(BUFFALO) - After waiting three months for a return phone call from Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, Buffalo AFL-CIO President Michael Hoffert finally got what he wanted last night.

"I was a bit shocked," Hoffert told WNYLaborToday.com this afternoon.  "(Mayor Brown) told me he was unaware of my calls to his office and that a Labor Leader who read the stories on WNYLaborToday.com (detailing the non-response) called him directly to let him know what was going on.  (Mayor Brown) claimed he was unaware of my calls and couldn't understand (why he wasn't getting them).  He asked that I call him directly on his cell phone from now on."

In late January, a frustrated Hoffert told WNYLaborToday.com the mayor was showing a "disregard for Organized Labor" and the 80,000 Union Workers represented by the affiliated member Labor Unions of the Buffalo Council by not returning three direct calls he'd made to Brown's City Hall office in the month of November, again in late December and a third time in late January.  Hoffert was seeking to schedule a meeting involving the mayor and several local Labor Leaders to discuss the city receiving millions of dollars in Federal Stimulus Funding. 

"I don't want to belabor the point and I would like to put this behind me and work together with (Mayor Brown) on a number of positive initiatives in the best interests of Labor and the City of Buffalo.  This should be a collaborative effort," Hoffert told WNYLaborToday.com.

The Buffalo AFL-CIO Council president said he last personally met with Mayor Brown "sometime last spring" to discuss a number of issues.  With Buffalo "being the third poorest city in the United States," Hoffert said he and other Labor Leaders are interested in how much in Federal Stimulus Program dollars have come to the city and where that money is being used to help create needed jobs.  "The mayor told me during our twenty-minute telephone conversation last night that only ten-million dollars has been awarded to the city, and that he was encouraging Organized Labor to call our Federally-elected officials in order to get a better handle on where the money is being distributed to," Hoffert said.

Added Hoffert: "There was a four-million-dollar 'Pathways Out of Poverty' grant from the Federal Government I believe was applied for, in part with the assistance of the United Steelworkers, but Buffalo did not get a nickel of that.  Not only does Organized Labor want to know why, the mayor told me he too would like to find that out for himself."

The mayor, meanwhile, assured the Buffalo AFL-CIO president he would schedule a meeting with he and local Labor Leaders in the immediate future, Hoffert added.