Articles for Geoff Kelly

May 9

2024

Tom Bauerle’s family feud

WBEN talk radio host Tom Bauerle’s siblings claim in a lawsuit that the right-wing pundit cheated them out of their share of their late mother’s nearly $1 million estate. The lawsuit, filed May 3, alleges that Bauerle moved in with his mother, Dorothy, during the last two months of her life. Dorothy Bauerle died March 6. During that period, his siblings claim, Bauerle convinced their mother — “through duress, undue influence, fraud, and exploitation of [her] infirmity” — to make himself her principal beneficiary. They claim that prior to their brother’s “fraudulent and wrongful conduct,” their mother intended the three[...]

Posted 1 year ago

May 3

2024

Buffalo’s precarious budget

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown struck a pragmatic tone Wednesday as he introduced his budget proposal for the coming year, which is balanced with a 9 percent hike in property taxes and nearly $15 million in reserve funds. The mayor’s $618 million spending proposal, however, suffers from some of the same unrealistic revenue projections that led to shortfalls in the past, before the city’s treasury was bursting with federal pandemic aid to conceal the difference. Consider just three revenue sources the Brown administration has frequently overestimated in past budget cycles: parking meters, parking tickets, and traffic fines. Parking meters are forecast[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Apr 30

2024

Buffalo tax hike coming

This column was excerpted from Investigative Post’s weekly “PoliticalPost” newsletter. Subscribe here and get “PoliticalPost” in your inbox every Wednesday morning. How much more will Buffalo property owners pay in taxes in the coming year? Much will be revealed when Mayor Byron Brown unveils his budget proposal Wednesday during his State of the City speech at Shea’s 710 Theatre. But we know a tax hike will be part of the bargain. The mayor and the Common Council for months have been discussing it as an inevitability, given that federal pandemic aid, which has kept the city’s precarious finances above water[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Apr 18

2024

Stefan Mychajliw, beat reporter

Editor’s Note: Today, we’re sharing Geoff Kelly’s weekly Political Post for everyone to read. If you’d like to receive it every week, sign up at the bottom of this newsletter. Last week I reported that Stefan Mychajliw is part of a slate of Republican committee candidates looking to take control of the party apparatus in Elma, where the former county comptroller moved a year-and-a-half ago. Mychajliw has been making his living as a political operative since leaving office at the end of 2021, including a stint as a flack for Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s now-defunct presidential campaign. The former TV news reporter’s new career[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Apr 12

2024

Challengers target party committee seats

Stefan Mychajliw is running for a GOP committee seat in Elma. June’s primary elections look to be pretty subdued in Erie County, at least at the top of the ballot, where candidates vie for the more familiar offices — primarily state legislature seats this year. Instead the action this year is down ballot, deep in the trenches, where battles are brewing among Democrats and Republicans seeking party committee seats. Committee members — two representing each election district for two-year terms — choose their party’s leadership, from the chair to the treasurer. They also have a say in their party’s endorsement[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Apr 2

2024

Clover Management settles with ex-employee

Michael Joseph, a major Democratic donor whose development firm specializes in senior housing complexes, has settled a lawsuit brought by a former employee who accused the company of racially discriminatory business practices. An order dismissing the case was filed in federal court on April 1. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed. The plaintiff, Peter Rizzo, claimed in his lawsuit that the Clover Group refused to consider areas with significant Black populations for its senior housing projects. Rizzo recorded Clover Group executives using coded language to describe their reluctance to build in Black neighborhoods, referring to Black people[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Mar 28

2024

Town boards behaving badly

Last week we reported that Cheektowaga’s Republican legislators had blocked routine borrowing to fund road and sewer repairs in the town this summer. This week they did it again. At Tuesday night’s meeting, the board’s three Democrats tried to get three bond resolutions approved — $2.25 million to repave and repair town roads, $5.5 million to improve drainage on those roadways, and $500,000 for sewer repairs. The board’s three Republicans voted no and the bond resolutions failed. In a statement Wednesday, Town Supervisor Brian Nowak, a Democrat, said the borrowing was meant to pay for “bridge repair, sewer replacement, a[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Mar 22

2024

Bad politics, bad roads in Cheektowaga

This column was adopted from Investigative Post’s weekly “PoliticalPost” newsletter. Subscribe here and get “Political Post” in your inbox every Wednesday morning. Partisan dysfunction continues on the Cheektowaga Town Board. Last week the board’s Republicans blocked two resolutions authorizing the town to borrow money to pay for annual road and sewer work. The first bond resolution was for up to $2.25 million to repave and repair town roads; the second was for up to $5.5 million to improve drainage on those roadways. Such resolutions used to be routine. They still are in most towns and cities. But Cheektowaga is special this[...]

Posted 1 year ago