Categories for In-Depth

Nov 22

2016

Water authority’s disinformation campaign

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Investigative Post’s report two weeks ago showed how the Erie County Water Authority cut corners in its sampling program for lead in drinking water. The water authority responded to our report with a campaign that included an email to customers, posts to Twitter and paid advertising on Facebook. The authority’s underlying message: The water is more pure than many brands of bottled water. Therefore, there is nothing to be concerned about. We fact checked the authority’s campaign and found numerous misleading statements and unsubstantiated claims, some of which we discuss in this report aired Tuesday with our partners at WGRZ.  “They’re trying[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Nov 15

2016

Second Buffalo Billion deal benefits Ciminelli

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U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara says the way LPCiminelli won the contract to build the SolarCity factory in Buffalo was criminal. The deal-making behind another Buffalo Billion project that LPCiminelli had previously landed, to build space for biotech company Albany Molecular Research Inc., bears some striking similarities to the way the company won the SolarCity work, Investigative Post has found. In both cases, for example, lobbyist Todd Howe worked for LPCiminelli and the state-affiliated economic development agency that managed Buffalo Billion projects and chose which companies would win contracts. Howe has pled guilty to federal corruption charges and is cooperating with[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Nov 9

2016

Tainted contract nets LPCiminelli $20 million

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Federal prosecutors say top executives at LPCiminelli went to great lengths to ensure they would win the lucrative contract to build a factory for SolarCity at Riverbend. Just how lucrative? State officials refuse to say how much the company is being paid. But Investigative Post has calculated, based on interviews and public records, that LPCiminelli’s fee for the project works out to between $20 million and $22 million. That’s one of the largest developer fees paid out in the region in recent years, because of the sheer size of the project, according to construction industry sources. Three LPCiminelli executives, including[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Nov 7

2016

Water Authority cut corners in lead program

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The Erie County Water Authority is cutting corners in its testing program for lead in the drinking water supplied to most local suburbs. The authority has historically made little effort to meet a federal mandate to test homes deemed most at risk for lead contamination. In fact, Investigative Post found several examples where the authority tested houses that clearly do not meet the criteria. “If this monitoring is flawed, if this monitoring it not actually targeting the highest risk homes, then consumers may be receiving erroneous information and false assurances about how safe the water is,” said Yanna Lambrinidou, a[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Sep 22

2016

More dubious Buffalo Billion dealings

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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect new developments as of Sept. 22, 2016.  The close relationship between EYP Architecture and Engineering and (currently suspended) SUNY Polytechnic President Alain Kaloyeros was further described by state attorney general Eric Schneiderman in a complaint unsealed today. State investigators allege that EYP, referred to as “Architect-1” throughout the complaint, was described as SUNY Poly’s “in-house architect” by a former employee of Columbia development, whose president has been charged with collaborating with Kaloyeros to rig bids for a project to build SUNY Poly housing. The employee told investigators that EYP had been involved[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Sep 19

2016

SUNY Poly plays by the rules — or, guidelines

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Editor’s note: A version of this story published Sunday in the Times Union of Albany. Two state-affiliated development corporations at the center of a federal corruption probe operated for years without rules commonly used by government agencies to promote competition, discourage favoritism and get the best deal for taxpayers when choosing companies to do business with. As a result, they’ve used unusually loose procurement policies to select developers for multimillion dollar projects, an Investigative Post analysis shows. Some of their contract awards – often to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s major campaign donors – are now being investigated by state and federal[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Aug 22

2016

Looking for lead (in all the wrong places)

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Neighborhoods on the city’s East and Lower West Sides are “ground zero” for the worst lead poisoning problems in all of Upstate New York. Lead paint is considered the culprit, but the crisis in Flint, Michigan, has raised questions about the safety of the drinking water in cities like Buffalo. The testing program used by Buffalo to determine whether drinking water is safe does not target the minority neighborhoods where the lead poisoning problem is concentrated, an analysis by Investigative Post has found. Instead, the city has focused on predominantly white neighborhoods in North and South Buffalo that report few,[...]

Posted 8 years ago
Investigative Post

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