Jim Heaney

Jim Heaney is editor and executive director of Investigative Post. He was an investigative reporter with The Buffalo News from 1986 to 2011 and a reporter and editor with The Orlando Sentinel from 1980-86. His coverage over the years has focused on economic development, local and state government, politics, education, housing and transportation, and he was an early practitioner of computer-assisted reporting. Heaney has won more than 20 journalism awards and was a finalist for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

Jan 11

2024

No follow up to OTB ticket scandal

In the fall of 2021, state auditors criticized representatives of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. for improperly helping themselves to an estimated $121,000 in tickets for professional sports games, concerts and other shows, as well as thousands of dollars in food and drinks they consumed while taking in the action. More than two years later, a spokesperson for state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli concedes their office doesn’t know whether OTB officials have taken any action on one of the audit’s main recommendations: identify individuals who improperly received tickets and seek reimbursement. “We were not informed if WROTB sought and received reimbursements,”[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jan 8

2024

Monday Morning Read

WeeklyPost has a new look, but the some old price: free. Subscribe today. And coming Wednesday, another email newsletter, PoliticalPost, written by Geoff Kelly. Mark Sommer of The Buffalo News has been doing a really good job of bird-dogging developments involving the Kensington Expressway. At the behest of Gov. Kathy Hochul, the state Department of Transportation is pushing a project to cover a portion of the Kensington Expressway. Last week, Mark reported someone with ties to the DOT and the engineering firm in line for business if the project proceeds distributed prewritten letters of support for the work at a[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jan 1

2024

Monday Morning Read

Start out your year by subscribing, for free, to WeeklyPost. A recent op-ed in The New York Times contrasted policies in red and blue states. It noted that in states controlled by Republicans there is an ongoing assault on the rights of people to live their lives unencumbered by government. It noted the limitation GOP lawmakers have placed on everything from voting and abortion rights to what books are stocked on library shelves and curriculum taught in schools. And, of course, there’s the obsession with gay and transgender people. Taken all together, you could say that Republicans are engaged in a[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Dec 25

2023

Monday Morning Read

Merry Christmas! If you don’t already subscribe to WeeklyPost, give yourself a gift right now! Christmas has been effectively cancelled in Bethlehem. Alden Global Capital is the worst of the worst chain owners of newspapers. Here’s what they’ve done to the paper in Joe Biden’s hometown since buying it, and here’s what they’re doing to Greyhound bus stations. Yeah, there’s a connection. Lee Enterprises – owner of The Buffalo News, or what’s left of it – reported a disappointing year. The past five years haven’t been so hot, either. The current issue of The Nation, much of it focused on[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Dec 17

2023

Monday Morning Read

A subscription to WeeklyPost is free. Need I say more? Politicians have pointed to the creation of 50,000 good paying jobs to justify the massive $6.4 billion subsidy of a planned microchip factory north of Syracuse. The Syracuse Post-Standard put those claims under the microscope and found direct employment would be a lot less. A whole lot less. The biggest chunk of new workers would be government employees – great – and many others would be waiters, bus drivers and hotel and day care workers – not necessarily full-time and certainly not good paying. Mind you, a lot of direct jobs will be created.[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Dec 14

2023

‘A Crazy System’: How arbitration returns abusive guards to New York prisons

This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook. The Marshall Project is distributing this story via Investigative Post, the (Albany) Times Union and New York Focus. A guard working at a Hudson Valley prison pummeled a 19-year-old shackled by the legs to a restraint chair. An officer at a facility near the Canadian border denied food to a man in solitary confinement 13 times over a week. Outside Albany, a guard told a prisoner, “That’s how you get dumped on your fucking[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Dec 10

2023

Monday Morning Read

The Guardian published a piece that underscored just how out of step the Bills stadium project in Orchard Park is. Most owners, says Victor Matheson, an economics professor at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, “understand that having an entertainment district that generates money 365 days a year is way better than the model of a walled fortress surrounded by a moat of parking lots” that is used a handful of times a year. “NFL parking lots are about the worst possible use of real estate you can think of,” he adds. “You’d much rather have a stadium in a[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Dec 3

2023

Monday Morning Read

Monday Morning Read is fine. But you’re better off subscribing to WeeklyPost. More news, sooner. Von Miller was charged last week with assaulting the pregnant mother of their children. But the story doesn’t end there. It’s the second time Miller has been investigated for violence against a woman. Then there was the lawsuit filed against him by another woman alleging revenge porn. The charge: he shared photographs of them having sex with two celebrity friends in a “fit of jealousy, anger and rage.” The Bills signed Miller for $20 million a season to not just sack quarterbacks, but serve as a spokesman, leader and[...]

Posted 1 year ago