Articles for Geoff Kelly

Sep 23

2021

Comptroller audits fault OTB

Officials at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. improperly helped themselves to tickets for sporting events and concerts, and CEO Henry Wojtaszek failed to account for personal use of his agency-assigned car, according to a pair of audits published Thursday by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The audits, which confirm reporting by Investigative Post over the last three years, criticize officials at the state-created public authority for deficient oversight. “The Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation needs to clean up its operations,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement accompanying the release of the audits. “Revenues from the OTB are supposed to[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 25

2021

Paladino disavows Brown

Carl Paladino, stung by Byron Brown’s repudiation of his support, has turned on the mayor, calling him a “mope” and saying voters should stay home on Election Day. In an interview with Investigative Post, Paladino said he was finished backing the four-term incumbent. He said he advised anyone who asked him to stay out of the race. “I got all kinds of people calling me: ‘What should we do?’” Paladino said. “I tell them, ‘Stay home, stay home.’ Let the chips fall where they may.” Paladino claimed many business people shared his opinion and were withholding financial support for Brown’s[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 16

2021

OTB whistleblower files lawsuit

The whistleblower fired by Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. filed a lawsuit last week that claims he was terminated for cooperating with state and federal investigations of his employer. Michael Nolan, OTB’s former chief operating officer, is asking a judge to award him $14.5 million for his treatment over the last two years, and to reinstate his employment, according to the suit. The filing, submitted to federal court Aug. 12, names CEO Henry Wojtaszek and OTB Board of Directors Chairman Richard Bianchi. It says the pair “swiftly, aggressively, and austerely retaliated against” Nolan for speaking with investigators and testifying before[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 28

2021

Mychajliw’s faulty campaign filing

On Monday, Erie County’s lame-duck comptroller, Stefan Mychajliw, finally submitted a July campaign finance disclosure filing to the New York State Board of Elections. There are some problems, as there often are with Mychajliw’s campaign finances. First, this filing — one of two required annually of all candidates for elected office — arrived 11 days late. Second, the filing was for the campaign committee he used to run for comptroller, when in fact he is running for supervisor of the Town of Hamburg. That’s against the law: You can’t collect money for one office and use the money to run[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 19

2021

Brown campaign still violating election law

After a delay his campaign attributed to “technical difficulties,” Mayor Byron Brown’s July campaign finance disclosure was posted to the New York State Board of Elections website on Saturday. Here’s what the filing revealed: After a flood of donations received the week before the June 22 primary, the mayor’s fundraising has been anemic compared to that of India Walton, who beat him to win the Democratic Party line in the November general election. As previously reported, Brown’s campaign continues to rely on donations from City Hall employees, patronage hires, city vendors, big real estate developers and a variety of well-to-do[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 16

2021

Surge in donations for Walton after win

Considering the odds against her, India Walton’s fundraising was pretty good prior to last month’s Democratic primary. It’s gotten a lot better since. Walton’s campaign raised nearly $178,000 in the three weeks after she beat incumbent Byron Brown in the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo, according to her campaign’s July 15 filing with the New York State Board of Elections. That’s more than she raised in the six months leading up to the June 22 election. And the total amount she raised in the current reporting period — just shy of $199,000 over the past 33 days — surpasses[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 30

2021

What the primary vote tells us

The math of Byron Brown’s loss in the June 22 Democratic primary is simple. The mayor’s traditional base of voters on the East Side stayed home, while voters on the other side of Main Street — from the Lower West Side and Allentown to the Elmwood Village — turned out in comparatively high numbers and overwhelmingly chose India Walton. The result: Walton beat the four-term incumbent by 7 percent. Ken Kruly is a political analyst for WGRZ-TV, publisher of Politics and Other Stuff and author of Money In Politics for Investigative Post. In an analysis for Investigative Post, Kruly compared Brown’s[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 29

2021

Geoff Kelly writes for The Nation

On the evening of last Tuesday’s primary election, I was reporting from Poize, a bar in Riverside where the India Walton campaign was holding a watch party. I’d just called my boss, Jim Heaney, to tell him it looked like Walton would win. A roar came from the crowd inside as another wave of ballots was reported. I checked my phone: Walton had surpassed 10,000 votes. An email popped up from the editor of The Nation: “Hey Geoff. If India Walton pulls off an upset, can you get us 1000 words by Thursday explaining how she did it—and what it[...]

Posted 4 years ago