By Frank Brutus

In a scathing report released by the U.S. Administration of Housing and Urban Development, the Mayor’s office has been accused of squandering millions of federal dollars that were supposed to be spent on the 232,000 Buffalonians who live below the poverty line.

Attention homeless: See Mayor Brown for your free Ball tickets

A defensive Mayor Byron Brown took issue with a number of allegations contained in the report.  “What more can I do?” he asked.  “Each and every year we invite the city’s indigent and homeless to the Saturn Club where I host the annual “Mayor Brown Knows Poor Folks Are People, Too New Year’s Eve Bash.”  The Mayor pointed to a picture taken at last year’s Ball showing the empty table that he always reserves for “any qualified poor people who want to attend.”

A frustrated Brown said that although the event is always at capacity, no poor people ever pick up their free tickets at his City Hall office.  “We use e-mail, radio ads, flyers that we put on cars.  Last year I even dedicated an entire 30 minutes to discuss the Ball on my public access cable TV show.”

But Brown also has his own theory about why the Buffalo poor go unrepresented at his Ball named in their honor.  “Why would you come out for my New Year’s party when, thanks to my leadership and support, every other night of your poor life is like a year-long celebration?”

The HUD report, authored by former city employee Steve Banko, also criticized Brown’s mayoral predecessors for the manner in which they allocated their funds.

According to the document, former Mayor Jimmy Griffin invested hundreds of thousands of federal dollars on a yacht that he christened “Poverty Is For Losers.”  The vessel, anchored for many years at the small boat harbor before being sold for scrap, was “free to be used by poor Buffalonians any weekday during the months of May and October,” according to a former member of the Griffin administration who requested that his name not be printed.  “I remember we finally got one application from a poor person to take the boat out for a spin,” said the official.  “It turned out to be a joke from the Mayor’s brother Tommy, who lived on the boat for most of the time that the city owned it.”

Under the leadership of Mayor Anthony Masiello, millions of dollars were spent to subsidize the construction of almost 100 Dollar General stores in the Buffalo area.  “Poor people love a bargain,” said the former Mayor, who works as a greeter at the Amherst Street Wegman’s.  “You don’t want them shopping on Elmwood or Hertel because that usually depresses the wealthier citizens who like to patronize those areas.  My administration’s goal was to build a Dollar General on every block of Buffalo’s East Side.  And we came pretty darn close to doing just that.”

Deputy Mayor Peter Cutler, the man in charge of actually directing the current funds to the poorest neighborhoods in the city, said he wouldn’t comment on the HUD report because “it wasn’t written in 10-point font.”