Categories for Co-produced with WGRZ

Apr 30

2025

ICE seeks to deport Buffalo man over traffic tickets

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to deport a Buffalo man whose only offense appears to be traffic citations. And in a second case, ICE appears to be attempting to deport someone arrested for a crime they committed prior to entering the United States. ICE officers last week arrested West Side resident Saul Valverde-Venegas, a roofing contractor, while he was loading a work truck. For days, ICE refused to explain why. In a statement Monday evening, an ICE spokesperson described him as “unlawfully” entering the United States more than a decade ago and said he had “since acquired several vehicle[...]

Posted 4 days ago

Apr 29

2025

Neighbors say site of Allentown murders was ‘unsafe’

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Neighbors of Mickey Harmon and Jordan Celotto — the Allentown couple murdered in their home on March 4 — say the tragedy might have been averted if the building they lived in had been better maintained and secured. The couple’s landlord disputes that notion. Harmon and Celotto moved into the lower apartment at 5 St. Louis Place last September. Their upstairs neighbor, Jordan Bidwell, who lived in the property since 2021, was not was not home during the break-in, but she claimed the basement window that accused murderer Bryan Chiclana used to access the house was boarded up with a[...]

Posted 5 days ago

Jun 27

2024

Hochul, Schumer pressured regulators over STAMP

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Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part package. Our second story is here. In the drive to build a massive industrial park in rural Genesee County, the offices of Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer pressured regulators to issue approvals for the project that ran afoul of environmental laws and policies, ignoring an indigenous nation’s legal rights along the way. Investigative Post found that: Aides to Hochul pushed top officials at the state Department of Environmental Conservation to work more quickly. Schumer aides intervened with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And a string of state[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Jun 6

2024

Charters outperform urban public schools in reading

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The reading skills of young students who attend charter schools in and around Buffalo are slightly better than those attending urban public schools, an Investigative Post analysis has found. The results of 2023’s testing showed 30 percent of third through fifth grade students at the 19 charter schools tested in Erie and Niagara counties could read and write at or above grade level, according to the New York State Education Department.  That compares with 25 percent of students in the same grades in Buffalo public schools. “There’s more we want to achieve for our kids, clearly,” said Fatimah Barker, executive[...]

Posted 11 months ago

May 22

2024

Who’s running for Buffalo school board

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Three at-large seats on Buffalo’s school board will be on the ballot this November. Two incumbents, Larry Scott and Terrance Heard, are running for reelection. The other, Ann Rivera, won’t seek another five-year term. So far there are at least four other candidates, three of whom are working together to make the ballot: Ed Speidel, president of the District Parent Coordinating Council and a former co-chair of the district’s Special Education Parents Advisory Committee. He’s the parent of two current Buffalo Public Schools students. He recently held a meat raffle fundraiser at the South Buffalo Moose Lodge. Raziya Hill, founder[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 17

2024

Continuing need for mental health services

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Two years after the May 14 massacre at Tops Supermarket on Jefferson Avenue, counselors and other community advocates are calling for expanded mental health services on Buffalo’s East Side. What’s needed, they say, are more community centers serving as “safe spaces” where young people can go, as well as more mental health counseling and more funding for mental health services overall. The advocates and counselors are requesting funds be included in the 2024-25 city budget Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council are currently working on. “Traditionally, there has always been a lack of any kind of service, and I’m[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 16

2024

A lot of time (422 days) and money ($50,493.50)

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Photo illustration by Garrett Looker. Fifty-thousand, four-hundred ninety-three dollars. And fifty cents.  That’s how much a New York state agency paid an Albany law firm to review and redact records about the Tesla factory in South Buffalo before releasing them to Investigative Post. It took the agency 14 months to fulfill the Freedom of Information Law request. “I think it’s outrageous,” said Paul Wolf, president of the New York Coalition for Open Government. “It’s outrageous to spend $50,000 on an outside attorney to process one FOIL request. And this is for a project that has already received $959 million in[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Feb 23

2024

Downtown Buffalo hostel facing quick eviction

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Hostel Buffalo-Niagara at 667 Main Street in downtown Buffalo. Buffalo’s downtown hostel was notified this week that it must evacuate the Main Street building its occupied for nearly 30 years so stabilization work can begin on the hostel and an adjacent structure Initially, the hostel was given until March 1 to vacate. But by the end of  Friday, in response to concerns raised by the hostel, the city extended the deadline until March 25 – although representatives for the hostel are saying it’s still not enough time. “We feel heard for right now, but we need more and we want[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post