Articles for J. Dale Shoemaker

Jun 12

2024

A mixed bag on IDA reform in Albany

New York State Sen. Sean Ryan. The push to reform New York’s industrial development agencies gained significant momentum this year, but not enough to net a serious win for the coalition of labor unions, teachers and good government groups backing the effort. Smaller measures, however, did make it over the finish line, including one expanding representation on IDA boards and another increasing transparency over agency projects. “The momentum is building and we’re going to continue to build that momentum,” said state Sen. Sean Ryan of Buffalo. “But the community itself is building it.” IDAs, of which there are 107 across[...]

Posted 3 months ago

May 23

2024

Harris Beach, Hodgson Russ profiting off IDAs

A meeting of the Erie County IDA board of directors. Photo by Garrett Looker. When New York’s industrial development agencies grant tax breaks, it’s not just local companies that benefit — two upstate law firms walk away with major paydays, too. Hodgson Russ and Harris Beach — based in Buffalo and the Rochester area, respectively — earn millions of dollars in fees each year, according to research from the watchdog groups Reinvent Albany and Good Jobs First. That report comes on the heels of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s annual IDA report, also released Wednesday. The comptroller’s report showed that for[...]

Posted 4 months ago

May 16

2024

A lot of time (422 days) and money ($50,493.50)

Photo illustration by Garrett Looker. Fifty-thousand, four-hundred ninety-three dollars. And fifty cents. That’s how much a New York state agency paid an Albany law firm to review and redact records about the Tesla factory in South Buffalo before releasing them to Investigative Post. It took the agency 14 months to fulfill the Freedom of Information Law request. “I think it’s outrageous,” said Paul Wolf, president of the New York Coalition for Open Government. “It’s outrageous to spend $50,000 on an outside attorney to process one FOIL request. And this is for a project that has already received $959 million in[...]

Posted 4 months ago

May 14

2024

Secretive state board gives Amazon another break

The 3 million-square-foot Amazon distribution center being built in Niagara County will not have to pay construction workers prevailing wages, a state board has ruled, despite the project receiving $137 million in tax breaks and subsidies. State law says the developer must pay prevailing wages if a private construction project costs more than $5 million and subsidies account for at least 30 percent of costs. The wage rate is set by the state Department of Labor and influenced by union pay. But the state Public Subsidy Board decided in March those rules won’t apply to the Amazon facility. Why not?[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Apr 30

2024

IDAs have ‘perverse incentive’ to issue tax breaks

The Erie County IDA earns a majority of its revenue from fees generated by approving subsidy deals. Photo by Garrett Looker. No wonder industrial development agencies across New York State dole out so many tax breaks, watchdog groups say: The more IDAs issue, the more money they make for themselves. That system creates a “perverse incentive,” the groups claim in a new report. “It just creates this horrible incentive where the IDA isn’t working for the public anymore, it’s working for its own self interest,” said Anya Gizis, a researcher at Good Jobs First and one of the report’s authors.[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Apr 25

2024

Feds revoke major permit for STAMP industrial park

Three spills of drilling fluid into protected wetlands contributed to revocation of permit. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has dealt a major blow to the developers of a massive industrial park in rural Genesee County, notifying them this week that the agency would revoke a key permit needed to construct the park’s wastewater pipeline. That pipeline in recent months has emerged as one of the most controversial components of the 1,250-acre Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park — STAMP — one of the largest industrial parks under construction in New York. It’s so far generated two lawsuits and its[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Apr 10

2024

Tesla using Chinese solar panels on Buffalo plant

The Tesla factory in South Buffalo, built to manufacture solar panels, today uses solar panels on its roof made by a competitor in China. That’s a fact state officials have reluctantly confirmed in response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by Investigative Post. Officials initially refused, claiming the identity of the manufacturer was a “trade secret,” but relented after an appeal filed under the FOI Law. Tesla has covered about one-third of the factory’s roof with panels manufactured by LONGi Green Energy Technology, a Chinese firm and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar modules. It plans[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Mar 20

2024

Is Tesla using a rival’s solar panels?

Solar panels on the Tesla factory roof. Video via WGRZ. What’s the big secret? Tesla has installed solar panels on about one-third of the roof of its plant in South Buffalo, with plans to cover the rest by the end of the year. This is not surprising. The plant, after all, was built to manufacture parts for solar panels. But one thing doesn’t add up: The solar panels on the factory roof don’t look like the solar products Tesla sells. Most notably, Tesla advertises its products as lacking the white grid lines seen on most solar panels. The panels on[...]

Posted 6 months ago