By Stanley Fernandez

Hey West Side Residents:

The next methadone clinic meeting will be held on Saturday, March 12, 2016, at Hispanics United of Buffalo located at 254 Virginia Street between West Ave and Tenth Street at 11:00 am.

In addition, the next Methadone Community Advisory Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 14, 2016 at Hispanics United of Buffalo at 5:00 pm. Please make some time in your busy schedules to attend both of these meetings.

It is a matter of preserving the “Quality of Life” in our community/neighborhood(s) and making sure our families, grand parents and children are not exposed to the negativity lifestyle this program brings into our community/neighborhood(s).

Remember the Lower West Side has been on an up swing in the last ten to fifteen years.

During this time period, the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority built beautiful affordable housing units for homeownership as well as rentals in many sections on the Lower West Side that were being neglected by absentee landlords who didn’t maintain their properties and lived in the suburbs without caring about the Lower West Side.

It is up to us to protect, promote and preserve a healthy and safe community/neighborhood(s) so that our home investment(s) continue to increase in value.

But most importantly we need to strongly advocate for the Lower West Side to maintain a positive image, promote residential stabilization and encourage an increase in light commercial development that creates employment opportunities for residents living in and around the Lower West Side.

So I appeal to you die hard Lower West Siders to join us at these two upcoming meetings to voice our concerns that this methadone clinic shouldn’t be located in a family orientated community/neighborhood(s) that has been coming back stronger than ever.

So please join us on Saturday, March 12, 2016 at 11:00am and Monday, March 14, 2016 at 5:00pm at Hispanics United of Buffalo to negotiate the relocation of their methadone clinic to either the medical corridor or to a commercial strip and not in our backyard as they consider to expand the number of clients they plan to serve.

Should you have any questions regarding this matter, please feel free to contact me at 716 573-1988 or email me at rsf106@yahoo.com.