Buffalo News, December 20, 2009, Sunday

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Buffalo News (New York)

December 20, 2009, Sunday

HEADLINE: Community groups push officials on drafting living-wage legislation

BODY:
Living-wage legislation is among 10 priorities of a coalition of community groups seeking the support of local pub-lic officials.

Members of the Partnership for the Public Good, a local think tank, met Wednesday in Frank E. Merriweather Jr. Library on Jefferson Avenue to share the 2010 community agenda -- 10 issues members believe state and local governments can and ought to do to revitalize the region.

"We believe that we have sustained ways to address [the problems] collectively," said Lou Jean Fleron of Cornell University ILR and a member of the partnership.

"And we also believe that by bringing more and more citizens into this process, we believe we will be able to im-prove government, make it more accountable and improve our democracy," she added.

Among its recommendations is that the city and the Buffalo Public Schools address the plight of low-wage workers by implementing living-wage policies. Merle Showers of the Network of Religious Communities noted that more than 1,000 such workers are already benefiting from the living-wage ordinance passed by the Buffalo Common Council, including emergency workers for Rural/Metro Medical Services and school crossing guards.

"The reason that is important is that [the workers] went from about $7.90 an hour to $11 an hour, and that differ-ence has spread throughout the whole community. And because of that, probably, a lot of other people have gotten jobs, because there is now money circulating in the community that wasn't there before," said Showers.

Showers anticipates that another 1,000 workers could benefit from living-wage legislation.

The partnership would like to see an agreement with the developers of the Canal Side project on five issues.

They include language on living-wage jobs; maintaining environmentally friendly buildings and operations; pro-moting locally owned businesses; providing mixed-income housing; and building and site designs that are appropriate to the location on the city's waterfront.

Other issues the partnership seeks to tackle include improving conditions at the Erie County Holding Center, main-taining health care services in disadvantaged communities and cleaning up the Tonawanda Coke plant in the Town of Tonawanda.

The rest of its agenda is available at www.ppgbuffalo.org.
e-mail: citydesk@buffnews.com

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