Categories for Co-produced with CIty & State

Sep 11

2019

Federal grand jury to investigate OTB

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A federal grand jury is investigating possible corruption at the Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp. Sources told Investigative Post and the Niagara Gazette the grand jury is looking into issues previously reported by the two news organizations, including the: Provision of free health insurance to the board’s part-time board members. Awarding of vendor contracts to businesses with political ties to OTB President Henry Wojtaszek and Chairman Richard Bianchi. Possible distribution of tickets purchased by OTB to Sabres and Bills games to friends, family members and political associates of OTB executives and board members. In addition, the state comptroller has[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Mar 27

2018

Progress on Buffalo police accreditation

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 The Buffalo Police Department is getting closer to obtaining professional accreditation from the state, according to police representatives who spoke Tuesday at the Common Council’s Police Oversight Committee.   As Investigative Post reported last year, the City Charter requires the police to maintain professional accreditation, a good housekeeping stamp of approval that ensures departments are following contemporary best practices. Over 150 departments across New York are accredited with the state’s Law Enforcement Accreditation Program While the Buffalo police is updating its policies and procedures to comply with the state program  in areas like administration and property maintenance, changes to[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Nov 5

2014

State fails to follow sewage ‘right to know’ law

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Want to know if your local waterway is fouled by sewage after a heavy storm? New York has a law for that, but the Department of Environmental Conservation isn’t enforcing it, Dan Telvock of Investigative Post reports in the current edition of City & State. Telvock writes: Seventeen months after the legislation was enacted, New Yorkers still do not “know if they are swimming, boating or fishing in raw sewage,” Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said in a prepared statement. Cuomo signed the legislation two years ago to great fanfare from environmental groups that advocated[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Oct 9

2014

SolarCity’s shaky foundation

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo is investing $750 million of taxpayer funds and the hopes of a community desperate for an economic recovery in a company that is losing money, weathering two federal investigations and facing, by its own admission, an uncertain economic future. To hear Cuomo tell it, the construction of a solar panel manufacturing plant operated by SolarCity Corp. will be a “game changer,” a catalyst to reviving the Western New York economy. Indeed, the company is regarded as a leader in the burgeoning solar energy industry, has acquired promising technology to manufacture solar panels and has enjoyed soaring stock[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Sep 18

2014

SolarCity shakedown?

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo last fall pledged $225 million to build and equip a clean energy hub along Buffalo’s waterfront. It was good enough for Silevo, a solar panel manufacturer, and Soraa, the makers of high-efficiency light bulbs. It apparently isn’t good enough for SolarCity, however, which bought Silevo in June. Cuomo has subsequently suggested it’s going to take a richer incentive package to bring SolarCity into the fold and press reports indicate at least two other states are in the hunt for the solar panel plant that is penciled in for Buffalo. Given the track record of SolarCity Chairman Elon[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Jul 24

2014

Battle is joined on Buffalo school reform

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Jim Heaney, in his latest column for City & State, provides his take on the reform agenda being advanced by the new majority on the Board of Education. Heaney, who formerly covered Buffalo schools in the 1990s when he was a reporter for The Buffalo News, said he’s struck by the majority’s top priority: contract changes that would enable the district to assign the best teachers to the worst performing schools. He wrote: In Buffalo, as in many districts, that’s a challenge, because of seniority clauses in labor contracts. As a result, veteran teachers gravitate to the better schools, while[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Jun 18

2014

Buffalo recovery a Tale of Two Cities

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Jim Heaney makes his debut as a columnist for City & State this week with a piece that puts Buffalo’s improved economy in perspective. Heaney notes a great and growing divide between “the haves and have-nots.” Yes, there is the psychological boost thanks to the Buffalo Billion initiative, and construction cranes denote progress at Canalside and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. But other aspects of the economy lag. “Any way you cut the numbers—poverty rate, unemployment rate, actual number of city residents working—they lag behind where things stood prior to the Great Recession of 2008–09,” Heaney writes. Meanwhile, the public[...]

Posted 10 years ago

May 12

2014

Maziarz, Gallivan spending questioned

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Do state lawmakers pocket campaign contributions for personal use? The Moreland Commission, charged with investigating corruption in state government, was asking that question before Gov. Andrew Cuomo disbanded the panel in March. A couple dozen state legislators were on the commission’s radar screen because their campaign finance disclosure reports didn’t document some expenses or failed to itemize their spending to detail precisely what they spend their money on. Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, topped the commission’s list, with about $140,000 in unitemized spending over a six-year period, according to a report published today by City & State, a magazine and website that[...]

Posted 10 years ago
Investigative Post

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