Articles for Geoff Kelly

Jun 4

2025

Sean Ryan: a political profile

State Sen. Sean Ryan at a May 30 press conference in Lafayette Square. This is the first of two stories on mayoral hopeful Sean Ryan. On Thursday we published a story on where he stands on the issues. State Sen. Sean Ryan has a long history of advancing progressive causes, both in his 14 years as a state legislator and in his prior career as an attorney. He’s championed urban highway removal, affordable housing, living wage ordinances, tax subsidy reforms and a host of other issues that reflect the priorities of the heavily Democratic districts he’s represented in Albany. Now,[...]

Posted 5 months ago

May 29

2025

More bad budgeting from Buffalo politicians

Writing about the City of Buffalo’s finances is like watching the movie Groundhog Day, but the wheel of suffering never stops turning. Before the story reaches its happy-ever-after conclusion, the film rewinds to the beginning. Again and again, year after year. The Common Council on Tuesday adopted, with few minor amendments, Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s proposed budget for the city’s upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1. The $622 million plan recycles many of the fiscal sins of the Byron Brown administration, whose specious revenue and expense projections yielded deficit after deficit — backfilled first with cash from the city’s[...]

Posted 5 months ago

May 28

2025

Police lawsuits push city budget into deficit

Buffalo City Hall. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. Settlements for police-related lawsuits continue to be a drag on Buffalo’s finances. Recent payouts threaten to create a deficit in the city’s current fiscal year that ends June 30, according to the city comptroller, at a time when the city has no reserves available to plug budget holes. Currently before the Common Council are two such settlements totaling $1.3 million. The bigger of the two is a $1.1 million to James Kistner, an East Side man who on New Year’s Day 2017 saw two police cars parked in front of a rental property[...]

Posted 6 months ago

May 21

2025

Buffalo mayoral candidates hit the airwaves

State Sen. Sean Ryan, who’s running for Buffalo mayor in the June 24 Democratic primary, released his first TV commercial two weeks ago. The ad hits the talking points Ryan has been using since he announced his candidacy in November: He’s the son of a Lackawanna teacher and a Buffalo firefighter. He became a successful housing rights attorney, then a state legislator who brought home money and projects for his districts. The city’s infrastructure and delivery of basic services have gone to pot, and he’s got the experience to put things right. State Senator Sean Ryan’s first TV ad. The[...]

Posted 6 months ago

May 19

2025

‘Hostile takeover’ of union by Granville supporters

Members of the union that represents Erie County Sheriff’s officers last Tuesday voted to provide $25,000 toward paying the lawyers representing D.J. Granville, the narcotics chief who last April plowed his county-owned pickup truck into seven parked cars on Buffalo’s West Side. But some union members are crying foul on the decision and petitioning for a second meeting to reconsider the matter. “This was an attempted hostile takeover of our PBA’s democratic process by D.J. Granville and a small group of his supporters,” said one union member, who spoke to Investigative Post on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.[...]

Posted 6 months ago

May 12

2025

Scanlon supports Benderson’s move from Buffalo to Amherst

Benderson Development wants to move its corporate headquarters — as well as those of Delta Sonic, its car wash company — to an office and warehouse complex the real-estate giant owns in Amherst. And the company wants $1.4 million in property and sales tax breaks from the Amherst Industrial Development Agency to help underwrite the $26 million relocation. Benderson’s local operations are currently housed at 570 Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo. Delta Sonic has corporate offices there, too, and in the City of Tonawanda. Surprisingly, the mayors of both cities wrote letters to the Amherst IDA in support of the tax breaks.[...]

Posted 6 months ago

May 7

2025

Buffalo’s streetlight maintenance “haphazard”

The streets of Buffalo are illuminated by more than 30,000 streetlights, the majority of them installed decades ago, according to the engineer who once oversaw the entire system. And every year the city’s 311 citizen complaint line receives hundreds of reports of damaged or missing streetlights, according to city data. And yet the city’s Department of Public Works can produce no records of the city inspecting, maintaining or replacing any streetlights in the past seven-and-a-half years. That’s according to DPW Commissioner Nate Marton, to whom Investigative Post in February directed a Freedom of Information request, seeking all documents tracking the[...]

Posted 6 months ago

May 5

2025

Control board asks Scanlon for a backup plan

The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority last week instructed Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon to produce a fallback plan should the revenue projections in his proposed budget fail to pan out. Particularly worrisome to the control board is an estimated $26.5 million Scanlon hopes to raise in the next year by selling the city’s parking ramps. The measure requires state legislation that — as of my hitting send on this newsletter, anyway — has not been approved. Control board members were concerned, too, about how much money the city would get for the ramps, and whether the sale could be completed quickly enough to[...]

Posted 6 months ago