Banning drones in Buffalo

Here is Charley Bowman's report (from the weekly email) on the Common Council hearings:

Tuesday afternoon, July 31, Occupy Buffalo and the WNY Peace Center brought forth a resolution to Buffalo's Common Council to ban police - controlled drones in the City of Buffalo....the Council voted to table the issue, but two council members said informally they will support a vote on the issue when the Common Council returns to session in September. Those two council members seemed deeply concerned about the drone issue.

In the interim, we need to call, write email our representatives on the Buffalo Common Council letting them know we do not want police controlled drones flying over Buffalo, watching us enjoying our backyard scooping up dew from our dog. We can think of better ways to spend $30 million instead of on a Reaper drone. The $30 million could be divided among the 41,000 children in Western NY who go hungry each month (Rod Watson, Buffalo News, July 19, 2012), giving each $742 to spend for food each year, especially during the summer months when they do not have access to school breakfast or lunch programs. Police departments will be encouraged by the Department of Homeland Security to buy several drones, so multiply those figures accordingly. Money for food, not drones!

In Washington DC view, homeland security does not include eliminating child hunger in the US, much less the 41,000 hungry children living in and around Buffalo NY.

Food is just one issue, similar arguments can be made for student debt, access to health care, renewable energy projects, jobs....all of these are desperately needed but Washington DC continues to drone on instilling fear of crime and terror into the hearts and minds of every uninformed Fox News- watching American.

Thanks to Occupy Buffalo and members of the WNY Peace Center who kept the Peace Center's model Reaper Drone in front of City Hall for about an hour on three separate days during the past two weeks. We scheduled two other days in front of City Hall but we're rained out once and had a conflicting court appearance date another time. We ran out of flyers several times...but many hundreds of flyers were handed out. We will continue to make and hand out 100's more in the weeks ahead.

Let Buffalo NY become the first Drone-Free City in the U.S.!

Peace, Charley Bowman