Occupod Buffalo by Flickr user IN DA BUFF.   www.flickr.com More in Buffalopundit: AV Photo Daily pool  

All the news and views fit to consume during your morning grumpy. 1. WGRZ gave some coverage to the Buffalo Cash Mob effort last night on the 11PM news. More importantly, a quality local business received some earned media coverage to raise brand awareness. “If they have a good time than hopefully they will tell [...]

Holy Moley, it’s a Saab Sonett III. Parked in a Niagara Falls parking lot. If this isn’t a rarity, I don’t know what is. Word is that it was recently bought out-of-town and trucked in. And word is that it needs a lot of work. This was the third, and last, generation of the Swedish [...]

HT Marquil at EmpireWire.com

The Albany Times Union reports that the NYS Inspector General has discovered that Charles Thropp, a six-year DEC veteran in charge of well inspections and enforcement, never divulged his connection to Cal Ban—an oil and gas company headquartered in Allegany, NY and active in the southern tier. The only phone number we found for the [...]

The Erie County Legislature has unanimously elected Betty Jean by as Chairwoman of that body. Tim Hogues made the nomination, with seconds coming from Loughran, Mazur, and Marinelli. Republican legislator Kevin Hardwick also spoke warmly about Grant, jokingly concluding that he reserved the right to retract his remarks “the first time [she] crosses [him]“.

In this week’s paper, we have a short piece about the single unresolved election in Erie County: The Third Ward Common Council seat in the City of Tonawanda, where the incumbent, Democrat Richard Slisz, appears to have lost by one vote (out of 900 cast) to Republican Augustine Beyer. Slisz and his attorneys continue to [...]

Feed Your Soul, a local organization headed by local foodie Christa Glennie Seychew, has now produced three seasons of “Nickel City Chef“, a local variant of the “Iron Chef” model. Local chefs battle a “Nickel City Chef” using a secret, locally sourced, ingredient. A panel of judges tastes and rates the food on taste, presentation, [...]

A hearing of the Buffalo Common Council’s Legislative Committee was held yesterday on the issue of a proposed statute legalizing food trucks within the city. You can read the proposed legislation and sign a petition here. Truck advocates are generally pleased with the proposed law, but questioned the need to carry around two 65-gallon garbage [...]

Congratulations to Councilman Richard Fontana, who is the new President of the Buffalo Common Council. Time will tell whether his tenure in that position will be as friendly to the Brown Administration as has been presumed. Congratulations to Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant, who is expected to be elected Chairwoman of the Erie County [...]

Hummingbird, Elma, NY 2011 07 31 by Flickr user PaulBuckley14059.   www.flickr.com More in Buffalopundit: AV Photo Daily pool  

If you’re a lover of East German cars (and who isn’t?) you should watch the wonderful 2006 movie The Lives of Others. Here we see one of the main characters entering the gate at East Berlin party headquarters in his 1984 Wartburg 353W; there’s also a bevy of Trabants, a nasty-looking Polish Zuk A07 B van, and [...]

AV columnist Bruce Fisher sends in this dispatch on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State promises to Buffalo: A newly revised version of a Penn State study of the powerful positive impact of locally owned businesses was released just before New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a $1 billion economic development package for Buffalo. [...]

If you don’t know what the Buffalo Cash Mob is, please click here for the backstory or here for our recent story in the Wall Street Journal. You nominated over 30 local businesses, including The Broadway Market, Budweys, GiGi’s, and Paula’s Donuts. You cast over 1000 votes in the finals. And by a margin of [...]