Categories for PoliticalPost

May 29

2025

More bad budgeting from Buffalo politicians

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Writing about the City of Buffalo’s finances is like watching the movie Groundhog Day, but the wheel of suffering never stops turning.  Before the story reaches its happy-ever-after conclusion, the film rewinds to the beginning. Again and again, year after year. The Common Council on Tuesday adopted, with few minor amendments, Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s proposed budget for the city’s upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.  The $622 million plan recycles many of the fiscal sins of the Byron Brown administration, whose specious revenue and expense projections yielded deficit after deficit — backfilled first with cash from the city’s[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

May 21

2025

Buffalo mayoral candidates hit the airwaves

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 State Sen. Sean Ryan, who’s running for Buffalo mayor in the June 24 Democratic primary, released his first TV commercial two weeks ago. The ad hits the talking points Ryan has been using since he announced his candidacy in November:  He’s the son of a Lackawanna teacher and a Buffalo firefighter.  He became a successful housing rights attorney, then a state legislator who brought home money and projects for his districts. The city’s infrastructure and delivery of basic services have gone to pot, and he’s got the experience to put things right. State Senator Sean Ryan’s first TV ad. The[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

May 12

2025

Scanlon supports Benderson’s move from Buffalo to Amherst

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Benderson Development wants to move its corporate headquarters — as well as those of Delta Sonic, its car wash company — to an office and warehouse complex the real-estate giant owns in Amherst. And the company wants $1.4 million in property and sales tax breaks from the Amherst Industrial Development Agency to help underwrite the $26 million relocation. Benderson’s local operations are currently housed at 570 Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo. Delta Sonic has corporate offices there, too, and in the City of Tonawanda. Surprisingly, the mayors of both cities wrote letters to the Amherst IDA in support of the tax breaks.[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

May 5

2025

Control board asks Scanlon for a backup plan

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The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority last week instructed Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon to produce a fallback plan should the revenue projections in his proposed budget fail to pan out. Particularly worrisome to the control board is an estimated $26.5 million Scanlon hopes to raise in the next year by selling the city’s parking ramps. The measure requires state legislation that — as of my hitting send on this newsletter, anyway — has not been approved. Control board members were concerned, too, about how much money the city would get for the ramps, and whether the sale could be completed quickly enough to[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Apr 28

2025

A Buffalo mayoral poll, plus city budget news

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There was a poll out in the field last week gauging Buffalo voters’ opinions of two Democratic candidates for mayor and the campaign messages they’ve been testing out against one another. I took the survey on my landline at home last Tuesday evening. I took what felt like an abbreviated version of the same poll by text the next day. Six Democrats have qualified to run in the June primary, but the poll focused squarely on two of them: Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon and state Sen. Sean Ryan, who has the Democratic endorsement for the June primary. Two Democrats on[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Apr 24

2025

Scanlon disputes Kleinhans “privatization” meeting

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Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon didn’t like our story on discussions he’s had about offloading maintenance costs for city-owned cultural venues such as Kleinhans Music Hall, Shea’s Performing Arts Center and the Buffalo Zoo. Scanlon Thursday morning put out a statement calling the report “inaccurate, misleading and irresponsible.” He took particular issue with our reporting that he’d discussed “the potential of ‘privatizing’ or ‘selling’ Kleinhans Music Hall.” “In fact, there was not and will not be any talk about selling city-owned cultural facilities as long as I’m mayor,” he wrote. Here’s a screenshot of the acting mayor’s full statement. It was[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 21

2025

Who’ll make the primary ballot?

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Attorney Jessica Kulpit is a lock to be elected to an Erie County Court judgeship this November. There are two county judgeships on the ballot this fall and, as is so often the case around here, exactly the same number of candidates to choose from. Kulpit and incumbent James Bargnesi — both Democrats — will appear on the Democratic, Republican, Conservative and Working Families party lines. The cross-endorsement deal between parties also ensures the reelection of incumbent Erie County Family Court Judge Brenda Freedman, a Republican who will have the Democratic and Conservative lines, as well as that of her[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 14

2025

Granville update, plus other Monday morning reads

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The Buffalo Police Department has put five officers on administrative leave as it continues to investigate the department’s response to the incident last April in which Erie County Sheriff Narcotics Chief D.J. Granville hit seven parked cars in his county-owned pickup truck. Police also, on the day the statute of limitations was set to expire, issued citations to Granville for leaving the scene of an accident. One of the five officers suspended is Lt. Lucia Esquilin, Granville’s sister-in-law, who responded to the scene and signed off on reports related to the incident. The other four were Police Officers Brittany Bartels,[...]

Posted 2 months ago
Investigative Post