A letter to Ted Black:

Ted,

4-ticket season ticket holder and downtown advocate here.

I was watching the first episode of the HBO 24/7 Winter Classic for Penguins vs Capitals. In this episode, the Penguins come visit Buffalo to play the Sabres. I saw that their bus went from the Buffalo airport down the ugly 33 to the Embassy Suites downtown where they stayed. The players then ate at the Buffalo Chophouse. (I really wish they’d eat at Tempo, Mother’s or Mike A’s, as the food quality is much better in my opinion, but I digress)

Companies that are recruiting out-of-town employees to come work/live in Buffalo have the same problems that the Sabres and Bills have when recruiting talent to Buffalo — a stigma is attached in people’s minds. They have seen our city in superbowl losses playing in snow and they’ve seen us make national headlines with our blizzards over the years.

The “33″ is the ugliest transportation roadway possibly in all of America — right next to Detroit’s. I really wish we could throw some paint on the walls of the 33, or make it an art insulation that is designed by the many artists in our city, or possibly commission Christo to wrap the 33 in fabric — see attached image…. but that’s years away, so in the meantime, the 33 is dreary and ugly. Not a good first impression of our city, with the abandoned projects and such that litter the 33.

I have this thought that you might have some “pull” on influencing where those buses drive when they take the team downtown. They must all use the same local bus company and it seems you could meet with a high-up manager there to explain this.

If the bus took the 33 to the 198 and then the Delaware South exit, taking Delaware into downtown….. it would add only 4 minutes to the overall drive time, and the players/guests would see: Delaware Park (at Parkside corner), lovely homes there, the beautiful Forest Lawn Cemetery as they drove through the S-curves, the mansions along Delaware, and more of the unique architecture from Allen St through downtown.

It would help make a better impression on players that are visiting.

I really believe we should roll out the red carpet for visiting teams. Honestly, I think their locker room should be as good as the Sabres locker room. Every impressionable moment that we have with those players is a moment that our city’s perception to the rest of the world can be helped or hindered when those players leave and tell the people they influence about Buffalo, NY.

Thanks for listening,

Steve Poland

Imagine a search engine like Amazon.com, but all the products are sold by all the local retailers. So instead of having something shipped from Amazon.com, it gets shipped or picked up or dropped off by a local retailer — maybe they’d even price match if purchased through this site only, and not via the own local retailer’s site or in-location.

Keep the money local!

If Buffalo had all products indexed, this could happen.

More events are in the works: Buffalo I/O (led by Dan Magnuszewski, he’s seeking co-organizers — reach out to him), Creative Mornings (led by Nicholas Barone), a Ruby conf (led by Nick Quaranto), and please let me know of any other event initiatives.

This is by no means a comprehensive post, but rather some info I found on the Internet after researching the mayor position in the City of Buffalo, and what it would take to win. Pretty interesting stuff.

“This city needs someone with passion for Buffalo and WNY.. Not a career politician..”

I found the 2009 election results for Buffalo Mayor. A total of a mere 26,464 voters determined this city’s fate — of 500,000 eligible voters. 77,000 voters are between the ages of 21-29, and 252,000 are between 30-55 (I wish this was broken down better).

Of the 26,464, Mickey Kearns wasn’t even on the ballot — he was a write-in, thus only got 158 votes. There were 8,578 votes that were ‘blank, void or scattering’ (blows my mind that 1/3 of the voters’ votes weren’t even counted!), and the remaining ~16,000 votes went to Byron Brown. [source]

In 2007 Pittsburgh, 67,000 total votes cast with 43,000 went to Luke, the kid. [source]

Some good questions by citizens of Buffalo for the mayor during last election are here (aside from the MLB/NBA tangent).

Someone that was attempting to run in 2009 and their message: http://www.changebuffalo.org/

What powers does the Mayor have?

How do you run for an elective office in Buffalo?  and the official “book“.

There is also the thought that Buffalo should reform to a ‘City Manager’ system instead.

East Side Showroom for drinks or a meal (delicious and serves old fashioned drinks that take like 5 minutes to make). If in North Austin, the tres leches cake at Chuy’s. “Frank” for brunch. Magnolia for breakfast. South Congress Cafe for any meal, cool spot that is delicious. Music: La Zona Rosa, Antones, The Parish.. Typically shows are at those places. I love Austin, simply the greatest city in the world. Oh yeah, Oasis requires a car but well worth it for the sunset view, go for dinner but have enough time as a wait occurs for tables (but there are hundreds of tables literally). Salt Lick needs a car but is some amazing BBQ, it’s in a dry county so you can’t buy beer/etc there but people pack their own cooler of beer and roll it up next to their table. ‘The purple’ at Baby Acapulco if you’re feeling rowdy (they’ll only serve you two, that’s how strong they are!).

Bats at dusk under the South Congress Bridge. Go on the bridge and see the stream of black pour out from underneath — 1.5 million bats! Largest population in USA.

SXSW in March for the greatest music festival in the world, nearly 2000 bands playing over 4 days.

Just read this article: The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future

It is an excellent article and he conveys what I have been feeling for a couple years now, since Arrington was on his last legs at TechCrunch.

Crunchbase for techies to specify city/state/country they from, and school, and employer(s). Thus the way ‘WeAreNYTech‘ is, but for all cities. Crunchbase isn’t complete. It also lacks those fields like school and employer. I want to connect with other Purdue grads in the tech/startup world. Or those people from Buffalo, NY that maybe don’t live here anymore.

There’s LinkedIn, but man I hate that site. I don’t use it.

This is simply an idea of doing a daily podcast where an app or website is discussed for 45-60 minutes with some other experts in the field… VCs, UX guys, etc. The rights, the wrongs.

To Vancouver Canucks

Mika NoronenTo Buffalo Sabres

Second-round pick in 2006