Categories for Featured 2

Jan 16

2024

Double standard involving OTB board

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For more than a decade, the state Gaming Commission allowed political party leaders — all Republicans or Conservatives — to serve on the board of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. in violation of state law, Investigative Post has found. Then came Jennifer Hibit.  Following major reforms by state lawmakers, County Executive Mark Poloncarz last June appointed the Democratic insider to the OTB board. But late last year, the Gaming Commission gave Hibit a choice: Resign from her leadership position in the Erie County Democratic Committee or leave the OTB board. She left OTB.  Crystal Rodriguez-Dabney, a Democrat appointed by Buffalo[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Dec 6

2023

Working to boost homeownership on the East Side

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If anyone knows Buffalo’s real estate market, it’s East Side native Keith Barnes, who has been helping residents find their dream homes for more than three decades.  He’s part of a small demographic: 7.5 percent. That’s the portion of America’s 1.2 million real estate brokers and sales agents who are Black, according to Census estimates. The job gives Barnes, 53, whose Barnes Real Estate Group is located off Genesee Street, a firsthand look at how Buffalo’s housing market has changed, why its Black homeownership rate has stagnated, and what can be done. “Coming from the neighborhood, how can I make[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Nov 30

2023

City will repair building, won’t evict hostel — yet

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Hostel Buffalo-Niagara lives on. For now. Over two dozen board members and supporters of the institution attended an emergency meeting held by the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency Thursday morning to determine the future of the hostel at its current location.  The BURA board voted unanimously to approve renovations to 664 Washington St. — a building attached to the rear of the hostel, which faces Main Street — not to exceed $2 million in cost. The structure, owned by BURA since 2002, was cited earlier this year by both the city and an engineering report for posing extreme safety hazards to[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Nov 8

2023

Home ownership by Blacks in Buffalo has flatlined

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Despite a plethora of programs encouraging Blacks to purchase their own homes, the ownership rate for African-Americans in Buffalo has barely budged over the past four decades.  Where there has been growth lately, it’s come in the suburbs, according to Census data and federal mortgage loan reports. Concerns about redlining in the city persist, but Black incomes in Buffalo — pegged at about three-fifths that of whites — are largely blamed for the stagnation. “Overall, we can attribute the lower Black homeownership rate to the racial wealth gap,” said Buffalo State University associate professor Jason Knight, coordinator of the school’s[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 16

2023

Heaney discusses iPost, journalism and democracy

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Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney was the guest Sunday morning on on ​​Sree’s Sunday #NYTReadalong. Guest host Neil Parekh interviewed Heaney on the work of Investigative Post, the rise of nonprofit news sites, the legacy of retired Washington Post Editor Marty Baron and the threat posed to democracy by the decline of daily newspapers. “Government that’s not watched is going to drift towards self-interest, corruption and other malfeasance,” Heaney said. The interview portion of the program begins at 14:50, following Parekh’s overview of  the Sunday edition of The New York Times, and picks up again at 1:20:23.

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 2

2023

An oasis near a book desert

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Editor’s note: This is the second  installment of an occasional series we’re calling “East Side Stories.” We examine issues that affect the residents of the East Side, told through the lens of people working to address the problem. Companion stories will air on Channel 2. Today, we focus on literacy and a Jefferson Avenue bookstore serving the community. In a small storefront on Jefferson Avenue, Sharon and Kenneth Holley have turned their love of books into a neighborhood literary center. Zawadi Books is the only general interest bookstore on the city’s East Side. There you’ll find find both rare and[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 31

2023

IDA tax breaks cost schools millions

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 Editor’s note: This is the first of two stories on industrial development agencies. Tomorrow, we report on “perverse incentives” and other shortcomings in IDA programs. Any time Susan McGee’s children want to join an activity outside of the classroom — be it sports, music or other extracurriculars — it means one thing: a fundraiser. Raising money for extracurriculars may seem routine for a small, struggling Rust Belt city like Dunkirk, where McGee’s children attend school. But there’s another factor at play: The Dunkirk City School District loses out on an average of $5 million in revenue every year thanks[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 22

2023

Podcast: iPost reporting on Michael Joseph

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Two weeks ago, Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly reported on allegations of “racist and illegal practices” by one of the region’s biggest real estate development and management firms. In a federal lawsuit, a former employee accused the company of racially profiling communities where it was thinking of building senior housing complexes.  Clover executives were caught on audio discussing the practice, using the code word “Canadians” to refer to Black people and “the Canadian factor” to describe the company’s reluctance to build in communities where the population was more than 20 percent Black. We followed with a profile of Clover’s civically and[...]

Posted 2 years ago
Investigative Post