Categories for Analysis

Dec 13

2021

Little economic benefit from new stadium

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A new stadium for the Buffalo Bills would boost the Western New York economy as much as a new Target store. Which is to say, very little. While some supporting construction of a new stadium maintain it would be an economic boon, research by economists across the political spectrum has found stadiums generate limited new spending. Rather, they simply redirect how leisure dollars are spent.  “All you are doing is moving time and money around. People are going to the game instead of the movies,” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a national subsidy watchdog group. Nor[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 7

2021

Where’s a cop when you need one?

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In Buffalo, crime — and the police response to it — is a tale of two cities. Let’s say you witness an assault in progress on the city’s East Side and call 911. That’s a high-priority call: The threat of harm is immediate and there is — or was, at the time of the call — a suspect on the scene to arrest. The patrol officers who field the call are going to hurry. But they may not arrive as quickly as you’d hope.  In 2019, the median response time for an assault in progress call in C and E[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 7

2021

How we did our 911 analysis

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Calculating response times from the 911 data acquired from Central Police Services is fraught with difficulty.  For each call, the 911 log provides the moment:  A 911 operator took the call. The call was transferred to a Buffalo Police Department dispatcher.  An officer accepted the call from the dispatcher. An officer reported arriving at the scene. The responding officer cleared the call. As far as the Buffalo Police Department is concerned, their responsibility begins with #2. From a 911 caller’s perspective, what matters is the time elapsed between #1 and #4, so that’s the basis of our calculations. However, it’s[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 1

2021

Darth Vader is eyeing The Buffalo News

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The past decade have been tough times for The Buffalo News.  Declining circulation. Smaller profits. Deep cuts in the newsroom staff, resulting in less local news coverage. Things may soon become much more difficult. Alden Global Capital, regarded as the Darth Vader of newspaper chains, has made an offer to buy Lee Enterprises, whose holdings include The News. Alden announced its intentions last week and Lee responded as you would expect to what is clearly a hostile takeover attempt. No matter, the vultures are circling. Chains in general are bad for daily newspapers. Alden is the worst of them. “Every[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Nov 16

2021

A record subsidy for Bills stadium?

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 There’s never been a stadium built for a National Football League team that cost taxpayers the $1 billion being bandied about for a new home for the Buffalo Bills. Only one stadium, built to lure the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas, even comes close, at $750 million. Three other stadiums built over the past decade involved taxpayer subsidies between $114 million and $498 million. Another stadium, built in Los Angeles for the Rams and Chargers, was constructed entirely with $5 billion in private funds. How the Bills and local and state governments split the cost of a new[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Nov 3

2021

Modest turnout for Buffalo’s mayoral election

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The contest between India Walton and Byron Brown looked like it could be close. It wasn’t.  Though it’ll be a while before the write-in votes for Brown are validated and absentee ballots are counted, the outcome is clear: Brown won a fifth term resoundingly, according to unofficial returns from the Erie County Board of Elections. The first hotly contested general election for Buffalo mayor in 16 years — a showdown between ideologies and personalities, drawing national attention and massive infusions of campaign money to both sides — was predicted to drive massive turnout in the city.  It didn’t. In all[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Nov 2

2021

Voters speak out on Brown, Walton

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This story was written by Jim Heaney based on interviews by Investigative Post reporters with 120 City of Buffalo voters. The interviews were conducted at 19 polling places, located in all nine Common Council districts. Three-quarters of the interviews took place on election day, the balance during early voting last week. Participating staff included Layne Dowdall, Mark Scheer, Phil Gambini, Geoff Kelly and Nancy Webb. The election for mayor of Buffalo was not a Tweedledum vs. Tweedledee affair. Byron Brown and India Walton expressed sharp differences of opinions on the issues and about each other. Their supporters did likewise in[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 25

2021

Buffalo’s beleaguered municipal finances

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 The story of Buffalo’s municipal finances under Mayor Byron Brown is divided into two chapters. Chapter One covers the five years before the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority — the city’s control board, formed in 2003 to keep the city from going bankrupt — relinquished its oversight power. In the beginning of Brown’s tenure, which began in 2006, the control board helped the city balance budgets and build up millions in reserves. Chapter Two covers the decade since the control board went “soft” in 2011. It’s a very different tale. Since 2011, Brown has proposed — and year after year[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post

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