Imagine you’re the Dustin Hoffman character in “The Graduate,” rushing to get to the wedding so that you can speak up and not have to live with the consequences of forever holding your peace.
If you’re a Buffalo resident concerned about the new police contract that contains more money for cops, you don’t have to imagine. The only difference is that, unlike in the movie, you’ve already missed your chance to speak.
That sole opportunity for citizens to say what they want in return for that extra money came and went with Tuesday morning’s Common Council Finance Committee meeting. Instead, the sparsely attended session was dominated by members of the Brown administration, which negotiated the deal, and the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, which recommended its approval.
Just four hours later, in a hastily called special meeting Tuesday afternoon, eight members of the Council unanimously approved the four-year contract, retroactive to July 1, 2021, granting annual raises of 3% the first year and 4% each year thereafter.
All of that for a Police Department:
• That is the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city alleging a discriminatory pattern of traffic enforcement including checkpoints that targeted Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
• That also is the subject of a separate lawsuit filed by two officers and a mental health clinician – all African American – alleging that a white captain openly made racist remarks. The captain was suspended but eventually returned to work.
• Whose performance sparked a petition drive by a coalition of good-government groups to try to create a civilian review board to oversee the department and discipline officers who abuse their authority.
The petition drive failed, but the effort underscored the degree of dissatisfaction with the very department citizens are now being asked to pay more for.
Yet during the Finance Committee session attended by most of the…
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