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.
Aug 31
2015
Susan Arbetter of Capitol Pressroom interviewed Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney on Monday regarding transparency and the Buffalo Billion. The 9 minute, 19 second interview runs from 13:10 to 22:29. The Capitol Pressroom broadcasts on National Public Radio affiliates as well as non-profit community stations across New York State and is produced in association with WCNY, which is based in Syracuse.
Aug 20
2015
Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney fields questions from WBEN News Radio regarding SolarCity and plans to open a large solar panel manufacturing plant at Riverbend in South Buffalo. Heaney discussed SolarCity’s mounting financial losses and described the project as “high risk, high reward.”
Jul 28
2015
I interrupt the state’s incessant stonewalling of my efforts to use public records to track the Buffalo Billion program to report some progress. Cuomo administration officials, for more than a year, refused to release documents related to the selection of LPCiminelli to develop SolarCity’s sprawling plant in South Buffalo. The SUNY Research Foundation and the Fort Schuyler Management Corp. went to great lengths to thwart my efforts to obtain records under the state Freedom of Information Law, as I documented in December. Alain Kaloyeros and his associates at Fort Schuyler wouldn’t budge when the state Committee on Open Government issued[...]
Jun 24
2015
Demone Smith’s long history of violating the state elections law hasn’t stopped Mayor Byron Brown from appointing him to a key position in his cabinet. Smith, majority leader of the Common Council and a political ally of the mayor, starts next week as executive director of the Buffalo Employment and Training Center. The center matches employers with city and county residents seeking jobs. Over the past decade, Smith has failed to file campaign disclosure reports on time 28 times. That’s prompted the state Board of Elections to impose seven penalties, five of which remain unpaid. Smith owes $3,382 in penalties.[...]
Jun 22
2015
Editors note: A version of the following story published this past weekend in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Albany Times Union, Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, and Poughkeepsie Journal. The accompanying video was co-produced with WGRZ. Editorials calling for greater transparency in the program were subsequently published by the Democrat & Chronicle and Times Union. The Buffalo Billion program championed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a bold and costly experiment in economic development that is beset by secrecy and politics, and banking on a company with a history of losing money. The program — hailed in Buffalo but resented across much of the rest of New[...]
Jun 17
2015
Construction of the massive $750 million solar panel manufacturing plant is approaching the half-way point and SolarCity is starting to hire in anticipation of a phase in of operations early next year. Meanwhile, the company is losing record amounts of money, its stock price is languishing and federal investigators continue to look at some of its past dealings out of state. New York officials, for their part, continue to thwart efforts to open the SolarCity project to public scrutiny.
Jun 12
2015
New York Post political columnist Fred Dicker interviews Jim Heaney on Investigative Post’s ongoing battle to obtain records related to the Buffalo Billion program. Heaney described the foot dragging and stonewalling by several state development corporations. The 8 minute, 45 second interview was broadcast June 9 on Talk 1300 in Albany. Dicker previously interviewed Heaney in December.
May 19
2015
Investigative Post has sued a state development corporation so intent on withholding records involving the Buffalo Billion program that a leading state official likened efforts to obtain them under the Freedom of Information Law to an act of terrorism. Investigative Post has asked the State Supreme Court to rule on whether the Fort Schuyler Management Corp. is subject to the state FOI Law. WGRZ and the Gannett Company are helping to finance the lawsuit that was filed Monday in Albany. Fort Schuyler is managing the construction of three facilities that will house SolarCity, IBM and Albany Molecular Research Inc., which have been[...]