Articles for Geoff Kelly

Sep 2

2020

North Buffalo bar closes following ugly behavior

Racist taunts from patrons of a Hertel Avenue bar have led to its temporary closure due to violations of COVID regulations and a city employee being suspended for mooning demonstrators. Marchers demanding police reform and racial equality clashed with M.T. Pockets bar patrons Tuesday night, as the patrons hurled vile taunts and phrases, including the n-word, toward protestors. “You’re killing my business,” Philip Alagna, the bar’s owner, shouted from the patio as tensions escalated between the bar’s patrons and protesters, who had returned to the scene of an ugly incident Friday evening. Alagna is well known in Democratic politics and[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 1

2020

Police transparency hinges on legal battle

For more than 40 years, state law and contractual agreements concealed police personnel records from public scrutiny. Complaints lodged against officers, investigations into misconduct, disciplinary actions, settlement agreements — all these tools for evaluating an officer’s suitability for the job — were almost completely inaccessible. That changed in June, when, in response to the nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd, the New York State Legislature amended the state’s Civil Rights and Freedom of Information laws to make those records public. Buffalo’s police union is not surrendering those protections gracefully. The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association is challenging the new[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Aug 18

2020

Study: Buffalo finances among worst in US

Only one city in the country is suffering more than Buffalo from the financial devastation of the COVID crisis. And that’s Rochester, just an hour down the Thruway. A forthcoming study, the source of a New York Times analysis published Monday, projects Buffalo’s government is staring at a 15 to 20 percent shortfall in revenue in the current fiscal year — more than twice the average in the survey of 150 cities nationwide. Upstate New York’s largest cities — Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse — were ranked the most fiscally distressed municipalities in the nation. New York City ranked fifth, right[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 28

2020

City Hall inertia on one-sided police contract

Reforming the Buffalo Police Department will require changes in the labor contract between the city and its police union. Major changes. An analysis by Investigative Post found the contract — a behemoth of a document comprising nearly 400 pages of agreements, amendments, arbitration awards and memoranda — is decidedly one-sided in favor of the union. It makes it tough to discipline officers accused of misconduct and deprives the police commissioner of management rights that are a given in many other departments. Investigative Post also determined that the administration of Mayor Byron Brown, who has lambasted the union contract, has never[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 28

2020

HarpData tries, tries again

HarpData, already months behind completing a project to provide wi-fi access to thousands of Buffalo students, sought work on another school district job earlier this year and is now complaining it didn’t get the contract. The district’s purchasing director rejected the company’s bid, deeming HarpData a “non-responsible bidder.” Now, three months later, HarpData is crying foul. Two weeks ago, months after the deadline to object had passed, the company filed a formal protest with the School Board, alleging irregularities in the procurement process and bias on the part of the district’s purchasing director. But district officials are adamant they had[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 16

2020

Union shares Buffalo police contract

Today Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told reporters that it was the responsibility of the city’s police union to make its contract public. “Why doesn’t the media ask the police union to make the contract public?” Brown said. “Why are the requests always of the city?” Well, the union did release it — yesterday. The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association forwarded a copy of the contract to Investigative Post so that we and our partners at WGRZ-TV could analyze it. The document is 382 unwieldy pages, comprising agreements, amendments, arbitration awards and memoranda dating back to 1986. “The union contract is a[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 12

2020

Online petition seeks Brown’s resignation

A group of local community activists have launched an online petition demanding the resignation of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. The activists say Brown has failed to show leadership in the two weeks since demonstrators took to the streets to protest police brutality. The petition states: From the start on Saturday, May 30th, protestors were met with lines of militarized police. Cops were armed with rubber bullets and tear gas while helicopters occupied the sky and armored vehicles occupied the streets. Among the results, the petition continues, were assaults on activists Myles Carter and Martin Gugino — the latter attracting national[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 11

2020

Buffalo’s police watchdogs are toothless

The City of Buffalo has three separate police oversight boards, but they’ve done little, if anything, to bring bad cops to heel. One can’t. It’s an advisory panel with no power beyond its voice. One won’t. It’s a subcommittee of the Common Council that seldom meets and does not investigate police misconduct. And the third, a commission mandated by the city’s charter and controlled by Mayor Byron Brown, is hopelessly compromised. Of the three, the Police Advisory Board has the least power. But it has advanced far more substantial ideas about how to change policing in Buffalo than the tepid[...]

Posted 3 years ago