Paralegal Dog Walker Reverses Buffalo Blight

First, let me just say I’m jealous. Paralegal Julie Padak works for Buffalo, New York attorney Francis Letro, who brings his dog Barkley to work. If everyone brought their dogs to work, litigation would be a nicer place. Padak often gets the pleasure of getting out of the office for a ramble with a friendly dog.

But the deteriorating downtown parks near the waterfront where Padak walked Barkley were no treat to visit. The littered streets featured broken glass and graffiti-covered walls, and this “key stretch” of Buffalo was not only no place to walk a cherished dog, but an embarrassing blight which led right to the waterfront, including “the spanking-new Erie Canal Harbor”.

Padak decided to do something about the problem and contacted local business owners, developers, the city forestry department and the city anti-graffiti program, spurring them on to clean up the mess.

And they did.

AmeriCorps volunteers, sent by the city, mowed grass and cleaned up trash. Graffiti was painted over. City workers killed weeds with herbicide and power-washed the underside of roadway off-ramps that crisscross the site. Buffalo Place lent a Bobcat and promised to bring planters. Coming soon are lights for the trees and new plantings.

Buffalo News

I hope that attorney Letro appreciates the can-do community organizer he has in his paralegal. I bet Barkley does.

“I am just a peon, a paralegal at a law office who picked up the phone,” Padak said. “That this could happen, it’s refreshing.”

Julie, you are not a peon. You’re a paragon, and you're refreshing.