Categories for DailyPost

Jun 13

2025

Feds adding migrant detention centers in Buffalo area

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U.S. immigration agencies have expanded their footprint in Western New York, detaining arrested migrants in five locations beyond the federal detention center in Batavia.  One reason for the detentions: The ICE facility in Batavia has been periodically near or over capacity in recent months and cannot house women or children, according to advocates for detainees.  In the Town of Tonawanda,  23 immigrants have been detained for the past 10 days at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection station located at 600 Colvin Woods Parkway. A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson  confirmed those detentions Wednesday. The station is in an office[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Jun 12

2025

Political profile: Garnell Whitfield

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Garnell Whitfield at his Dec. 3, 2024 ,mayoral campaign launch. Photo by Nate Peracinny. Garnell Whitfield, the former fire commissioner, has specific ideas about what he’d do if elected mayor of Buffalo — about city finances, overtime costs, the shortage of affordable housing, and a host of other issues. But those policy positions aren’t the platform on which he’s built his campaign. And he doesn’t think candidates and voters should get bogged down in debating, for example, whose plan to rescue city finances is better, or how to restructure city government. Rather, he hopes voters will measure the candidates’ characters[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Jun 11

2025

What wage theft allegations?

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For a eight time Wednesday, the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency approved subsidies for a fast food restaurateur under investigation for wage theft. And just like every other subsidy the IDA has authorized for Muhammad Shoaib over the past two years, the $48,750 grant garnered no discussion and was approved unanimously. Fast food restaurants are generally ineligible for any IDA assistance under New York law. But because Shoaib is opening many of his stores in downtown Niagara Falls, IDA leaders have allowed him to exploit a loophole that allows tax breaks and grants for retail establishments in “economically distressed” areas.[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Jun 11

2025

Political profile: Anthony Tyson-Thompson

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Mayor candidate Anthony Tyson-Thompson Anthony Tyson-Thompson is to many voters the least familiar of the five candidates running in the June 24 Democratic primary for Buffalo mayor.  He was the last candidate to join the field, skipping the party’s months-long endorsement process and announcing his candidacy in mid-April, just two weeks before nominating petitions were due. His campaign is largely self-funded, he said, and it shows. He has few campaign signs around the city, no ads and no mailers — just social media. The East Side native is also the youngest mayoral candidate, at 34, with the least experience in[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Jun 10

2025

Political profile: Rasheed Wyatt

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Rasheed Wyatt in Council chambers. There is a consistent theme in University District Council Member Rasheed Wyatt’s solutions to almost every ailment and policy question confronting Buffalo and its government. Ask the people what they want, he says.  And then do what they tell you to do. In an hour-long interview with Investigative Post, Wyatt — one of five Democrats competing in the June 24 primary for Buffalo mayor  — invoked “the people” and their wishes no fewer than a dozen times. In response to nearly every question asked, he proposed convening “a community conversation” to learn “what’s good for[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Jun 9

2025

Another alt-weekly is not in Buffalo’s future

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Alternative weekly newspapers are “alive and well,” according to the Columbia Journalism Review.  I asked Geoff Kelly, my deputy editor, to read over the story and tell me what he thinks, as he edited Buffalo’s last two alt-weeklies before joining Investigative Post. Here’s what he had to say: We should be so fortunate as those cities where alt-weeklies persist. I’ve been editor of three alt-weeklies, one in Pittsburgh and two in Buffalo. Two are long dead, and the one where I started in this business, Artvoice — which used to be a force in this town — is an online[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Jun 9

2025

Blah-blah-blah on the mayoral campaign trail

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Most everyone recognizes that fixing the city’s fiscal problems is job one for whoever is sitting in the mayor’s chair come January 1. There are, however, a lot of other issues that deserve discussion and consideration during the final weeks of the campaign, leading up to the June 24 Democratic primary. Instead, I’m hearing too much blah-blah-blah. You’d expect the daily newspaper to provide the most substantive coverage, but I’m disappointed in much of its issues-related coverage that consists of publishing written statements from the candidates rather than reported analysis. Lazy journalism. Take the issue of police reform. In its[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Jun 6

2025

Concerning contributions to Scanlon campaign

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Under city law, one of Buffalo’s largest paving contractors could have been fined and barred from bidding on lucrative contracts because of its admission to wage theft. Instead, the Common Council, despite reservations and headed by then-President Chris Scanlon, awarded D&H Paving $6.9 million in work last July.  At the time, the lawmakers expressed concern that D&H Paving was under investigation by the state Department of Labor. That probe, the state’s second into D&H, resulted in a nearly $28,000 fine and a finding that the company’s violations were “willful.” In the midst of the Council’s deliberation, the company’s owner, Michael[...]

Posted 8 months ago
Investigative Post