This is a picture of Dr. Blasco with the bookmobile that he purchased for the Erie County Public Library circa 1990. Keep in mind that he could have given money to any organization in town, but he chose to support our public library. Let’s help keep his vision alive!

“Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.”

~Ray Bradbury

Gannon thought it was only worth $5 a square foot for bayfront property instead of the still very undervalued $7 that was put in the lease.

“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.”

~Andrew Carnegie

Part of the narrative that the county executive and Council Members Bayle, Shauerman, and Winarski put forth is that the number of people that signed our petition to rescind the county’s lease with Gannon wasn’t a big enough representation of Erie County. Since candidates for elected office we recently canvassing with petitions, it’s worth taking a look at how many signatures are needed on a petition for an elected official. A petition to run for county executive requires 250 signatures. A petition to run for county council requires 10 signatures. Our petition to rescind the lease of Blasco to Gannon had over 6000 signatures. Let that sink in. That’s around the same number of followers as the county Facebook page.

2023 Information about Running for Office

“The world is built upon the power of numbers.”

~Pythagoras

Yesterday, the county executive settled the lawsuit that Diverse Erie brought against him. He will have to release the exact amount or American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money that was allocated to the organization back in January 2024, which means he spent unnecessary legal fees, paid by the taxpayers, instead of doing what he was legally obligated to do.

Diverse Erie to receive $1.5 million in legal settlement with Executive Brenton Davis

Diverse Erie wins lawsuit against over ARP funds

“Leadership is an action, not a position.”

~Donald McGannon

As we’ve repeatedly said in asking for your help, attorneys are expensive. The are also expensive for the county executive as well. And who is footing that bill? You, the taxpayer! Erie County government is embroiled in lawsuits. How much is it costing taxpayers? Filing legal action is not something to be taken lightly, and is a decision that the plaintiffs–including KOLP–took after every other option to get the county executive to follow the law was exhausted. He has either settled, refused to accept the judge’s ruling, and, in our case, delayed to avoid the inevitable. He has asked for two extensions for our discovery requests, and then submitted inadequate discovery. He only included some emails–none of which included the responses Right to Know Requests that our members submitted prior to the lawsuit. He also didn’t include text messages as requested. Apparently, litigation by procrastination is the only strategy he has. He is trying to delay the case in the hopes of draining our legal fund, but at the same time, he’s also draining taxpayer dollars. Remember how we have been saying he has breached his fiduciary duty to the taxpayers in the lease with Gannon? He continues to do so in his response to our lawsuit.

“You can tell a bully from a leader by how they treat people who disagree with them.”

~Miles Davis