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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.

Mar 9

2012

Weekend News Cafe

Weekends are not high traffic days for most news websites and Investigative Post did not update our first two weekends. But we’re going to experiment with something we call “Weekend News Cafe,” in which we’ll post interesting reads we’ve come across over the past week and a video or two that might prove of interest. This will be a work in progress, so let us know what you think in the comments section below or via our contact form. Just how much doo-doo is the newspaper industry in? The answer is “deep.” Consider two reports out this week. The “Economic[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 7

2012

A new tack for Central Terminal

One billion dollars opens the door to all sorts of possibilities. Consider the Central Terminal. Despite its scars, the Central Terminal might be the neatest space in Buffalo. The city’s proverbial diamond in the rough, even if the emphasis is on “rough.” Plans to revive the hulking structure have been kicked around for years, to no avail. Now comes a pitch from Larry Quinn, conveyed in an interview published Tuesday at investigativepost.org  to restore the Central Terminal and relocate the Albright-Knox Art Gallery there. I asked Quinn how he would spend the $1 billion in cash and incentives that Gov.[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 7

2012

Commenting glitch is fixed

We’ve had only a few technical difficulties during out first two weeks of publishing. Reader comments, however, were landing helter skelter. We’ve fixed the problem and are noting an uptick in submissions. Please keep ’em coming. If you encounter any type of technical problem, please let us know via e-mail.

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 5

2012

Quinn: How to spend Cuomo’s $1B

Larry Quinn, a developer and former managing partner of the Buffalo Sabres, weighed in yesterday with his thoughts on the team, Canalside and the future of HSBC bank in downtown Buffalo. Today, Quinn fields questions posed via-e-mail from Jim Heaney of Investigative Post on what ails local economic development efforts and what he thinks of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to invest $1 billion in state incentives to revitalize the region’s economy. You’ve been very critical of economic development efforts in Western New York. What’s the problem? Too many organizations and little chiefs and not much capital.  There should be one[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 4

2012

Larry Quinn on Sabres, Canalside, HSBC

To quote Frank Sinatra, Larry Quinn has “been up and down and over and out,” perhaps moreso than any public figure in Buffalo over the past generation. He’s been a boy wonder city development whiz under Jimmy Griffin and a Manhattan developer. Managing partner of the Buffalo Sabres not once but twice and now involved in an effort to build an Irish Olympic hockey program. Hailed for building the downtown arena and later working with Tom Golisano to save the team from bankruptcy. Lambasted for the departures of Pat LaFontaine and Chris Drury. Lauded as a visionary planner and reviled[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 1

2012

Hormoz Mansouri’s political contributions

Our second installment of Joe Friday involves the campaign contributions of Hormoz Mansouri, regarded as one of the largest financial backers of local and state politicians, including those in league with veteran political operative Steve Pigeon. Joe Friday tracked his contributions from 2005 to January of this year. Mansouri made a vast majority of contributions in his name; others were made by his wife and three companies he owns, EI Team, an engineer and architecture firm; HLM Holdings, a development company; and NPTS Inc., an engineering, design and consulting firm providing services to the nuclear power industry and the U.S.[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 1

2012

My take on the Fahey-Kearns contest

A fair number of elections for state office are stinkers. They’re over before they start because of lopsided party enrollments or one of the candidates, typically the one offered by the minority party as the sacrificial lamb, is clearly not up to the job. That’s not the case in the race between Chris Fahey and Mickey Kearns to succeed Mark Schroeder in the 145th Assembly District. No, folks, we have a real race with real candidates. Kind of a nice change of pace. The seat has longed belong to a Democrat, thanks to a big enrollment edge (43,200 to 20,000[...]

Posted 13 years ago
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