Articles for Geoff Kelly

Aug 8

2024

City pulls back on “amusements” fee

The Town Ballroom on Main Street. Photo by Garrett Looker. The City of Buffalo has backed off from a plan to tax music and other entertainment venues for every event for which they charge admission. Investigative Post last week broke the story about the city’s effort to collect an “amusements fee” described in an obscure and unevenly applied section of the city code. Music club owners and managers two weeks ago began receiving letters from the city’s Department of Permit & Inspection Services “reminding” them of their obligation to pay the fee — which few of them had previously heard[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Aug 7

2024

GOP no-shows in Cheektowaga

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 1 year ago

Jul 31

2024

City Hall targets music clubs with costly tax

The City of Buffalo, facing projected budget shortfalls and desperate for revenue, is turning to a little-known chapter of the city code to collect a fee from music clubs and other entertainment venues for every ticketed event they produce. The fee could add tens of thousands of dollars to the operating costs of bigger venues like Babeville, RiverWorks, Iron Works and Town Ballroom, as well as smaller clubs like Nietzsche’s and Mr. Goodbar. Nearly all the venue owners and managers Investigative Post spoke to said they were blindsided by the fee, which they learned about last week via letters sent[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jul 25

2024

A questionable city contract

The Broadway Market. Photo by Garrett Looker. Buffalo’s Department of Public Works this week asked city legislators to give a contract to a security company helmed by a former city cop whose brief career was rife with complaints of misbehavior, on and off duty. Elite Protection & Investigation, with offices in Williamsville, won the contract to provide security at the Broadway Market with a bid of $267,150. Two other bidders bid about $20,000 higher. It’s a one-year contract with the option to extend the deal annually up to four times. Elite’s CEO, Mitchell R. Thomas, began his career with the[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jul 18

2024

Mayor’s staff growing in numbers and cost

When Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown prepared his first city budget, he allowed for eight employees in his office, including himself. He had a communications staff of one. Those jobs were scheduled to cost taxpayers $571,806, not including healthcare and retirement benefits. The actual cost was less — just under $500,000 — because he didn’t fill all the positions. This budget year, which began July 1, the mayor’s budget allows for 19 staffers. The Office of Communications and Intergovernmental Affairs has grown to seven budgeted positions. Combined, the salaries for those 26 jobs add up to $2,453,665. That’s nearly three times[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jul 17

2024

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

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 1 year ago

Jul 5

2024

Political gains for foes of Kensington Expressway project

Nine newcomers won Democratic Party committee seats in Buffalo in the June 25 primary elections. A few of them beat big names in local politics, including former Common Council President Darius Pridgen, Assemblyman Jon Rivera and former state Sen. Marc Panepinto. All of them beat party insiders. That’s not all they have in common. Six of the winners in those races are united by their opposition to the state Department of Transportation’s $1 billion plan to tunnelize a stretch of the Kensington Expressway. Matt Dearing, Jeff Carballada, Michael Gainer, Taj Richardson, Chris Hawley and Greg Olma — all winners of[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jun 26

2024

Erie County Democrats attack challengers

A Democratic Party mailer supporting favored candidates in party committee races. The Erie County Democratic Party sent a message last weekend to city voters in the handful of election districts where candidates challenged insiders and incumbents for seats on the party committee: Vote for the party’s “endorsed county committee candidates” to ward off “convicted felon Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican Party,” advised a mailer paid for by party headquarters. Because “democracy hangs in the balance.” You’d think the party’s “endorsed county committee candidates” were fighting a pitched battle against a rabid red wave of Republicans seeking seats of critical[...]

Posted 1 year ago