Articles for Geoff Kelly

Feb 16

2022

Fire station burning up City Hall budget

The City of Buffalo plans to build a palace of a new fire station in South Buffalo, judging from its price tag. Over the last several years, the city has approved borrowing about $9 million to replace Station No. 6 at the corner of Seneca Street and Southside Parkway. The station houses two trucks, Engine 25 and Ladder 10, and the department’s 6th Battalion. The 62-year-old building definitely needs replacing. It’s a wreck. But $9 million (“… and counting,” says a City Hall source) is more than double the cost of the last new fire station the city built in[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Feb 12

2022

Giambra tests run for State Senate

It looks like Joel Giambra, the former Erie County executive, is once again kicking the tires on a run for elected office. This time the Democrat-turned-Republican seems to have his eyes on the 60th District State Senate seat, currently occupied by Democrat Sean Ryan. Last week a poll began popping up on the cell phones of likely voters in the district, one of whom shared the link with Investigative Post. The poll begins with a handful of questions meant to determine where on the political spectrum the respondent resides: Is New York State headed in the right or wrong direction?[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Feb 10

2022

Hochul donors hiding behind LLCs

Gov. Kathy Hochul was New York’s most successful political fundraiser last year, according to campaign finance disclosures filed last month with the state elections board. Her campaign committee raked in $21.6 million in just five months. But Hochul’s campaign “flouted the law,” according to an analysis by New York Focus, by failing to identify the owners of 130 limited liability companies, or LLCs, that gave money to her committee. Since 2019, candidates running for office have been required to identify the owners of LLCs that donate to their campaigns. An LLC’s donation is divided among the owners; each owner’s share[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Feb 3

2022

Stadium benefits campaign goes public

A coalition that wants a community benefits agreement attached to public subsidies for a new Buffalo Bills stadium has taken their campaign public, after months of quiet organizing. The coalition held a press conference Tuesday morning at Johnnie B. Wiley stadium on the city’s East Side — the old Rockpile, the original home of the Bills. The speakers included community activist Karima Amin, Tanvier Peart and Miles Gresham of Partnership for the Public Good, Bridge Rauch of Buffalo Transit Riders United, and Dr. Myron Glick, the founder and CEO of Jericho Road Community Health Center. The coalition wants a legally[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 31

2022

Councilmen violating campaign finance law

Three of Buffalo’s Common Council members are behind on filing campaign finance disclosure statements, the latest of which was due Jan. 18. Or, rather, they were behind. When Investigative Post started asking about their missing filings last week, at least two of them began trying to catch up. When we checked the state election board’s online records shortly after the Jan. 18 deadline, we found two city legislators — Rasheed Wyatt and Ulysees Wingo — hadn’t filed since 2019. That was the last year Buffalo Council members were on the ballot. A third, David Rivera, hadn’t filed since July 2020.[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 28

2022

CBA proponents here seeking first win

Third in a three-part series. Western New York has never adopted a community benefits agreement the likes of which is being proposed for a new Buffalo Bills stadium. Twice, coalitions of community groups and elected officials have tried to attach CBAs to big, taxpayer-funded development projects in Buffalo. Those efforts — the first for Canalside, the second for the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus — yielded mixed results: Both campaigns coaxed concessions from developers, but neither yielded the kind of legally binding agreement that has become common in other communities across the country over the past 20 years. Now, many of[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 27

2022

Linking community benefits to a Bills stadium

This is the second of a three-day series in our continuing in-depth coverage of issues related to a proposed stadium for the Buffalo Bills. Erie County Legislature Chair April Baskin doesn’t concern herself with whether a new Buffalo Bills stadium will be built in Buffalo or Orchard Park. She’s not particularly worried about its cost. What matters most, Baskin told Investigative Post, is what the community gets in exchange for the taxpayer dollars the team’s owners want from the state and county. Pegula Sports and Entertainment has made it clear the team expects significant public subsidies — as much as[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 25

2022

How a stadium can benefit the community

This is the first of a three-day series in our continuing in-depth coverage of issues related to a proposed stadium for the Buffalo Bills. Before the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers broke ground last summer on a new arena, the team’s owners, elected officials and civic groups made certain the $1.8 billion project would benefit the entire community. In September 2020, the parties signed a community benefits agreement, or CBA, that outlined who would get jobs and contracts during and after construction, how much those jobs would pay, what the project would look like, and how the city and its residents[...]

Posted 3 years ago