Tag: Politics

Mar 8

2024

Tricky finances, politics in Cheektowaga

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This column was adopted from Investigative Post’s weekly “Political Post” newsletter. Subscribe here and get “Political Post” in your inbox every Wednesday morning. We’ve reported a lot in recent years about the City of Buffalo’s troubled finances.  And most folks reading this have heard about the 11.4 percent tax hike in Amherst, as well as the  attendant uprising, now entering its fourth month.  Cheektowaga has a looming budget problem, too, according to the town supervisor, Brian Nowak, who took office in January after six years as a member of the town board. On Twitter/X this week, Nowak noted that the town’s expenses[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Feb 28

2024

Disgraced former judge returns to the bench

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A former Lackawanna judge who resigned in disgrace 11 years ago is getting a second chance at the job, which pays close to $100,000 a year. Lackawanna Mayor Annette Iafallo will appoint Louis Violanti an associate city court judge effective March 1, a spokesman for the city confirmed.  Violanti, 50, held that same post from 2007 until 2013, when he stepped down in the wake of a ticket-fixing scandal.  In December 2012, Violanti promised a friend he’d “take care of” a citation the friend had been given for an expired registration, according to an investigation into the incident by the[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Jan 25

2024

All Tim Kennedy’s money

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State Sen. Tim Kennedy State Sen. Tim Kennedy’s campaign committee spent nearly $1.5 million in 2023, a year in which the Buffalo Democrat wasn’t up for re-election. He spent more last year than he did on his two previous re-election campaigns combined.  He spent nearly four times as much as he did in 2021, the last off-year for state legislators. And he spent two-thirds of that money — more than $1 million — after word began circulating in July that Kennedy’s political mentor, U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins, would step down mid-term, opening up a seat that Kennedy would like to[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Jan 17

2024

PoliticalPost: City auditor quits

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This is PoliticalPost, a weekly newsletter we launched last week. Subscribe here to get Political Post delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning — because it won’t usually be available online. Buffalo’s chief auditor, Kevin Kaufman, has quit his job in the city comptroller’s office. Multiple sources say Kaufman, 48, left for a private-sector job, at least in part due to his frustration with working conditions under Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams. He’d been working for the city a little more than 11 years. Miller-Williams declined to elaborate on his reasons for leaving, referring those questions to Kaufman. She told Investigative Post[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 4

2023

Poloncarz swaps one potential OTB critic for another

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A recently-appointed director of the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp.— expected to be a watchdog over the embattled gambling agency — has resigned.  State law prohibits public and political party officials from holding a license necessary to serve on the governing board of off-track betting corporations. That’s the law that prompted Jennifer Hibit — secretary of the Erie County Democratic Committee — to resign Monday from her position as Erie County’s representative on the board of the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp., based in Batavia.  It’s unclear if the law is being applied uniformly.  Former OTB Board Chairman Richard Bianchi,[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Nov 14

2023

Kennedy has long been spending like a candidate for Higgins seat

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State Sen. Tim Kennedy’s name wasn’t on the ballot last week, but he’s been spending campaign money this year like a man running for something. In the first six months of this year, Kennedy’s state Senate campaign committee doled out $426,000, mostly on consultants and political contributions.  That’s $64,000 more than Kennedy spent in the same period in 2022, the last time he was up for reelection.  It’s twice what he spent in the same time frame in 2020, when his name was on the ballot. And it’s nearly 10 times the amount Kennedy’s Democratic colleague, state Sen. Sean Ryan,[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Nov 12

2023

Monday Morning Read

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll receive our latest reporting and Jim Heaney’s commentary in your inbox Sunday mornings. Brian Higgins has confirmed he’s leaving Congress in February to take over the reins at Shea’s Performing Arts Center. The move has been in the works for a while, as our Geoff Kelly reported back in September. Higgins, in an interview with The Buffalo News, said Congress is “in a very, very bad place right now.” Yeah, Congress is a mess, but he’s known that for a long time. If he didn’t want to continue, he shouldn’t have run for another term. Once[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Nov 8

2023

Poloncarz wins big; mixed bag for parties in town races

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Election Day was good to Erie County Democrats, especially in the top-ticket races. In the year’s marquee race, Mark Poloncarz beat Republican Chrissy Casilio by a resounding 18 points, winning an unprecedented fourth term as Erie County executive. And Democrats preserved their 7-to-4 majority in the Erie County Legislature, as incumbents in three competitive districts handily fended off Republican and Conservative challengers. In town and village elections, however, the results had a more purplish hue, as Democrats and Republicans alike made gains in areas that once were single-party fiefdoms. “In the suburbs, the towns that are flipping are continuing to[...]

Posted 4 months ago
Investigative Post

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