Categories for Co-produced with WGRZ

Apr 6

2018

Staffing shakeup at IBM Buffalo Billion project

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Until recently, staffing agency Career Connection Inc. was the largest employer at IBM’s Buffalo office. But, last week, CEO Jessica Killgore told employees – including roughly 85 in Buffalo – they would be abruptly transferred to other companies, also IBM subcontractors. The move followed “a series of painful business challenges and unfavorable events encountered during the last two years,” Killgore wrote in an email to staff last Monday. “We feel it is imperative to take extreme action.” Gov. Cuomo lured IBM to town with $55 million from the Buffalo Billion. In exchange, state officials promised, the company would create 500[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Apr 5

2018

Neighbors contest bid to expand Niagara landfill

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A hazardous waste facility in the Town of Porter with a history of spills and regulatory violations is seeking state permission to construct a new landfill, which one nearby resident has decried as “insanity.” CWM Chemical Services is one of only a handful of hazardous waste facilities in the Rust Belt. Before CWM ran out of space in 2015, it accepted toxic materials such as PCBs, lead and asbestos, from industrial plants, brownfields and Superfund sites across the United States and Canada. The company has tried for over a decade to obtain a permit to construct another landfill on their[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Apr 2

2018

Judge shutters a neighborhood nuisance

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A State Supreme Court judge has at least temporarily shut down Battaglia Demolition, long a plague on the Seneca Babcock neighborhood. The plant, located about one mile south of downtown, crushes and otherwise processes concrete, bricks, asphalt and other construction and demolition debris. Residents have long complained that the plant and trucks that service it are the source of dust, noise – even rats. Two years ago the state filed suit against the plant owner, Peter Battaglia, contending the facility was a “public nuisance” and lacked necessary permits. On Monday, Judge Deborah Chimes issued an injunction that ordered the plant closed until[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Mar 30

2018

UB students rally to demand divestment

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Dozens of University at Buffalo students rallied Thursday, calling for the university’s foundation to divest from fossil fuels. UB has positioned itself as a leader on green initiatives, even as the private and technically separate UB foundation has invested in funds that back fracking companies, according to documents leaked as part of the Paradise Papers, Investigative Post reported last year.  The Fossil Free UB campaign, which organized the protest, has earned support from the representative bodies for both both the faculty and professional staff, as well as student government. In response to the divestment campaign, the foundation has said it is “actively looking”[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Mar 27

2018

Blueprint issued for combatting lead poisoning

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 The City of Buffalo needs to empower inspectors to get inside houses to determine whether they are contaminated with chipped or flaking lead paint, a report issued Tuesday said. While noting steps the city and Erie County have taken in recent years, the 102-page report by CGR Inc., a Rochester-based consulting firm, declared that defeating “lead poisoning will require much more from local government and the entire community.” The report included 17 recommendations, the most important ones addressing the need for stepped-up inspections of residential properties. As it now stands, inspectors are not guaranteed entry to test interiors for[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Mar 22

2018

No job search for Buffalo police commissioner

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 Mayor Byron Brown didn’t search for job applicants or interview any candidates other than Byron Lockwood before he nominated him to succeed Daniel Derenda as police commissioner in February. Selecting a police commissioner without conducting a job search is not standard practice for large municipalities. Other cities take their candidate hunts national by posting on professional police association job forums, like the one provided by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. In towns like Amherst and Cheektowaga, applicants take a civil service exam and only the three top-scoring candidates are considered for the position by the town boards.[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Feb 28

2018

Landfill expansion faces community opposition

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 CWM Chemical Services, the only commercial hazardous waste landfill in the northeast, wants to expand its operations in the Niagara County Town of Porter.  The new landfill would be large enough to fill 1,200 Olympic sized pools with toxic materials contaminated with PCBs, lead and asbestos and other hazardous waste. If a state panel approves the application, as many as 220 trucks a day would rumble past homes and the Lewiston-Porter Schools for up to three more decades. The application process is moving forward despite public dissent and CWM’s history of spills and environmental violations, an Investigative Post analysis of state and[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Feb 28

2018

State audit challenges UB Foundation spending

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The University at Buffalo Foundation spent almost $40,000 on questionable entertainment expenses, operated for three years under an expired contract with the campus, and lacks policies to ensure contracts are competitively bid, according to an audit released yesterday by the state comptroller’s office. The foundation also paid the salaries of two retired university staff members who returned to state employment, while they were also collecting state pensions – allowing them to circumvent state caps on “double-dipping,” the report found.   The private UB Foundation is technically separate from the public university, but has long faced pressure to be more transparent[...]

Posted 7 years ago
Investigative Post