Articles for Geoff Kelly

Aug 23

2022

Just how rich is Carl Paladino?

Carl Paladino, who says he’ll be “a voice for the people” in Congress, waited until the Friday before election day to tell voters how rich he is. Spoiler alert: He’s very rich. Paladino’s income was at least $4.5 million last year, according to a personal financial disclosure he filed last Friday with the U.S. House Ethics Committee. The outer limit of his income was seven times greater. In addition, he listed assets worth as much as $86 million. The Republican real-estate developer was a month late in filing the disclosure statement, required of all candidates running for federal office.[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Aug 17

2022

Police union pressing to suppress records

Buffalo’s police union is making headway in its efforts to put a lid on the release of officers’ disciplinary records. Last Friday, lawyers for the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association filed a lawsuit against the City of Buffalo, asking a judge to order the city to honor an arbitrator’s decision curtailing the public’s right to learn about allegations of police misconduct. If successful, the lawsuit would require the city to destroy all records of a misconduct complaint against an officer unless the department’s Internal Affairs Division finds the officer guilty. That would eliminate records of almost all complaints and the investigations[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Aug 8

2022

City ethics board out of business

Last September, 140 people signed a formal complaint filed with Buffalo’s Board of Ethics. The complaint alleged city workers, including police officers, were campaigning for Mayor Byron Brown on city time, using city resources. Almost a year later, there has been no response — not even an acknowledgement the complaint was received. Little wonder, as it turns out: The ethics board hasn’t met in two and half years. According to the Office of the City Clerk, the ethics board — charged with monitoring compliance with the city’s code of ethics — hasn’t met since Covid struck, “due to lack of[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 31

2022

Feds investigate City Hall (again)

Federal investigators are looking into allegations that City of Buffalo employees, including police officers, broke federal law last year while campaigning for Mayor Byron Brown. Investigative Post acquired two emails last week concerning the investigation. The first, dated June 12 of this year, is a formal complaint to the U.S Office of Special Counsel, alleging “officers of the Buffalo Police Department … appear to have engaged in political activity while on duty or while represented as police officers.” The second, dated July 11, is an email from a law clerk at the Office of Special Counsel to the author of[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 27

2022

Byron Brown’s campaign debts

Mayor Byron Brown’s campaign committee owes vendors more than $185,000 for goods and services they provided to his re-election effort last year. That’s according to the committee’s latest filing with the state Board of Elections, which covers all financial activity between Jan. 15 and July 11. Brown for Buffalo owes more than three times as much as it has cash on hand, according to that report. It owes more than four times what the mayor reported raising over the past six months. The mayor’s campaign committee lists the debts as “outstanding liabilities/loans,” but most appear to be unpaid invoices. According[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 20

2022

Hardwick demands answers from OTB

For the first time, one of the governments that owns the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. is demanding answers about the agency’s management practices and business dealings. Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick sent two letters this week to Henry Wojtaszek, OTB’s president and CEO. One letter posed a series of questions about the agency’s practice of providing top-shelf health insurance to board members, despite repeated warnings that doing so is impermissible. It’s a subject Investigative Post has covered extensively, in more than two dozen stories published over four years. Hardwick’s other letter raised questions about OTB’s sale of land to[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 19

2022

Council adopts new district lines

On Tuesday, Buffalo’s Common Council voted unanimously to adopt a redistricting plan that community groups and activists have spent the past two months trying to stop. The new district maps comprise an amended version of a redistricting plan unveiled in May by a citizens commission whose members were appointed by the Council and Mayor Byron Brown. The plan — which largely leaves intact the gerrymandering of a decade ago — will now be sent to Brown. The mayor must hold a public hearing on the matter. He then can approve or veto the plan, or allow it to pass into[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 11

2022

City Hall puts off day of financial reckoning

The COVID pandemic has been very good for the City of Buffalo’s finances. Pandemic relief funds from the federal American Rescue Plan have been a tremendous boon. You can see that money at work right now in city streets and parks. It’s going to help pay for water and sewer projects, as well as micro-loans to small businesses and the expansion of broadband internet access. It helped keep poor city residents in their homes. Most important for city government has been revenue replacement money — cash the federal government sent to make up for revenue the city claims it lost[...]

Posted 3 years ago