Categories for DailyPost

Dec 23

2025

Subsidies, nonprofits reduce Buffalo taxes by $20M

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The Delaware North building, recipient of major tax breaks. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. The City of Buffalo last fiscal year missed out on $20 million in revenue due to a variety of property tax exemptions and abatements, according to a recently released audit. That’s the biggest loss the city has recorded since it began tabulating the figure in 2017, city financial audits show. For a city facing a current-year deficit that could be as high as $54 million, the uncollected property tax is “obviously a concern,” said Benjamin Swanekamp, who will be Ryan’s deputy mayor overseeing tax and finance[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Dec 22

2025

The many costs of proposed data center

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There’s a lot to not like about data centers. They consume a lot of energy, and oftentimes water, and usually demand a lot of public subsidies. All to fuel the operations — and profits — of the likes of Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta. J. Dale Shoemaker reported last week about a new proposal to build a massive data center at the STAMP industrial park in Genesee County, located midway between Buffalo and Rochester. How massive?  There’s its physical size: 38 football fields. And its energy consumption: 500 megawatts. That’s enough electricity to power practically every residence in Erie County.[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Dec 19

2025

The case for public financing of nonprofit news media

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This story originally published Dec. 19. It has since been updated and now includes an interview conducted by BronxNet, a public access channel based in New York City, with Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney. Last June, CNN broadcast a live performance of Good Night and Good Luck, the Broadway play about legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow, who called out and stared down the red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy. Following the broadcast, Anderson Cooper interviewed Scott Pelley, correspondent for 60 Minutes, who at one point declared: “You cannot have democracy without journalism.” There’s a lot less journalism being practiced these days and[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Dec 17

2025

STAMP data center could jack up power bills

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A national builder is once again proposing to construct a massive data center at Genesee County’s STAMP industrial park, one that would use so much electricity that it could drive up costs for residential and commercial consumers.  The data center’s power demands could also hamstring efforts to recruit other businesses to the industrial park, which has struggled to attract tenants despite a state investment of $100 million. A proposal filed with Genesee County officials on Friday from Stream Data Centers for a 2.2-million-square-foot facility states it would require some 500 megawatts of electricity — 83 percent of all power that[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 16

2025

Transcript: Buffalo Mayor-elect Sean Ryan interview

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  Buffalo Mayor-elect Sean Ryan sat for an interview on Dec. 12 with Investigative Post’s Jim Heaney and Geoff Kelly before a live audience at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. In the course of the 85-minute interview, Ryan responded to questions about a host of issues:  Balancing the city’s finances in the short and long term. Shaking up the culture of the city’s police department. Investing in quality, affordable housing, especially in East Side neighborhoods. Revitalizing downtown through event programming and infrastructure improvements. Improving educational outcomes by lifting kids out of poverty. Taking a lead role in the Kensington and[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 16

2025

Q&A: Buffalo’s incoming Mayor Sean Ryan

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Sean Ryan, Buffalo’s mayor-elect, said in an interview Friday evening that he’s inheriting a City Hall that’s been “hollowed out” by poor management, with a “demoralized” workforce. Before a live audience at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Ryan described vacant offices, a lack of communication within and between departments, unspent state grant money, and deferred maintenance of city infrastructure. And, naturally, the incoming mayor talked about the city’s dire financial straits: a structural budget imbalance of at least $50 million, no savings left to cover shortfalls, and escalating costs — especially overtime — exacerbated by stagnant revenues. “We’ve sort of[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 15

2025

Survey: A lot of Bills fans are plowed at home games

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We’re closing in on Christmas, so I’ll start out a little less heavy than usual. A survey of fans attending NFL games found that Bills fans drink more than almost any fan base. Just shy of 16 percent of fans have at least five alcoholic beverages before and/or during games.  Put another way: Some 11,400 fans are plastered for games. Tailgating has something to do with it. Six in Ten Bills fans drink before they enter the stadium, according to the survey. Only the Arizona Cardinals had a higher percentage of fans boozing it up (18.5 percent) than the Bills[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 13

2025

Vote for your favorite story of 2025

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Our best story of 2025? You tell us. Our ballot listing 10 stories is posted below. They’ve been selected from about 230 stories our staff produced this year, in addition to 50 or so appearances we’ve made on Michael Wooten’s 5:30 Voices newscast on WKBW 7 News. Dale Shoemaker has three stories up for consideration, including his piece on U.S. customs officials holding families with children in makeshift cells for up to two weeks at local border crossings. Other stories of Dale’s on the ballot involve allegations of wage theft at restaurants in Niagara Falls and curiously timed campaign contributions[...]

Posted 2 months ago
Investigative Post