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.

Apr 11

2023

Yet another Bills stadium disappointment

Last year, Investigative Post reported on community benefit agreements involving the construction of big league stadiums and arenas. CBAs involve teams and/or the developers of their venues pledging money for community projects in exchange for the tax dollars they receive to help finance their facilities. The process used here to negotiate a CBA for the Bills stadium was unusual. Instead of the Bills negotiating with members of the community, the bargaining was restricted to politicians and their staffs. Taking it a step further, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz insisted that negotiators sign non-disclosure agreements, which forbade not only any public[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Apr 10

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll get the following post – and more – in you inbox Sunday mornings. Pat Garofalo of Boondoggle offers insight as to why local journalism is suffering. From New York Focus: Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing for changes that would allow for more greenhouse gas emissions while fossil fuel companies pull out the stops in an effort to derail her push towards electrification. Does the governor know if she’s coming or going? Opportunity Zones, the latest incarnation of enterprise zones, haven’t benefited the low-income neighborhoods they’re supposed to help, according to research rounded up by Reinvent Albany. Elon Musk Watch: Tesla is found[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 27

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe here and you’ll receive WeeklyPost in your inbox first thing Sunday. If you’ve ever wanted to dish on your former employer’s bad behavior to Investigative Post, but couldn’t because you signed a non-disparagement clause, the National Labor Relations Board has delivered good news. In guidance issued this week, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said that any non-disparagement clause not “narrowly-tailored” will no longer hold up legally. Vice has a good breakdown here. In other words, our tip line is wide open. You can submit tips here, or via email at investigativepost@proton.me. Chrissy Casilio, aka CrissyCaBoom, said much of her right wing rants on[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 22

2023

Heaney discusses Bills stadium on ‘Pressroom

David Lombardo interviewed Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney on the latest developments on the Buffalo Bills stadium on The Capitol Pressroom. His remarks drew on the reporting of J. Dale Shoemaker and Mark Scheer. Heaney explained how the project has come up short – costly to taxpayers, remotely located and not designed to meet the green standards common to other NFL stadiums built in the past decade. There’s also the matter of a lease that doesn’t necessarily bind the team to Buffalo for the long-run.

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 19

2023

Monday Morning Read

What wait until Monday? You can read WeeklyPost on Sunday morning, delivered free to your inbox. Subscribe here. ChrissieCaBoom stopped dodging the media long enough last week to talk with Charlie Specht of The Buffalo News about her off-the-wall posts on Twitter – the ones she later deleted because she’s all about, well, “accountability,” in her words. The GOP candidate for Erie County executive didn’t exactly make a convincing case, saying at one point she was simply trying to game the platform’s algorithms. Yeah, right. Chrissy Casilio-Bluhm was responding to reporting from Investigative Post and WNYMedia.net. Her endorsement by the[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 12

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and receive our weekly newsletter in your inbox Sunday mornings. Tim Howard’s management of the county’s two jails was a nightmare; more than 30 prisoner deaths during his tenure attests to that. There’s a new sheriff in town, in the person of John Garcia, but it appears it’s business as usual. The Buffalo News had to go to court to obtain video footage of Correctional Officer Daniel Piwowarczyka kicking a handcuffed prisoner in the head. Garcia tried to block release claiming – get this – he wanted to protect the privacy of the prisoner. The story pointed out that no[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 5

2023

Monday Morning Read

WeeklyPost is a free newsletter emailed to subscribers Sunday mornings. It includes a recap of Investigative Post’s reporting from the previous week and a sampling of stories from other news outlets that caught Jim Heaney’s eye. (See below.) Subscribe here. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to increase the state’s already generous tax credits for film and television production has generated a lot of controversy. The City, a nonprofit based in NYC, takes a look at the issue in a good piece of reporting. A second Hochul-supported subsidy, this one for horse racing at Belmont Park, is the subject of a New York Post story.[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 2

2023

The latest Buffalo News woes

Lee Enterprises, the parent company of The Buffalo News, has filed its overdue annual financial report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Its failure to meet a filing deadline, due to what Lee said was its failure to “maintain effective internal control over financial reporting,” prompted a threat in December from the Nasdaq Stock Market to delist the company. That would mean no more stock sales for the publicly traded company. So it’s good news that Lee has finally complied. There’s not a lot of good news in its 10-K report, however, certainly not enough to allay fears about what’s[...]

Posted 2 years ago