Categories for Co-produced with WGRZ

Feb 24

2021

Pandemic has hollowed out downtown Buffalo

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Empty offices. Empty restaurants. Empty parking ramps. Empty downtown. “I’ve never seen downtown Buffalo so empty in all the years I’ve been here,” said Mike Schmand, executive director of Buffalo Place, who has worked for the organization since 1982.  The numbers are bleak.  Schmand estimates one-third of the downtown workforce is working remotely. Metro Rail trips have declined by 35 percent. Revenue at city parking facilities has dropped 39 percent over the final six months of 2020 and is expected to remain below pre-COVID levels through at least the first half of this year.  Widespread vaccinations may offer a fresh[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Feb 11

2021

Another Buffalo Billion boondoggle

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Economic development officials in Genesee County have spent more than $26 million on a massive industrial park in an “if you build it, they will come” gambit. So far, no one has come. The Genesee County Center for Economic Development not only doesn’t have any business deals to show for its decade of work, the industrial park consists of little more than empty fields.  There’s no infrastructure, aside from a six-tenths-of-a-mile road. No water service. No sewer lines. No electricity. No telecommunications. The agency has nevertheless managed to spend $26.8 million dollars, including some $13 million in Buffalo Billion funds.[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Feb 10

2021

Samsung to WNY? Unlikely.

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Samsung has economic development officials — and Sen. Chuck Schumer — dreaming big. The semiconductor giant has plans to build a $17 billion plant that would employ 1,800 and says it is considering five locations in the United States, including an undeveloped industrial park in Genesee County. Schumer has spoken directly with Samsung officials and offered federal assistance to entice Samsung to Western New York. Economic officials in Buffalo and Rochester stand ready to make their case, if they haven’t already. It seems unlikely that Samsung is coming, however.  In addition to Western New York, Samsung is weighing two sites[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Dec 21

2020

Fired OTB whistleblower claims retaliation

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The Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. has fired its second-in-command, a whistleblower assisting federal and state agencies investigating the organization. Michael Nolan, OTB’s chief operating officer, was notified of his termination Dec. 18 when he showed up to work, according to his attorney, Steve Cohen. His dismissal is the culmination of two years of harassment Nolan suffered for cooperating with investigators, Cohen said.  “Michael was in favor with everybody, and then, when he began answering questions honestly, as he is required to do, he was stepped on, he was squashed,” Cohen told Investigative Post. Daniel Oliverio, an attorney who is[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Dec 15

2020

Sliver of companies got half of pandemic aid

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A lot of businesses received forgivable loans from the federal government to help them through the pandemic. To be exact, 18,768 in the eight counties of Western New York. The loans were worth $2.2 billion, altogether. But a fraction of the companies — some 5 percent — received about half that sum.  Two businesses got the maximum $10 million loan allowed under the Paycheck Protection Program: Ferguson Electric and the Buffalo Medical Group. New Era Cap, widely criticized by public officials earlier this year for taking PPP money then laying off 117 employees, received the third-largest loan, $8.4 million. Other[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 27

2020

Heaney discusses WNY campaign donations

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Michael Wooten of WGRZ interviewed Editor Jim Heaney about Investigative Post’s reporting that identified the largest donors from Western New York to the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Joseph Biden. Trump’s donors were featured in a ‘Money In Politics’ post Monday. Biden’s were published Tuesday. The posts are accompanied by a podcast featuring Heaney and Ken Kruly, who produces Money In Politics.

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 16

2020

He shoved a cop and got away with it – maybe

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Back in June, acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Mark Grisanti shoved a Buffalo cop as police attempted to sort out an altercation between the judge and his wife, Maria Grisanti, and some neighbors. Police body-camera video, obtained and published earlier this week by Law360.com, has drawn considerable media attention. In the video, Maria Grisanti stomps about screaming obscenities at her neighbors and the cops. An officer tackles and cuffs her, prompting the judge — his t-shirt torn and hanging around his waist — to run across the street and try to wrestle the officer away from his wife.[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 14

2020

Saturday’s shooting wasn’t Buffalo cop’s first

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Karl Schultz, identified in press reports as the police officer who shot Willie Henley Saturday afternoon, has pulled the trigger on a civilian at least once before. In 2012, Schultz fired multiple shots at 17-year-old Wilson Morales on the city’s East Side. One of the bullets he fired left Morales paralyzed for life.  The City of Buffalo settled a lawsuit with Morales in February for $4.5 million, the largest settlement of its kind in the city’s history. Schultz’s disciplinary history landed him on a list of officers, provided to Investigative Post by the Buffalo Police Department, investigated by Internal Affairs frequently[...]

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post

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