Artvoice published this “best of buffalo” results article today which happened to feature my “If I ran for mayor” essay that I sent in when filling out my ballot…. It’s exciting to see so much support for my mayoral plan but now my secrets are out!!! haha! (well, not quite… I have a lot more up my sleeve…) It was also great to see Marilyn’s comments (she is such a dynamo!) and also that there was some humor that came out of it. I bet it was fun for artvoice to read all of the essays.

Everyone knows how much I love Buffalo and that I try my hardest to boost/promote this city with all of my heart. Being mayor would be really neat and I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about it… 🙂

Here is what the article says… the ending is the best part. Thanks to Artvoice for their support!

Bernice Radle has a 14-point plan for her administration:

• If I was mayor of Buffalo, I would first let everyone know that I am not in this for under the table deals and monies and push for transparency in local government.

• Promote regionalism in our government decisions including tax breaks, urban planning initatives, investment and new building decisions.

• Advocate for smart growth regionally as well as within the city to encourage a walkable, dense, transit oriented city that builds off of our current built environment.

• Implement a city wide inventory of all of our building stock. This will allow us to make better urban planning decisions, figure out who should or should not be in housing court, advocate for pro development of our existing vacant buildings, understand how large our vacant housing crisis is and address it, promote and sell existing real estate that the city owns that can be rehabbed instead of being demolished etc..

• Overhaul of the NFTA, get bike racks on every bus, have consistant bus schedules, have an online app where you can track the bus, bring back low transfer rates and the ability to use the credit card on the train.

• Create a grant program for local people who want to buy houses that the city owns. Use current demolition/rehab money to promote rehab of our building stock instead of removing it.

• Implement a preservation plan – city wide which will be based on the city wide building stock inventory results, the current preservation districts, the department of interior preservation standards and other city needs.

• Throw a Buffalo party in a grain elevator.

• Push the green code to take away minimum parking requirements and minimum lot sizes.

• Help build the green economic zone that PUSH is doing by creating a green incentive program city wide for small energy initiatives.

• Implement the complete streets program with bicycle lanes next to the sidewalks, innovative ideas on street scapes including low impact development, smart cross walk ideas, street scape improvements.

• Bring ECC downtown – all three campuses in one hub.

• Light up the skyway and the grain elevators with a solar array and LED technology.

• Develop a city wide model based on Buffalo First! to promote local, regional initatives and incentives for our local economy.

Hallelujah to all that—anyone have a ballot line Bernice can run on?