May 23
2016
A self-fulfilling prophecy…
Posted 9 years ago
May 23
2016
May 23
2016
Journalists normally cringe at being lauded as activists, but Buffalo Spree magazine has bestowed such an honor on us and we’ll take it. Western New York’s monthly magazine announced its “Best Of” awards last week and Investigative Post was selected “Best Activist Group” in a vote of readers. Here’s what Spree has to say about us: IP is technically a group of journalists, but its topics are carefully chosen, including, most recently, lead poisoning, local water pollution, and toxic landfills. Clearly, the writers for the Post are interested in drawing public attention to issues that could work against the public[...]
May 20
2016
Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney and Susan Arbetter of The Capitol Pressroom discuss the latest developments involving the SolarCity project in Buffalo, including a reduction in planned factory jobs from 1,460 to 500. The interview, taped Thursday, runs from 22:30 to 37:19.
May 20
2016
The unit charged with investigating allegations of child abuse and neglect in Erie County is still having a hard time clearing cases on time. While there has been improvement since Investigative Post reported on the unit’s performance last summer, about four in 10 investigations are not completed within the timeframe the state requires. And although caseworkers are assigned fewer cases, the average workload is still higher than the state-recommended maximum. “There has been improvement but we’re still not where we should be,” said Erie County legislator Ted Morton, who is vice chairman of the committee that oversees Child and[...]
May 16
2016
SolarCity has some ‘splaining’ to do, to quote Ricky Ricardo. For starters, company executives – and state officials, for that matter – can ‘splain’ why the $750 million solar panel manufacturing plant taxpayers are building for them is going to employ only 500, not the 1,460 originally promised. This scaled-back commitment, reported Friday by Investigative Post and WGRZ, came as news to a lot of people. Mayor Byron Brown told Dave McKinley of WGRZ on Friday that the reduced goal was news to him. Assemblyman Sean Ryan went one better, telling the station’s Michael Wooten that SolarCity officials assured him[...]
May 13
2016
SolarCity has sharply reduced its job creation commitment for the solar panel manufacturing plant under construction in Buffalo from 1,460 to 500 jobs, according to state records and filings the company submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission last fall. The company remains committed to a total of 1,460 jobs in Buffalo, but the majority of them will not be employed at the plant. Documents do not specify what kind of jobs they might be. “With new advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment that enables automation, we believe 500 is the minimum number of manufacturing jobs the factory will require,” said Kady Cooper,[...]
May 10
2016
When Minnesota lawmakers agreed to put millions of dollars toward building a new football stadium for the Minnesota Vikings, contractors were told they had to what some thought impossible: ensure that minorities accounted for a third of the construction workforce. Work on the $1.1 billion stadium is wrapping up, and contractors, despite their initial skepticism, have not only met the 32 percent goal but exceeded it, reaching 36 percent minority participation. This kind of ambitious goal-setting has been absent on major projects in the Buffalo area. The minority workforce goal was just 13.2 percent on the $130 million renovations[...]
May 10
2016
I’ll dispense with the MayDay! declarations of past and get to the latest double-barrel dose of bad news regarding SolarCity. The company released its first quarter earnings report Monday afternoon and it was drenched with more red ink than usual. SolarCity lost a record $283.1 million. That was double the $149.9 million it lost for the same period in 2015. The stock market reacted as you’d expect, with the trading price dropping by 21 percent from the close of trading Monday to Tuesday. SolarCity is now going for $17.54 a share, down from $57.26 as recently as mid-December. Yet another crisis in[...]