Investigative Post

A federal grand jury is investigating possible corruption at the Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp. Sources told Investigative Post and the Niagara Gazette the grand jury is looking into issues previously reported by the two news organizations, including the: Provision of free health insurance to the board’s part-time board members. Awarding of vendor contracts […]

 The Buffalo Police Department is getting closer to obtaining professional accreditation from the state, according to police representatives who spoke Tuesday at the Common Council’s Police Oversight Committee.   As Investigative Post reported last year, the City Charter requires the police to maintain professional accreditation, a good housekeeping stamp of approval that ensures departments […]

Want to know if your local waterway is fouled by sewage after a heavy storm? New York has a law for that, but the Department of Environmental Conservation isn’t enforcing it, Dan Telvock of Investigative Post reports in the current edition of City & State. Telvock writes: Seventeen months after the legislation was enacted, New […]

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is investing $750 million of taxpayer funds and the hopes of a community desperate for an economic recovery in a company that is losing money, weathering two federal investigations and facing, by its own admission, an uncertain economic future. To hear Cuomo tell it, the construction of a solar panel manufacturing plant […]

Gov. Andrew Cuomo last fall pledged $225 million to build and equip a clean energy hub along Buffalo’s waterfront. It was good enough for Silevo, a solar panel manufacturer, and Soraa, the makers of high-efficiency light bulbs. It apparently isn’t good enough for SolarCity, however, which bought Silevo in June. Cuomo has subsequently suggested it’s […]

Jim Heaney, in his latest column for City & State, provides his take on the reform agenda being advanced by the new majority on the Board of Education. Heaney, who formerly covered Buffalo schools in the 1990s when he was a reporter for The Buffalo News, said he’s struck by the majority’s top priority: contract […]

Jim Heaney makes his debut as a columnist for City & State this week with a piece that puts Buffalo’s improved economy in perspective. Heaney notes a great and growing divide between “the haves and have-nots.” Yes, there is the psychological boost thanks to the Buffalo Billion initiative, and construction cranes denote progress at Canalside […]

Do state lawmakers pocket campaign contributions for personal use? The Moreland Commission, charged with investigating corruption in state government, was asking that question before Gov. Andrew Cuomo disbanded the panel in March. A couple dozen state legislators were on the commission’s radar screen because their campaign finance disclosure reports didn’t document some expenses or failed to […]