right now. If they get to build a casino on
that site they may have to, but that would depend on the design, and at this
point they don’t have a design. All they’ve got is a preliminary design
concept, which is just a piece of paper.
So far as I can tell, the single reason for this destruction project that is
it is a dramatic way of telling anyone traveling into or out of Buffalo on
I-190, “This is a done deal. You can’t stop us. The county executive tried to
stop us and he couldn’t do it. There are environmental laws that apply to
anyone doing this sort of thing, but they don’t apply to us. It’s a done deal.
You can’t do anything about the toxic dust coming off our property and
blowing into a densely populated area. It’s a done deal. You can’t do anything
here we don’t want you to do, and all we want you to do is come and gamble and
give us your money. You got a problem with that, you can kiss our ***. It’s a
done deal. **** you.”
None of that is true, but that’s what they’re saying with that wrecking
crane and the 1,500-pound, U-shaped slab of cast iron.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who has pretended to be giving thought to all
this foolishness, turns out to be complicit in it: Without any public hearings,
he had two city streets blocked off and wired in so the Seneca Gaming
Corporation could carry on this demolition work and he has helped the Senecas avoid
the kind of environmental impact studies any other organization would have to
do before engaging in huge demolition projects and releasing all kinds of
garbage into the air adjacent to populated areas. I asked Brown’s staff if they
knew of any environmental studies that had been done prior to this
demolition and thus far they have come up with nothing at all.
It may very well true be that nobody can do anything about anything done on
Indian land. But nobody argues Byron Brown’s authority to interdict an action
pouring vile stuff into the city’s air supply. He can have those trucks
coming into and leaving the Seneca property blocked; he can block off the city
streets one block away from the Seneca land; he can ask the new Secretary of
the Interior to force the Seneca Gaming Corporation to obey the law.
But he has done and is doing none of that. The question is why. Why would he
betray his trust as mayor? Why would he betray the East Side community that
was for so long his political base?
For one thing, Byron Brown needs the casino, not just for what the casino
developers may be handing him or his campaign in the way of support funds, or
promising him for a possible future run for Louise Slaughter’s seat in
Congress, but also for the budget with which he hopes to get the city’s control
board off his back. He’s projected $5 million a year in city income from the
casino to offset other losses in city income in his budgets three and four years
out.
to be cont....
Comment