Categories for DailyPost

Oct 7

2025

Pushing again for lead inspections in Buffalo

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From left: Matthew Parham, Daniel Corbitt, Sarah Wooton, Dawn Wells-Clyburn and Alex Fehrman Updated Monday at 4:49 p.m.  A group of tenants and community organizations on Tuesday appealed the dismissal of a lawsuit that sought more vigorous enforcement of a City of Buffalo program aimed at lead hazards in rental housing. The Partnership for the Public Good along with three other organizations and four tenants filed a lawsuit last July  in State Supreme Court against the city. The lawsuit alleged that the Department of Permits and Inspections was failing to provide a clean and healthful environment for its residents by[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 6

2025

The beginning of the end of the Buffalo News’ print edition

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The Buffalo News announced Friday that it will stop printing a Monday edition starting Nov. 3. It’s part of an industry trend, with some dailies publishing print editions as infrequently as three days a week. The News’ print circulation continues to spiral downward. Paid circulation has dwindled to an average of 23,792 according to the annual publisher’s statement filed in June with the United States Postal Service. Digital subscriptions were 67,430. The numbers pale in comparison with peak print circulation in the 1990s of over 300,000 daily and 400,000 on Sundays. Why eliminate the Monday edition? It’s one of the[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 3

2025

Overcrowding rampant at ICE facility in Batavia

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J. Dale Shoemaker summarizes the story. The ICE detention center in Batavia is bursting at the seams. Data obtained by Investigative Post shows an average of 727 migrants have been held at the 650-bed facility daily since early June. “We’ve heard reports of people sleeping on the floor of the gymnasium of the facility, given only individual workout mats to sleep on, not even mattresses,” said Aaron Krupp, regional coordinator for Justice for Migrant Families, an advocacy group that works with detainees. In mid-August, the number of people held in the detention center peaked at nearly 800. The count dropped[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 2

2025

Judge faults Buffalo cops in overturning jury verdict

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Excerpt from Dean Taylor’s Nov. 8, 2019, interview with Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division. Two weeks ago state Supreme Court Judge John DelMonte did a rare thing.  He overturned a jury’s verdict clearing two Buffalo cops accused in a civil suit of assaulting a man who was using his phone to take video of a crime scene. The case dates back to Sept. 1, 2019. Police were investigating a report of shots fired near the corner of Kehr and Fougeron streets on the city’s East Side. Dean Taylor, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, stood on the sidewalk across the street[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Sep 30

2025

Buffalo’s Housing Court: Fewer fines, lax collections

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The City of Buffalo over the past six years has failed to collect $6.5 million in Housing Court fines that could help to address the city’s budget deficits.  Since January 2020, Housing Court judges have issued $7,024,200 in fines, according to data Investigative Post obtained from the New York State Office of Court Administration. The city has collected $481,500, or 8.5 percent of the fines issued. And between 2017 and 2019, the city failed to collect another $6.8 million in Housing Court fines, according to city records. That’s more than $13 million the city has left on the table over[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Sep 29

2025

MAGA’s media takeover

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Donald Trump’s efforts to suppress First Amendment rights — Jimmy Kimmel being the most obvious example — are only part of the picture. Perhaps even more ominous are efforts by Trump-aligned billionaires to buy media outlets. It’s already started with the purchase of CBS’ parent company by a conglomerate controlled by the son of Larry Ellison, the 81-year-old tech oligarch who is a generous campaign contributor and advocate of the type of Big Brother surveillance society imposed by the Chinese government on its people. Reports Oligarch Watch on Larry Ellison: “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Sep 24

2025

Wojtaszek’s wife, a judge, berates OTB employee

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Niagara County Judge Caroline Wojtaszek. Photo courtesy of The Niagara-Gazette. Niagara County Judge Caroline Wojtaszek has been accused of “verbally accosting” an employee of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. who was critical of her husband’s tenure when he was head of the agency. The employee, who spoke to Investigative Post on the condition she not be named, was one of four women who wrote a letter to the OTB board saying Henry Wojtaszek’s time as president and CEO was “filled with lawsuits, negative press, nasty and vindictive leaders.” The four women who signed the letter — all longtime employees in[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Sep 23

2025

Resistance mounts to Wojtaszek’s OTB return

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Henry Wojtaszek, former OTB president and CEO. Photo by Dale Shoemaker. Henry Wojtaszek’s first meeting as a director of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. isn’t even in the books yet, but his return to the agency he once ran is already facing resistance. The latest salvo is a Sept. 18 letter from Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Assembly Member Jonathan Rivera to the New York State Gaming Commission, urging that body to withhold a gaming license from Wojtaszek. His tenure at OTB, the lawmakers wrote, was “marred by labor violations, harassment settlements, fiscal mismanagement, and investigations,” meaning Wojtaszek “is,[...]

Posted 4 months ago
Investigative Post