Categories for PoliticalPost

Nov 6

2024

Election results: A rare incumbent loss, lots of no-contests

Published by

There are still some votes to count and results have not been certified, but most of Tuesday’s local races are pretty well resolved. A few notable results, based on election night numbers: In the region’s most expensive contest, for Erie County district attorney, Democrat Mike Keane beat deep-pocketed Republican James Gardner by nearly 20 percentage points. Keane has been acting DA since John Flynn stepped down at the end of March to join the Lippes Matthias law firm, making him a quasi-incumbent. The two candidates spent more than $1 million between them, according to the latest tally by the state[...]

Posted 3 days ago

Oct 17

2024

Mayoral hopeful enlists advisor with checkered past

Published by

Six years ago Kevin O’Brien’s career as a sought-after Democratic political strategist appeared to be over, consumed by a sexual harassment scandal that cost him his job as a top aide to then New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Today O’Brien, 42, is in Buffalo. He’s advising Garnell Whitfield, the former fire commissioner who is expected to announce his candidacy for Buffalo mayor sometime after next month’s general election. “He’s nationally experienced,” Whitfield told Investigative Post. “He’s not from here. He’s not part of the status quo here. He brings fresh eyes to the problems of this city.” Garnell[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Oct 10

2024

Ryan leads the mayoral money race

Published by

State Sen. Sean Ryan is seeking reelection this fall, but he’s certainly raising and spending money like a guy who’s running for mayor of Buffalo next year. Ryan raised $110,000 over the last three months, according to his campaign committee’s most recent filing with the state elections board. Campaign finance disclosures for candidates on the ballot in November were due last Friday. The reports cover the period from July 11 to Sept. 30.  Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown announced two weeks ago he’d accepted a new job as president and CEO of Western Regional Off-Track Betting. Brown indicated he’d step down[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 23

2024

City must pay $310,000 to former employee

Published by

The City of Buffalo’s law department last week asked the Common Council to approve a $310,000 settlement to a lawsuit filed by James Kaufmann, who worked 23 years for the police department’s information technology unit before the city eliminated his position 14 years ago. The elimination of his job was retaliation, Kaufmann claimed in his lawsuit. And the city violated state civil service law by not hiring him for another, similar post in the years that followed. According to the lawsuit, city officials said they’d “get even” with Kaufmann for testifying in a 2005 arbitration hearing that led to the[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Sep 12

2024

And the next mayor of Buffalo is …

Published by

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown hasn’t yet accepted his job offer from Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp.  He hasn’t submitted a letter of resignation from office. I asked the city clerk on Tuesday, just to be sure. But smart money says he’ll have vacated the second floor of City Hall before Halloween, leaving Common Council President Chris Scanlon as acting mayor. As acting mayor, Scanlon will be a quasi-incumbent when voters choose a new mayor next year. That may not be much of an advantage, given the city’s financial issues, and there will be many candidates vying for many different voting[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Sep 5

2024

Buffalo City Hall vandal explains himself

Published by

Today, we’re sharing a portion of  political reporter Geoff Kelly’s weekly newsletter, PoliticalPost. To receive his free report in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up in the subscription box at the end of this article. The man arrested Sunday for breaking windows at City Hall and making threats against Mayor Byron Brown is the uncle of a woman who was killed when she fell out of a moving car on the Kensington Expressway in February. On Facebook Antonio Nunes, 40, posted links to stories about his arrest and described his actions as “a warning.” His family, he wrote, was “being disrespected by nobody being[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Aug 7

2024

GOP no-shows in Cheektowaga

Published by

All three of Cheektowaga’s Republican town board members skipped a special meeting Monday night, denying a quorum to the board’s other three members, all Democrats.  The meeting was meant to be brief: The only agenda item was to set public hearings on a proposal to divide the town into six wards, each with its own representative on the board. Currently board members are elected in town-wide elections, but a formal complaint last year challenged that system, alleging it disenfranchised minority voters in violation of a state law enacted in 2022. More than one-fifth of the town’s 88,000 residents are minorities,[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Jul 17

2024

Brown’s raising money as if he’s running for office

Published by

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has a fundraiser today at the Diamond Hawk golf course in Cheektowaga, with tickets starting at $100 and sponsorship packages ranging up to $5,000.  Brown also held a fundraiser earlier this month at a Bisons game and another in April at The Atrium @ Rich’s. His Brown for Buffalo campaign committee has raised $58,500 since January, according to campaign finance disclosures filed on Monday.  That’s $22,000 more than Brown raised in the first six months of 2020, as he prepared to run for a fifth term. The mayor’s committee had $192,545 in the bank as of[...]

Posted 4 months ago
Investigative Post