Categories for Outrages & Insights

Dec 28

2015

Our top stories of 2015

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We’re closing the books on our fourth year of muckraking, and a pretty good year it’s been. I’ll save the details for my annual “State of Investigative Post” that we’ll publish in February to mark our fourth anniversary. For right now I want to note stories that had particular impact in 2015 and ask you, our readers, viewers and listeners, to cast your vote for our best story of the year. In deciding what stories to pursue, we consider their potential for impact. As such, we don’t simply “drop the bomb,” so to speak, as in “write a big story[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Dec 13

2015

Urban League scandal demands further scrutiny

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What to do about the Buffalo Urban League and its president and CEO, Brenda McDuffie? Something, that’s for sure. As our Charlotte Keith first reported, and an audit released last week by Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw subsequently confirmed, the Urban League has been overcharging Erie County for services that include working with families to prevent child abuse. To make matters worse, the Urban League retaliated against the caseworkers who helped expose the problem, firing or running off all eight of them. To make matters even worse, Urban League officials stonewalled the comptroller’s audit and, on the eve of its[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Dec 7

2015

Buffalo’s East Side awaiting a rebound

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While Buffalo is recovering, there is plenty of room for improvement, especially on the city’s East Side. That was the consensus of a panel discussion moderated last week by Jim Heaney of Investigative Post, who shared his impressions with Steve Brown on the weekly edition of Investigative Post. Panelists said the East Side lacks organizations with the capacity to manage redevelopment initiatives. The relocation of African American residents away from development hotspots was cited as another problem.  

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 30

2015

Outrages & Insights: Diversity at SolarCity

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There’s a problem with the pipeline that is feeding workers to the SolarCity project at Riverbend, Jim Heaney told Steve Brown on Sunday’s installment of Outrages & Insights. Heaney, referring to a story last week reported by Charlotte Keith, noted that African Americans accounted for only 5.7 percent of the construction workers employed at the SolarCity site during the quarter that ended in September. That contrasts with a city population that is 38 percent black. The project is nevertheless meeting its goal of employing a workforce that is at least 15 percent minority.

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 22

2015

Heaney details local refugee situation

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Jim Heaney and Steve Brown discuss the hot topic of the week, refugees, in the wake of the Paris terror attacks in the latest installment of Outrages & Insights. Heaney told Brown that Erie County accepts more refugees than any county in the state, more than 1,400 last year. Surprisingly, relatively few settle in New York City, despite its historic role as an entry point for immigrants. Heaney explained that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, refugees undergo more vigorous screening than others coming to America, a process that typically takes up to two years. Heaney also discussed the local refugee[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 9

2015

Impressions of new superintendent

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Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney told Steve Brown that Kriner Cash made a favorable first impression during their interview last week. “He’s no-nonsense, he’s knowledgeable, he’s taking on the job with a sense of urgency and I think he made it very clear that he’s here to get a job done and he’s not going to put up with a lot of guff,” Heaney told Brown on Sunday’s installment of Outrages & Insights. Brown asked Heaney if Cash can succeed. It depends, Heaney said, on whether recent changes made in state education law are interpreted to grant the superintendent the[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 1

2015

Dino Fudoli’s tax defiance

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Dino Fudoli contends the federal and state government effectively seized 12 acres he owns off Transit Road by declaring it wetlands in 2009. Not that he’s gone to court to press his case. Rather, he’s simply stopped paying his property taxes. For the second time. His delinquency was the topic of my coverage three years ago, and again last week, as I reported the Lancaster town supervisor owes nearly $19,000 on two properties he owns in Cheektowaga. Whether Fudoli pays a price politically will be determined Tuesday, when he stands for re-election. Steve Brown and I discuss Fudoli’s transgressions on[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Oct 30

2015

SolarCity: Mayday! Mayday!

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I have called Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s investment in SolarCity a high-risk, high-reward undertaking. The project took on an added air of risk Thursday, in light of not one, not two, but three pieces of bad news. For starters, the company disclosed it posted a net loss of $234 million in the third quarter. That’s the biggest quarterly loss in the history of the company and brings the year-to-date losses to a staggering $537 million. That puts SolarCity on track to lose more than $700 million for 2015, compared with net losses of $375 million in 2014, $152 million in 2013[...]

Posted 8 years ago
Investigative Post

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