Articles for Geoff Kelly

Mar 29

2022

State lawmakers object to Bills stadium deal

New York state Assemblyman Ron Kim did not hold back on Tuesday when asked for his thoughts on the plan to commit $1.13 billion in public funds to help the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills build a new $1.4 billion stadium in Orchard Park. Tempering enthusiasm expressed on Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul and other advocates for the project, the Bronx Democrat described the Bills stadium proposal as “one giant scam” that he predicts will be a “horrible” deal for New York State. “The process of how we got here speaks volume of where we are in the state[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 23

2022

Ex-con councilman turned pot lobbyist

A decade ago, former Ellicott District Common Council Member Brian C. Davis pled guilty to stealing $48,237 in anti-poverty funds from the city. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and ordered to pay restitution. Davis served his time. But he hasn’t finished paying back what he stole, according to a March 2021 court filing. Happily, at least for the taxpayers he still owes, Davis has a new gig that might help him settle the bill: as a lobbyist for a proposed South Buffalo marijuana farm run by the southern California-based son of a politically wired[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 22

2022

Lucrative no-bid deal for Brown donor

For the last three years, Buffalo’s comptroller has been asking Mayor Byron Brown’s administration to justify a $1 million, no-bid contract awarded to developer William Huntress. Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams’s office has twice audited the current lease for the city’s records storage facility, given to Huntress’s Acquest Development in 2018. Both times, according to the comptroller, the Brown administration has failed to document its decision to forgo legally required competitive bidding procedures. “Documentation of the transaction should be sufficient to assure compliance with the applicable laws and policies, which require the best value is chosen,” the comptroller reported in its first[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 15

2022

Brown cited for election law violations

Last August, Peter Rizzo sent the state elections board a detailed analysis alleging Mayor Byron Brown had violated a number of campaign finance laws. First, Rizzo wrote, the mayor’s campaign failed to identify the individual owners of limited liability corporations, as required by state law. Rizzo identified “more than 100 campaign contributions from limited liability companies during the current election cycle” which were improperly documented. Second, Rizzo said, the mayor’s campaign accepted more money from several individuals and corporations than the law allowed. These over-contributions were in some cases obfuscated by other filing failures and violations, Rizzo wrote. His complaint[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 14

2022

A step backwards on police accountability

Last summer, the state Legislature peeled away exemptions to the state’s Freedom of Information Law that made it difficult for the public to obtain video recorded on officers’ body cameras and related evidence. Awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature now — during “Sunshine Week” — is a bill making “technical corrections” to that measure. In fact, transparency advocates say, the bill on Hochul’s desk will eviscerate it. “This is a disaster for holding police accountable and for New York State’s Freedom of Information Law,” lawyer-journalist James S. Henry of Sag Harbor, one of the backers of the 2021 police accountability law,[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 10

2022

More OTB reforms in state legislature

Another state lawmaker wants to cut the perks for Off-Track Betting officials in Western New York. Assemblywoman Monica Wallace, D-Lancaster, has introduced legislation that would stop any OTB board member from receiving any benefits, including health insurance, not authorized under state law. Her bill would also require regional OTB offices to file annual reports with the state gaming commission that itemize the purchase and use of any promotional item — including sporting event or concert tickets — valued at more than $50. While the measures would cover all five regional OTB operations in New York, they are clearly targeted to[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 8

2022

Who is Congresswoman Claudia Tenney?

Redistricting will make U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney’s 22nd District more friendly to a Democratic Party challenger. So the Utica native — who won squeakers in 2016 and 2020, and lost to Democrat Anthony Brindisi in 2018 — is looking west. Tenney, 61, will run this year in the 23rd District, currently represented by Republican Tom Reed, who is retiring after being accused of sexual misconduct. The 22nd District Tenney represents now runs through the middle of the state, from the eastern end of Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border, including Utica, Rome, Cortland and Binghamton. The new 23rd District, like[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 3

2022

City Hall light on lawyers

Newly appointed Corporation Counsel Cavette Chambers began her tenure as the city’s chief lawyer by asking for more money to pay outside firms to represent the city in court. On Feb. 17, Chambers emailed a formal request for the law department’s $3.2 million budget to be topped up with an extra $300,000 for “outside counsel, court-ordered judgments, transcripts and other legal costs.” The money was necessary, she wrote, for the department to handle its bills and its caseload “through the remainder of the fiscal year,” which ends June 30. The budget line Chambers names is for “Legal Services.” In the[...]

Posted 3 years ago