The city of Buffalo changed its response to a lawsuit over the city council redistribution process and whether meetings fell under the open meeting laws.
BUFFALO, NY — Over the past four business days, hundreds of pages of paperwork have been filed by the City of Buffalo and grassroots organization Our City Action Buffalo in the lawsuit regarding the redistribution maps.
The case surrounds the redistribution process and whether open assembly laws were followed by the city.
Our City Action Buffalo claims they were not, and the petitioners in the lawsuit say they were not allowed to attend the trial.
“They are concerned about remaining in their Council-Matic district and retaining their incumbent position,” petitioner Lucy Velez said. “Laws should reflect the people, not the incumbents who want to keep the job.”
The petitioners’ attorneys say the crux of the matter in the lawsuit is whether the Citizens’ Commission, which oversaw the borough re-election process, was governed by New York state’s open assembly laws.
In a court hearing on Dec. 2, the City of Buffalo approved a motion filed by Our City Action Buffalo in October that the commission’s meetings fall under the Open Meetings Act. In addition, the city states in the court filing that it has complied with these requirements.
In a Dec. 7 filing, the city changed its response to the petition, denying that the allegation that the commission’s meetings fell under the state’s conventions law.
“There were just a number of mistakes in this process,” said attorney Samantha White. “The amended response today is just another example of this.
White believes the city changed its stance after realizing that the statute of limitations could still affect a decision in the case.
“They readily admitted that the Open Meetings Act applied when they thought the statute of limitations had expired, when we, for lack of a better word, discovered undisclosed meetings triggering the statute of limitations, and this prompted them to to back down,” White said.
2 On Your Side has reached out to the city, as well as the law firm representing the city, for comment. A city spokesman cited the pending lawsuit and declined to comment.
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