Categories for Featured

Jun 23

2021

Walton’s campaign outworked Brown

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The night before the Buffalo mayoral primary, India Walton’s campaign made nearly 19,000 calls to Democratic voters in the city, reminding them to vote and making the case for Walton over four-term incumbent Byron Brown. The campaign sent almost 100,000 text messages, too, while more than 150 Walton supporters stationed themselves at polling sites across the city on election day. The campaign fielded enough people, a campaign spokesperson said, to make a last-minute pitch to half the people who showed up to vote Tuesday as they walked in, and to take their temperature on the race as they left their[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 20

2021

Wealthy last-minute donors to Brown campaign

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Updated: 1:42 p.m. Maybe the race for mayor of Buffalo is tighter than most believed it would be.  Or perhaps the last-minute flurry of campaign activity by Mayor Byron Brown — who has been running a stealth campaign for the past five months — was forthcoming regardless of whatever internal polls told the four-term incumbent. Whichever the case, the Brown campaign has come alive in the last week. And big donors have poured money into the re-election effort, helping to underwrite a blitz of TV advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts as the countdown to election day approaches zero. Tuesday’s Democratic primary[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 17

2021

Erie County a dubious national leader

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 There are 3,006 counties in the United States. Only one has had more of its residents arrested for storming Capitol Hill than Erie County. Six residents of Erie have been federally charged in connection with the Jan. 6 siege, according to data from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. That’s one fewer than Franklin County, Ohio, with a population of 1.3 million that includes the state capital of  Columbus.  Tied with Erie at six defendants apiece were Los Angeles County, California, with a population about 10 times greater than Erie’s, and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. Cloee Cooper,[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 12

2021

Brown’s non-campaign campaign for mayor

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Mayor Byron Brown seems determined to act as though there’s no primary election next week.  No opponents, no contest, no question that he will cruise to an unprecedented fifth term. He’s barely bothering to raise money, nor is he spending much. There were no television or radio ad buys through the end of May, though some are coming soon, according to the mayor’s campaign finance filings. There have been few mailers and a paucity of lawn signs. Brown barely mentions the June 22 Democratic primary in public, unless compelled by reporters. He has flat-out refused to debate India Walton, his[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 2

2021

State withholding details on Tesla jobs

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The Cuomo administration is refusing to release a new report on the number of people employed at the Tesla plant built with $950 million in taxpayer funds in South Buffalo.  The Empire State Development Corp. says the report, due by May 31, was submitted, but the agency has refused to release it to Investigative Post.  Instead, ESD issued a statement indicating that Tesla now has 1,000 workers at the Gigafactory in Buffalo — 460 short of the total the company promised to create under its original agreement with the state. According to ESD, Tesla currently employs 1,600 people statewide, although[...]

Posted 4 years ago

May 20

2021

Buffalo’s abysmal school attendance

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Students missing two classes a month is a sign of trouble.  A lot of students in Buffalo schools are in a world of trouble. They’re simply not showing up for online classes. Only one-third of students had satisfactory attendance from the start of the school year until the first week of March, shortly after the district began phasing in classroom instruction.  Another third of students missed online classes often enough that their frequent absence put their academic achievement at risk — or worse. The last third were severely absent, meaning they typically missed school at least one day a week,[...]

Posted 4 years ago

May 18

2021

West Valley contamination concerns

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Contractors are in the homestretch of clearing the West Valley Demonstration Project of buildings.  Fifty-one of 55 structures have been taken down, and the most contaminated of them all — the Main Plant Processing Building — is scheduled for demolition this fall. How hot are its five stories of reinforced concrete? A trio of activists said it “could be one of the most radioactive buildings in the country.” The demolition might be welcome news, but the manner in which contractors plan to bring the building down is causing concern, even alarm, in some quarters. Plans call for an open-air demolition[...]

Posted 4 years ago

May 10

2021

Buffalo schools still reeling from hack

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How bad was the hack of the Buffalo school district’s computer system in mid-March? The paper equivalent of lost documents would fill KeyBank Center to the rafters, one source told Investigative Post. The missing records include decades of teaching materials, student records and some 5,000 applications for admission to schools in September. Systems essential to the operation of the district, such as legal and accounting, are crippled. The hack has caused minimal disruption to classroom instruction and distance learning, but it’s impacted the physical operation of school buildings. Automated functions such as operation of heating and cooling systems have been[...]

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post