Tag: Buffalo

May 9

2019

Legislators propose changes on traffic laws

Published by

In just over two years, New York State issued nearly 1.7 million driver’s license suspensions to more than 620,000 drivers — a disproportionate number of them poor, people of color or both. These suspensions were not the result of reckless or drunken driving, or other dangerous behavior; they were slapped on drivers who failed to pay a traffic ticket fine or show up for a court date over it. These numbers come from an analysis released on Wednesday by Driven By Justice, a statewide coalition that worked with state Sen. Tim Kennedy on a bill to end the practice of[...]

Posted 5 years ago

May 1

2019

Buffalo lags on addressing lead poisoning

Published by

 Hundreds of young children living in Buffalo’s inner-city neighborhoods continue to be diagnosed every year with lead poisoning. And City Hall continues to do next to nothing about it. “Buffalo has not made as much progress as other communities have and not as much progress as perhaps they could,” said Andrew McLellan, president of Environmental Education Associates, which trains contractors and others to recognize and remediate lead hazards. Thirteen months ago, the Center for Governmental Research, a consulting firm in Rochester, developed an action plan with 19 recommendations for the city, county and state to adopt. The county has[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Mar 5

2019

A changing tide on license suspensions

Published by

New York is one of at least 41 states that suspend drivers’ licenses if they fail to pay traffic fines. In 2016, the state Department of Motor Vehicles issued 53,648 suspension or revocation orders to drivers in Erie County, according to data obtained Investigative Post. This captures suspensions issued for any reason, but experts said the vast majority are related to traffic tickets. “Suspending a license is a patently absurd remedy to someone who can’t pay traffic tickets,” Blake Strode, the executive director of ArchCity Defenders, a civil rights law firm based in Missouri, told Investigative Post. New York’s practice[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Aug 1

2018

Council considers action on fair housing law

Published by

Buffalo’s fair housing law is supposed to prevent landlords from refusing to rent to someone simply because they rely on government assistance – like a Section 8 voucher – to help pay their rent. But that law, introduced in 2006, has gone largely unenforced, despite the more than two dozen discrimination complaints, most of them substantiated by undercover testing, that have been filed with the city. Last week, members of the Common Council said they would consider taking steps to ensure the law is enforced. “If we find out something is not being enforced or something is not staffed, it[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Jul 14

2018

Heaney talks City Hall on ‘Pressroom

Published by

Susan Arbetter, host of The Capitol Pressroom, told Editor Jim Heaney a recent story by Charlotte Keith produced by Investigative Post made her “angry.” The story documented the failure by the administration of Mayor Byron Brown to enforce the city’s fair housing law. Arbetter’s angst was rooted in the mayor’s indifference to the plight of the city’s poor, who are often discriminated against when they attempt to rent apartments with the help of government assistance such as Section 8. Heaney told her inaction by the city is just the latest example of the mayor turning a blind eye to injustices[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Feb 28

2018

State audit challenges UB Foundation spending

Published by

The University at Buffalo Foundation spent almost $40,000 on questionable entertainment expenses, operated for three years under an expired contract with the campus, and lacks policies to ensure contracts are competitively bid, according to an audit released yesterday by the state comptroller’s office. The foundation also paid the salaries of two retired university staff members who returned to state employment, while they were also collecting state pensions – allowing them to circumvent state caps on “double-dipping,” the report found.   The private UB Foundation is technically separate from the public university, but has long faced pressure to be more transparent[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Jul 12

2017

Hurdles ahead for Metro Rail extension

Published by

An extension of Buffalo’s light rail system to Amherst is as close as it’s ever been – which still isn’t very close. The plan gained momentum when Gov. Cuomo threw his support behind it in his State of the State earlier this year, as part of the second phase of the Buffalo Billion initiative. Still, the decision to build an extension has not yet been made, said Thomas George, director of public transit for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. “We’re not moving along in a process to the construction, we’re moving along in the evaluation process,” he said. “It’s absolutely not[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Oct 31

2016

Podcast: Dan Telvock on lead reporting

Published by

In this episode of Investigative Postcast, Investigative Post’s environment reporter Dan Telvock discusses his award-winning coverage of Western New York’s lead poisoning problem, which has recently prompted the City of Buffalo to introduce new initiatives to combat the problem. Telvock explains why lead poisoning poses such a threat to young children and why New York’s schools are now testing their water for lead, thanks to an emergency law passed earlier this year. “In the past, they really didn’t do it on a regular basis. Our schools never were really aggressively testing for lead in any of the water sources in[...]

Posted 7 years ago
Investigative Post

Get our newsletters delivered to your inbox * indicates required

Newsletters *