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 3
2012
Central Park Plaza opened in 1958, started going downhill in the 1980s and shuttered the last of its stores last summer. City inspectors repeatedly cited the plaza for violations, triggering a state probe and a subsequent agreement by its owners to sell the 27 acre parcel east of Amherst and Main streets. Blight in the plaza and adjacent neighborhood feed off each other, as this Investigative Post photo essay shows.
Apr 2
2012
After a couple of editions about political contributions, we decided to mix things up a bit, so Joe Friday this week deals with the change in population characteristics in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area between 2000 and 2010, according to the Census. Two trends jump out: The drop off in population is most pronounced among school-aged children and there’s a dramatic increase in the number of college graduates. Here are the facts: Population as a whole is down 34,402, or 3 percent, We’re still over 1 million, at 1,135,509. We’re older, with median age climbing from 38 to 40.6. Why[...]
Mar 30
2012
Toles the blogger You call know Tom Toles the editorial cartoonist. Tom, a member of the Investigative Post board of directors, also blogs for the Washington Post. Which is to say, he’s a busy guy. Tom’s blog post on Friday takes on what he sees as the right wing’s end game. The time bomb is about to go off. Over the years the conservative movement has generated a whirlwind of wacky, but it has had its ruthless sober side as well. That ruthless sober side has had a plan. Actually the plan has more or less been complete for some[...]
Mar 27
2012
It seems local IDAs still haven’t come across a hotel subsidy deal they don’t like. The Amherst IDA in January approved $1.9 million in tax breaks for a hotel and retail shops on Main Street in Williamsville that Carl Paladino plans to develop on the former site of Stereo Advantage. On Monday, the Erie County Industrial Development Agency voted to grant $275,000 in tax breaks to the Millennium Hotel adjacent to Walden Galleria in Cheektowaga. Benderson Development recently announced plans for a hotel in the former Donovan state office building it is redeveloping at Canalside. They’ll no doubt be asking[...]
Mar 26
2012
A reader forwarded a post from the Daily Kos that lays out all sorts of interesting voting patterns in the New York’s reconfigured Congressional districts that underscore just how amazing Kathy Hochul’s victory was last year in the old 26th District and how difficult a repeat performance will be in the new 27th. Press accounts have reported the edge in Republican enrollment has inched up from 6 percent over the Democrats in the old 26th to 7 percent in the new 27th. Not all that much movement and hardly insurmountable, given that Republicans do not hold a plurality. But then[...]
Mar 26
2012
Mar 26
2012
There’s the matter of an almost certain GOP primary, but the announcement over the weekend by Chris Collins that he is running for the 27th Congressional District leads to inevitable speculation about a general election showdown with Kathy Hochul. Conventional wisdom holds that the Republican holds a distinct advantage because of party enrollment figures. While precise numbers are hard to pin down, it appears enrolled Republican will outnumber Democrats by about 7 percent in a district that spans portions of eight counties. Two Republicans have announced for the seat, Collins and decorated war veteran David Bellavia of Batavia. A third[...]
Mar 23
2012
The NYPD, people of color and the Buffalo connection Reports that New York City police have been spying on Muslims in the Buffalo area – without notifying the feds – fits a pattern that is coming under increasing criticism. The NYPA has an aggressive stop-and-frisk policy in NYC that targets men of color. Reports The New York Times: The Police Department has said that it conducted a record 684,330 stops last year, and that 87 percent of those stopped were black or Hispanic. One target wrote about his experience of being stopped five times by the police: These experiences changed[...]