Categories for DailyPost

Aug 13

2024

Summer fun drops student reading scores

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Students board a school bus outside of Buffalo’s Waterfront Elementary. Photo by Garrett Looker. Educators call it the “summer slide.” In the spring of 2023, almost 41 percent of Buffalo students in kindergarten through third grade were reading at — or above — grade level. But when those students returned to school in the fall — as first through fourth graders — some of their reading skills had fallen: 34.5 percent reached their benchmark. The 6-point drop is the summer slide, a few points steeper than the typical loss in recent years. And, an Investigative Post analysis found, it primarily[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Aug 12

2024

Free speech may not be as popular as the Buffalo Bills

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Mark Sommer of The Buffalo News has a good read on a new policy imposed by the Chautauqua Institute that stifles demonstrations, apparently out of fear that protesters  advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza might show up at their gated community. (No one has.)  Some folks are OK with the move, others are not, accusing the institute of betraying its  self-proclaimed support of democracy and free speech. On one hand, the move is kind of surprising, given Chautauqua’s reputation.  Then again, a lot of Democrats, including big city mayors who cracked down on Gaza demonstrators on college campuses this spring,[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Aug 9

2024

Infographic: Fatal crashes in Buffalo-Niagara

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For a while, traffic fatalies were dropping – locally and nationally. Then came the pandemic. Traffic deaths went up. In some communities, including Erie and Niagara counties, they stayed up, even once COVID cooled down. Motor vehicle crashes in Erie and Niagara counties killed 683 people in the 10-year period from 2013 to 2022, with victims including motorists, passengers, bicyclists and pedestrians. In 2022, the most recent year finalized data is available, there were 78 fatal accidents, killing 88 people in Erie and Niagara counties. (Preliminary data indicates fatal accidents remained high in Erie County in 2023,  but dropped in[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Aug 8

2024

City pulls back on “amusements” fee

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The Town Ballroom on Main Street. Photo by Garrett Looker. The City of Buffalo has backed off from a plan to tax music and other entertainment venues for every event for which they charge admission. Investigative Post last week broke the story about the city’s effort to collect an “amusements fee” described in an obscure and unevenly applied section of the city code. Music club owners and managers two weeks ago began receiving letters from the city’s Department of Permit & Inspection Services “reminding” them of their obligation to pay the fee — which few of them had previously heard[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Aug 7

2024

GOP no-shows in Cheektowaga

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All three of Cheektowaga’s Republican town board members skipped a special meeting Monday night, denying a quorum to the board’s other three members, all Democrats.  The meeting was meant to be brief: The only agenda item was to set public hearings on a proposal to divide the town into six wards, each with its own representative on the board. Currently board members are elected in town-wide elections, but a formal complaint last year challenged that system, alleging it disenfranchised minority voters in violation of a state law enacted in 2022. More than one-fifth of the town’s 88,000 residents are minorities,[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Aug 6

2024

Judge orders ‘House from Hell’ demolished

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149 Arkansas St., slated for demolition. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. The “House from Hell” will soon be a pile of rubble. Following years of neighborhood complaints, Housing Court Judge Patrick Carney has issued a demolition order for 149 Arkansas St. — a run-down, vacant house used by squatters and drug users, where two dead bodies were found in 2022.  Carney also slapped owner Kwayo Ithe Bonkuka with a $10,500 fine. “I have had Council reports, block club reports. They’re still screaming,” Carney said of the property’s many complainants. Carney issued the demolition order after building inspector Sean Myers testified during[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Aug 5

2024

DOT plays gotcha on the Scajaquada Expressway

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The Scajaquada Expressway isn’t a toll road. Not technically.  But the state Department of Transportation has turned it into a moneymaker by surreptitiously installing speed detection cameras under the guise that a stretch of the roadway is a construction zone. As a result, DOT has been issuing a lot of speeding tickets – in the thousands, by the department’s own admission – to motorists. WKBW first reported on the situation, here and here, followed by The Buffalo News.  As The News reported: Patrick Freeman, a retired police officer who spent 30 years on SUNY Buffalo State University’s force, has filed[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Aug 2

2024

OTB chairman rescinds Pledge of Allegiance demand

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OTB Chairman Dennis Bassett. Photo by Garrett Looker. The chairman of the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. has backed off his demand that those attending board meetings recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  Dennis Bassett chastised an Investigative Post reporter after OTB’s last board meeting on July 25, contending he wasn’t effusive enough in reciting the pledge. “Why can’t you put your hand on your heart and recite the Pledge?” Bassett said to the reporter after the meeting. “Because if you can’t do that, I would like for you not to be in here when the Pledge is recited. You’re insulting[...]

Posted 9 months ago
Investigative Post