Articles for Geoff Kelly

May 7

2025

Buffalo’s streetlight maintenance “haphazard”

The streets of Buffalo are illuminated by more than 30,000 streetlights, the majority of them installed decades ago, according to the engineer who once oversaw the entire system. And every year the city’s 311 citizen complaint line receives hundreds of reports of damaged or missing streetlights, according to city data. And yet the city’s Department of Public Works can produce no records of the city inspecting, maintaining or replacing any streetlights in the past seven-and-a-half years. That’s according to DPW Commissioner Nate Marton, to whom Investigative Post in February directed a Freedom of Information request, seeking all documents tracking the[...]

Posted 1 month ago

May 5

2025

Control board asks Scanlon for a backup plan

The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority last week instructed Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon to produce a fallback plan should the revenue projections in his proposed budget fail to pan out. Particularly worrisome to the control board is an estimated $26.5 million Scanlon hopes to raise in the next year by selling the city’s parking ramps. The measure requires state legislation that — as of my hitting send on this newsletter, anyway — has not been approved. Control board members were concerned, too, about how much money the city would get for the ramps, and whether the sale could be completed quickly enough to[...]

Posted 1 month ago

May 1

2025

Prison nurses face choice between patients, abusive guards

Illustration by Dion MBD for The Marshall Project. When New York corrections officers attack prisoners in infirmaries — as has happened dozens of times in the past 15 years — it is nurses who must document and treat the resulting injuries. Their choices can save lives or cover up abuse. A prisoner at Green Haven Correctional Facility, in the Hudson Valley, accused a nurse of medically clearing him to be sent to solitary confinement to cover up a beating by guards that left him with life-threatening injuries: a punctured lung, broken ribs and a fractured hand. By contrast, at nearby[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Apr 30

2025

In some state prisons, infirmaries dens of hidden violence

Guards beating Robert Brooks in an infirmary at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9, 2024. Brooks died the next day. Photo: New York State Attorney General’s Office. The guards carried Robert Brooks into the infirmary face down, holding him by his cuffed hands and ankles. Once inside a private exam room at Marcy Correctional Facility, near Syracuse, New York, on Dec. 9, officers beat and choked him while nurses lingered in the hall. Brooks died the next day at a nearby hospital. Lawyers for the Brooks family say the guards intentionally took him to the infirmary because it lacked cameras[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Apr 28

2025

A Buffalo mayoral poll, plus city budget news

There was a poll out in the field last week gauging Buffalo voters’ opinions of two Democratic candidates for mayor and the campaign messages they’ve been testing out against one another. I took the survey on my landline at home last Tuesday evening. I took what felt like an abbreviated version of the same poll by text the next day. Six Democrats have qualified to run in the June primary, but the poll focused squarely on two of them: Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon and state Sen. Sean Ryan, who has the Democratic endorsement for the June primary. Two Democrats on[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Apr 24

2025

Scanlon disputes Kleinhans “privatization” meeting

Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon didn’t like our story on discussions he’s had about offloading maintenance costs for city-owned cultural venues such as Kleinhans Music Hall, Shea’s Performing Arts Center and the Buffalo Zoo. Scanlon Thursday morning put out a statement calling the report “inaccurate, misleading and irresponsible.” He took particular issue with our reporting that he’d discussed “the potential of ‘privatizing’ or ‘selling’ Kleinhans Music Hall.” “In fact, there was not and will not be any talk about selling city-owned cultural facilities as long as I’m mayor,” he wrote. Here’s a screenshot of the acting mayor’s full statement. It was[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 21

2025

Who’ll make the primary ballot?

Attorney Jessica Kulpit is a lock to be elected to an Erie County Court judgeship this November. There are two county judgeships on the ballot this fall and, as is so often the case around here, exactly the same number of candidates to choose from. Kulpit and incumbent James Bargnesi — both Democrats — will appear on the Democratic, Republican, Conservative and Working Families party lines. The cross-endorsement deal between parties also ensures the reelection of incumbent Erie County Family Court Judge Brenda Freedman, a Republican who will have the Democratic and Conservative lines, as well as that of her[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 14

2025

Granville update, plus other Monday morning reads

The Buffalo Police Department has put five officers on administrative leave as it continues to investigate the department’s response to the incident last April in which Erie County Sheriff Narcotics Chief D.J. Granville hit seven parked cars in his county-owned pickup truck. Police also, on the day the statute of limitations was set to expire, issued citations to Granville for leaving the scene of an accident. One of the five officers suspended is Lt. Lucia Esquilin, Granville’s sister-in-law, who responded to the scene and signed off on reports related to the incident. The other four were Police Officers Brittany Bartels,[...]

Posted 2 months ago