By Mary B. Pasciak
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
India Walton’s top donors are about as different as Byron Brown’s biggest backers as the candidates are themselves: academics and progressive activists back her, and developers and local business leaders supporting him.
By Why Is This Happening?
Read the full article from MSNBC, here.
39-year-old India Walton found herself thrust into the national spotlight when she defeated four-term incumbent Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in the June primary. It was an unusual win: Walton had never held elected office, and Brown isn’t letting go of his seat without a fight. Following the stunning upset, the current mayor launched a write-in campaign, and many of the state Democratic establishment have refused to endorse Walton, who describes herself as a Democratic Socialist. Recently, New York State Democratic leader Jay Jacobs even compared her to KKK Leader David Duke, a characterization that he has since apologized for using. Walton has now received the endorsement of New York’s Democratic senators and she joins to discuss her journey from registered nurse and local activist to politician, why she feels the work of policing is “fundamentally wrong,” and proposed changes to Buffalo under her administration.
By Carolyn Thompson
Read the full article from AP News, here.
When India Walton beat Buffalo’s four-term mayor in a Democratic primary last June, New York’s second largest city looked like it was about to get a leader like no other in its history.
She’d be its first female mayor and the first to identify as a democratic socialist. After becoming a mother at age 14, she grew up to be a nurse and strived through a lifetime of financial hardship that continued through the campaign, when her car was impounded for unpaid parking tickets.
But rather than pack up his City Hall office of 16 years, Mayor Byron Brown has stayed in the race in pursuit of his own superlatives: He’s trying to become the first person to win a major race as a write-in candidate in New York state, and — if he gets a fifth term — Buffalo’s longest-serving mayor.
By Steve Dubb
Read the full article from Non-profit Quarterly, here.
October is co-op month in the US, a time for co-op leaders to gather, even if gathering these days is hybrid or virtual. This year’s Co-op Impact conference, organized by the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA), the US co-op trade association, centered on questions of co-op identity and meaning. Or, as Karen Zimbelman, a longtime food co-op trainer who was inducted this year into the national cooperative hall of fame, put it, “What are the times asking and demanding of us as co-ops today?”
By Stephen T. Watson
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
During their mayoral debate this morning, India Walton and Byron Brown covered familiar campaign themes about crime, development and poverty while questioning each other’s ability to unify Buffalo residents.
By Robert J. McCarthy
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
In this most unique of Buffalo mayoral elections, mailers from state Republicans have arrived at city homes over the past few days urging voters to write in Brown’s name on the ballot and lauding his “proven, common sense leadership.” They also note his support for police, protection for neighborhoods and that he is “fiscally responsible.”
Other mailers aim directly at his opponent, India B. Walton. The winner of the June Democratic primary, the mailers say, embraces a “radical agenda that will destroy Buffalo.” They picture her shouting into a bullhorn and claim Walton’s “destructive agenda will hurt Buffalo’s economy, raise taxes, increase rents and harm property values.”
By Eric DuVall
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
Ballots cast in Buffalo for the hotly contested mayoral election dominated early voting for a second day, elections officials said late Sunday.
Erie County Board of Elections Commissioners Ralph M. Mohr and Jeremy J. Zellner announced that 3,371 voters cast ballots on the second day of early voting for the Nov. 2 general election, for an adjusted two-day total of 7,762.
Of votes cast Sunday, nearly half, 1,622 ballots, were by voters registered in Buffalo.
Polls will reopen from noon to 9 p.m. Monday for the third day of early voting. Registered voters in Erie County can cast ballots at any of the 38 polling locations now open.
By Tom Dinki
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
Whoever Buffalo’s next mayor is — be it Byron Brown or India Walton — has to balance the wishes of older homeowners who want to age in place, with the market demands of young families looking for their first homes.
By Jerry Zremski
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
Sure enough, the Walton agenda appears to be the culmination of a progressive nonprofit movement in Buffalo that took root in the 2000s and that grew exponentially in the mid-2010s thanks to more than $5 million in grants from a charity founded by liberal billionaire George Soros.
That gift created Open Buffalo, which runs a leadership program that counts Walton among its graduates. And it supercharged a number of other local nonprofits – the Partnership for the Public Good, PUSH Buffalo, Voice-Buffalo, the Coalition of Economic Justice – that have provided ideas and energy to the Walton campaign.
By Aaron Besecker
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
The debate about the appropriate role police should take in mental health response often gets oversimplified, but most agree police involvement should be limited, said Elizabeth L. Mauro, CEO of Endeavor Health Services, a local nonprofit that provides mental and behavioral health services, including alongside city police.