Dec 11
2020
Since the spring, Geoff Kelly has been reporting on HarpData, the troubled tech firm awarded a contract to provide wi-fi access to thousands of Buffalo school students. On Thursday, he reported the company is going out of business, the wi-fi project unfinished. He discussed the saga Friday on NewsRadio 930WBEN.
Dec 10
2020
After nearly two years of doubts and delays, Buffalo Public Schools is canceling a contract to provide free wireless internet to some of the district’s neediest students. The reason: HarpData, the company the district hired to do the job, is going out of business. An attorney for HarpData, Joseph Makowski, confirmed that CEO Ivory Robinson Jr. is “winding down” the company’s operations. Staff has been laid off. The company’s offices on Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo remain under lease, Makowski said, but are closed for business. As a result, the beleaguered Connected Communities initiative — a $1.3 million project meant[...]
Dec 4
2020
Geoff Kelley reported earlier this week that Buffalo’s spending on police has skyrocketed under Byron Brown while funding for most other city services has shrunk when inflation is factored in. He discussed the story Friday with Brian Mazurowski on NewsRadio 930WBEN. Give a listen.
Dec 3
2020
The Buffalo Police Department’s budget has grown at three times the pace of other city services since Mayor Byron Brown took office in 2006, an increase fueled largely by the cost of health insurance and pension payments for current and retired cops. The city spends 54 percent more on police than it did 15 years ago. Meanwhile, spending across all other city departments has increased just 17 percent. That’s less than two-thirds the rate of inflation. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the city’s spending on police has effectively defunded other city services. The city spends less today than it used to on[...]
Nov 18
2020
Editor’s note: The original version of this column incorrectly reported on events related to actions by the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority involving the city’s four-year budget plan. The source of the errors: The control board, on its website, incorrectly labeled videos of special meetings held on June 16 and July 20. Investigative Post based its reporting in part on those videos, which resulted in a conflating of events. The text below has been revised accordingly. A control board spokesman said the agency was attempting to correct the errors on its website. Three times in the past five months, the city’s state-imposed[...]
Nov 2
2020
There is exactly one Buffalo cop whose past conduct has so damaged his credibility that the Erie County District Attorney’s office refuses to put him on the witness stand. His name is Joseph R. Hassett. In an April 2019 letter to Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood, DA John Flynn wrote that Hassett, 34, suffered from “irremediable problems of credibility.” As a result, Flynn wrote, he would “no longer call Officer Hassett as a witness in any pending or future criminal action.” In an arbitration proceeding that began two months later, Hassett’s employer, the City of Buffalo, sought to fire him.[...]
Oct 28
2020
Two months after an ugly altercation between bar patrons and Black Lives Matter demonstrators, M.T. Pockets remains open for business. In fact, the State Liquor Authority has just renewed the North Buffalo establishment’s liquor license for the next two years. At the same time, the authority has charged M.T. Pockets with two violations: “operating disorderly premises” and “failure to supervise.” The charges are a result of the Sept. 1 confrontation, according to Bill Crowley, an authority spokesman. The SLA opened an investigation shortly after the incident, Crowley told Investigative Post last month. At the time, Crowley said, the SLA was[...]
Oct 22
2020
Lt. Michael Delong, under suspension for his vile, misogynist insult of a West Side woman this summer, wants a transfer to head up police units that investigate sex crimes or trains rookie cops. Geoff Kelly discusses the story on NewsRadio 930WBEN.