Categories for Broadcast on WBFO

May 17

2018

Rare, costly benefit for Buffalo school retirees

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Most retired employees of the Buffalo school district receive a benefit not enjoyed by their counterparts in suburban school districts – lifetime health insurance. And not just any old health insurance, but about the best money can buy. This coverage, provided to an average of about 4,200 retirees, including teachers and administrators, doesn’t come cheap. The bill for the budget year that is winding down is a projected $66 million. That’s more than the $64 million the district is spending on health insurance for active employees. One parent leader criticized the spending in light of the district’s subpar graduation rate.[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 8

2018

Pegula back fracking – and violating regulations

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COUDERSPORT – Terry Pegula cashed in when he sold the bulk of his hydrofracking business in 2010 for $4.7 billion. He used a chunk of the change to buy Buffalo’s two major league teams, and made it clear when he purchased the Sabres that he was in it for the sports, not the money. “If I want to make some money, I’ll go drill another well,” he quipped at a press conference. Pegula is, in fact, drilling other wells. He started another fracking company – JKLM Energy, drawing on the first letters of his children’s names – and has been[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 1

2018

Safety practices ignored in Lehner’s drowning

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If training practices elsewhere are any indicator, the Buffalo Police Department had no business sending Officer Craig Lehner into the rapid currents of the Niagara River last October. Depending on the agency, trainees for swift water diving elsewhere typically start out in water moving somewhere between 1 and 4 knots, or under 5 miles per hour. But the Niagara River on the day Lehner trained – and drowned – was moving at a much faster clip – between 8 and 12 knots, or up to nearly 14 miles per hour. Records obtained from the U.S. Coast Guard show that some divers[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Mar 14

2018

Porat discusses police drowning on Press Pass

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Daniela Porat walks Jay Moran of WBFO through her reporting on her recent story about the drowning death of Officer Craig Lehner while on a training dive with the Buffalo Police Department’s Underwater Recovery Team.

Posted 6 years ago

Feb 19

2018

IBM Buffalo Billion project fails to deliver

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Among a string of investments in untested companies, the $55 million grant to bring IBM to town seemed like one of the safest bets of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion program. IBM’s new Buffalo location was an obvious choice, too, when the state was looking for a company capable of handling a multi-million dollar contract to provide customer support for state agencies’ IT needs. But, so far, IBM’s Buffalo office has been mired in dysfunction and disappointment. Far from bringing “cutting-edge software development jobs” to Buffalo, as the governor promised, most of the employees here work call center jobs as[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Feb 13

2018

Training, equipment deficient in police drowning

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The rapid-moving and debris-filled water of the Niagara River was unfamiliar territory to Officer Craig Lehner. His previous dives were in relatively calm and contained waters like the Buffalo River and the clear, warm Caribbean where he got his scuba certification. Last October, Lehner was training with the Buffalo Police’s Underwater Recovery Team in the Niagara River, the first time the team had trained there in over a year. While the team’s commander, Detective Leo McGrath, has more than thirty years of diving experience, he is not certified to teach public safety diving. Underwater, Lehner lacked the equipment to verbally[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Jan 30

2018

Telvock discusses Wheatfield landfill on WBFO

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Investigative Post’s environmental reporter Dan Telvock joins Press Pass this week to discuss the latest developments in the state’s investigation of  a toxic landfill in Wheatfield.    

Posted 6 years ago
Investigative Post

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