Articles for Geoff Kelly

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

Jan 14

2022

Board of Elections fail transparency test

When a good government group decided to test whether county election boards comply with the state’s open government laws, the first hurdle was getting someone – anyone – at those boards to answer an email or a phone call. It wasn’t easy. Last summer the New York Coalition for Open Government — a group that tracks government agencies’ compliance with freedom of information and open meetings laws — emailed 17 county election boards across the state to ask how often commissioners held meetings, whether those meetings were publicized, and whether meeting agendas and meetings were posted online. In many cases[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

City inspectors MIA

The Great Northern grain elevator on the Buffalo River has been crumbling in plain sight for 28 years. Fault the building’s owner, Archer Daniels Midland. But City Hall is also complicit. Yes, the company is at fault for not maintaining the hulking structure, but it’s been aided and abetted by City Hall. The city has inspected the building only one time since ADM purchased it in 1993. That dates all the way back to the administration of Anthony Masiello. The city can’t say it wasn’t warned. ADM, seeking to make a case for demolition, alerted the city several times over[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Dec 30

2021

One inspection of grain elevator in 28 years

Since it bought the Great Northern grain elevator in 1993, ADM Milling Co. has told city officials at least three times the iconic Ganson Street structure needs to come down. Each time, to justify its request for a demolition permit, the company has commissioned and filed with the city — and most recently with the state Supreme Court — engineering reports and affidavits outlining the building’s alleged structural deficiencies and the danger it poses to the public. And yet, city inspectors have never in those 28 years demanded the company repair the problems those reports detail. The city has never[...]

Posted 3 years ago