By Nora Kowalczyk
BUFFALO — Nobody is running for city office in Buffalo this fall, but city voters still have a long ballot. Eleven proposed changes to the City Charter fill about a third of the front of the ballot and all of the back. They range from a new human rights commission and a civilian police advisory board to a rewrite of how the city budget gets made.
Early voting began Saturday, and Election Day is Nov. 3. Each proposal gets its own yes-or-no vote, so voters can approve some and reject others.
“It’s important because it’s giving the citizens of Buffalo an opportunity to speak about their constitution, their local constitution,” Laurence Rubin, chairman of the City of Buffalo Charter Revision Commission, told WKBW.
Where the questions came from
The charter is City Hall’s rulebook. It sets out what elected officials, boards and commissions can do and how their seats are filled. According to Investigative Post, the Common Council created the revision commission in January 2025, and members appointed by the mayor, the comptroller and Council members were seated that August. The city’s last charter revision was in 1999.
Mr. Rubin told WKBW that many of the questions grew out of the 14 months Christopher Scanlon served as acting mayor after Byron Brown left in October 2024 to run Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp.
“There were issues like, is he really the acting mayor or just has the powers of a mayor, and what happened to his council seat,” Mr. Rubin said.
The commission worked on a tight budget. Investigative Post reported that the commissioners asked for $100,000 for experts and public outreach and the Council provided about a third of that. The mayor and comptroller declined to cover the rest, and most of the Council’s money went to a marketing firm for a public education campaign before the election. The outlet also described Mayor Sean Ryan’s administration as indifferent to hostile toward the commission at first, becoming more cooperative, on a limited basis, near the end. The Chronicle is seeking comment from the mayor’s office on the proposals.
The biggest changes
A Commission on Human Rights. The current charter already includes a Commission on Citizens Rights and Community Relations that can hear discrimination and police-misconduct complaints and issue subpoenas. Investigative Post reports that body is non-functional and has never opened an investigation. The proposal would replace it with a human rights commission that has similar powers and somewhat more insulation from political pressure. After an investigation, it could recommend action by law enforcement, another agency or the city’s corporation counsel.
A Civilian Police Advisory Commission. Some commissioners wanted an oversight board with power to investigate and discipline officers, but that idea did not advance. The compromise is an advisory body that would hear residents’ complaints and make policy and disciplinary recommendations to city leaders, with no power to impose discipline itself.
A new budget process. Right now the mayor writes the budget, and the comptroller’s opinion is not binding. Under the proposal, the mayor would have to give the comptroller a draft a month early. The comptroller would then recommend which lines to raise or cut. The Council could add spending by a simple majority, but cutting spending or lowering a revenue estimate would take a two-thirds vote, and it could never raise a revenue estimate. The change would come as the city works through a structural deficit of more than $100 million, a figure the State Comptroller’s Office backed this spring.
An election reform task force. The commission did not advance three proposals that would have changed how city elections work. Instead, it proposed a task force that would meet from early 2027 through November 2028 to study ranked-choice voting, open primaries and lower petition-signature requirements. Its recommendations could reach voters in 2028.
Succession and housekeeping
Three questions deal directly with the Scanlon period:
- The first would state that the Council president becomes acting mayor if the mayor’s office is vacant, rather than just exercising the office’s duties.
- The second would state that anyone holding an elected office on an acting basis has all of that office’s powers and can collect its pay. Investigative Post noted that Mr. Scanlon drew the mayor’s salary while serving.
- The third would let the Council appoint a temporary member, from the same district and party, when its president becomes acting mayor. Mr. Scanlon’s Council seat sat vacant because the charter had no way to fill it.
The rest are smaller. One would suspend city boards that have not met in a year and make the Council either revive or decommission them. Another would require webpages, online vacancy applications, training and orientation for active boards. A third would let the mayor and the Council create temporary task forces for up to two years on issues “deemed relevant to the administration, safety, or welfare of the City of Buffalo.” The last would require a charter revision commission at least once every 10 years.
A ballot built for a long read
Even fitting the questions onto one sheet was a job. “It’s a challenge we have to meet and will,” Derek Murphy, a spokesperson for the Erie County Board of Elections, told Investigative Post in August.
Mr. Rubin said the questions touch nearly every part of city government. “It affects everything from how they participate in voting, to how the budget is made, to how citizens participate in advisory boards, to issues like how the police are serving the community, to dealing with issues about whether or not human rights are being affected in the City of Buffalo,” he told WKBW.
His request to voters was simple. “I hope people come out and vote in general, right? That’s our civic duty, and I hope they flip the page and vote for everything,” Mr. Rubin said.
The commission held public forums on the proposals in mid-October. The final ballot language and a commission page are posted on the city’s website. There are no statewide ballot questions this year.
The Chronicle is seeking comment from the Charter Revision Commission and the mayor’s office. This story will be updated with any responses.
Photo: Buffalo City Hall and the McKinley Monument. Michael Barera / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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