BUFFALO, N.Y. — Inglewood, California, Mayor James Butts Jr. has a suggestion for Buffalonians interested in a new public library: use the Bills’ community benefits agreement.
Butts would know. The community benefits agreement between his city and the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team — which originated as the Buffalo Braves — included $6 million for improvements to Inglewood’s public libraries.
“We asked for it specifically,” Butts said.
Slashed budgets from nearly 20 years ago – in what’s known as the Red-Green Budget – “decimated” the Buffalo and Erie County Library system. Sixteen library branches were closed. As a result, several neighborhoods on the East Side are now considered book deserts, a previous Investigative Post analysis found.