Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - A judge has ruled the temporary restraining order preventing any demolition of the Great Northern grain elevator in Buffalo will remain in place at least until a further hearing on the issue Monday.
Judge Emilio Colaiacovo is asking the parties to appear in the hearing January 3 to argue the basis for the city of Buffalo's decision to issue the order for demolition to ADM, the owner of the property.
New York Supreme Court
On Monday, the judge ordered the sides in the case to engage in a mediation to try to come to a consensus on how to proceed with the matter. Mediation was quickly deemed a failure and the matter was handed back to the court for a decision.
Tim Tielman of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo says any opportunity to get more information before the judge is good. "We look at this as a positive. He wants to make sure he has as much information as he needs to render a decision," says Tielman. He says the judge will pose questions on the topic, and the parties will attempt to give him the evidence.
Tielman does not anticipate Colaiacovo to make a ruling on the spot. "He has a mountain of things to go through, and this will add to that, and I think he would want a period of analysis and reflection before he makes his decision," says Tielman.
"We have a dangerously damaged structure, but a historically significant structure," Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said on WBEN Thursday morning. Brown said he did not intervene in the city's decision to issue the permit for demolition. "I wanted them to make an independent, professional, determination of what was the right thing." Brown said the Commissioner of Permits and Inspections along with the Fire Commissioner made the decision to issue the permit that is the subject of the court decision.
Mayor Brown did reach out to Archer-Daniels-Midland to ask if they would be willing to save all or part of the structure as part of the repair effort following the recent significant wind damage to the elevator.
"If any entity has the ability to salvage that structure, has the resources to do it, it is Archer-Daniels-Midland."
