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.

Nov 3

2024

Buffalo’s growing remote workforce

Downtown Buffalo has been hit hard since the pandemic, with a loss of an estimated 20,000 workers. That helps to explain the rise in remote work in our region, as reported last week by Coworking Cafe. The share of people in Buffalo working from home has grown from 4.1% in 2019 to 10.7% in 2023. Our share of the remote workforce is a little below the national average of 13.8 percent. That number in neighboring Rochester is 8.8 percent. Partly as a result of fewer people commuting to work, traffic volume and congestion is down. In Buffalo, the declines were[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Oct 27

2024

Billionaire wants to buy parent company of Buffalo News

A Florida billionaire is making noises about buying Lee Enterprises, and with it, The Buffalo News. The New York Times reported last week that David Hoffmann, worth $1.6 billion, has bought 5.2 percent of Lee’s stock and wants to obtain majority interest. Hoffman told The Times that while he recognizes the newspaper industry’s trend to digital, he believes print still has a future. And he believes in local news. As The Times wrote: “He wants to preserve community news — including more local sports coverage.” The Times provided this background on the 72-year-old investor: Mr. Hoffmann is a relative newcomer to the[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Oct 15

2024

Brown resigns: Addition by subtraction

I wrote a column in December 2022 that posed the question: Is Byron Brown the worst mayor in America? It was prompted by his mishandling of the Christmas blizzard that year. But, as I noted then, it was but the latest example of his ineptitude. Things have only gotten worse since, in particular city finances. Brown, with the cooperation of an ever-compliant Common Council, first burned through $109 million in reserves the mayor inherited from the city’s state-imposed financial control board. Of late, he has used $150 million — and counting — in federal pandemic aid to cover city operating[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Oct 13

2024

WNY pols carrying Trump’s water

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia is regurgitating Donald Trump’s talking points on immigrants, essentially saying too many of them are lawless. Credit to Sandy Tan of The Buffalo News, who reported: “An overwhelming body of research indicates that immigrants, including immigrants who enter the country illegally, commit violent crimes at a much lower rate than the rest of the American population.” Perhaps the sheriff should focus his efforts on keeping prisoners in his jails alive. As we reported last month, the rate of deaths is higher under Garcia than his predecessor, Tim Howard, whose management of the jails was roundly[...]

Posted 7 months ago

Oct 8

2024

More upheaval at The Buffalo News

This has been a tough week for The Buffalo News with word that Editor Sheila Rayam has been ousted and former Publisher Warren Colville has died. Margaret Kenny Giancola, the paper’s managing editor, succeeds Rayam. The News story announcing her appointment by Lee Enterprises, the paper’s chain owner, didn’t explain the move. I’m told Lee hasn’t explained its decision to the newsroom staff, either. Rayam’s departure comes in the wake of Lee’s decision to eliminate 10 of the newsroom’s approximately 55 positions. That suggests her departure is in part a cost-cutting move. Insiders tell me Rayam, the paper’s first Black[...]

Posted 7 months ago

Oct 6

2024

They’re not knocking down their Frank Lloyd Wright

We knocked down our Frank Lloyd Wright office building nearly three-quarters of a century ago. Oklahoma still has one, although it’s not doing well, lacking an anchor tenant and up for sale after several failed revitalization efforts. An architect, writing in 1949, has this to say about the demolition of our Wright masterpiece: The Larkin Building set a precedent for many an office building we admire today and should be regarded not as an outmoded utilitarian structure but as a monument, if not to Mr. Wright’s creative imagination, to the inventiveness of American design. The destruction of all but one pillar[...]

Posted 7 months ago

Sep 30

2024

Apparently, crazy politics sells

The crazier Donald Trump gets, the more Americans lean toward the GOP. The Daily Beast just reported that an analysis of Gallop poll results found 48 percent lean Republican, vs. 45 Democratic. For perspective, back in 1992, Dems held a 52 to 40 percent edge, narrowed to 48-43 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center reported in April a dead heat among registered voters, with 49 percent leaning Democratic compared with 48 percent Republican. Pew’s benchmark year of 1994 found Republicans held a 51-47 percent edge. Pew last week reported polling results that included 88 percent of Republicans favoring[...]

Posted 7 months ago

Sep 30

2024

Unpacking Byron Brown’s move to OTB

Byron Brown is as good as gone from City Hall. It’s good for the city, given his nearly 19-year reign of error. Mayor-in waiting Chris Scanlon is an unproven commodity, but he’s got to be an improvement. But Brown getting a raise to take command of the troubled OTB certainly doesn’t represent good government. Here’s my take: Brown is making the move, as reported by J. Dale Shoemaker, for a couple of reasons, starting with money. The mayor is getting a huge bump in salary, from $178,518 to $295,000 next year and the possibility of still more in 2026 and[...]

Posted 7 months ago