Categories for Featured

Feb 11

2021

Another Buffalo Billion boondoggle

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Economic development officials in Genesee County have spent more than $26 million on a massive industrial park in an “if you build it, they will come” gambit. So far, no one has come. The Genesee County Center for Economic Development not only doesn’t have any business deals to show for its decade of work, the industrial park consists of little more than empty fields.  There’s no infrastructure, aside from a six-tenths-of-a-mile road. No water service. No sewer lines. No electricity. No telecommunications. The agency has nevertheless managed to spend $26.8 million dollars, including some $13 million in Buffalo Billion funds.[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Feb 10

2021

Samsung to WNY? Unlikely.

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Samsung has economic development officials — and Sen. Chuck Schumer — dreaming big. The semiconductor giant has plans to build a $17 billion plant that would employ 1,800 and says it is considering five locations in the United States, including an undeveloped industrial park in Genesee County. Schumer has spoken directly with Samsung officials and offered federal assistance to entice Samsung to Western New York. Economic officials in Buffalo and Rochester stand ready to make their case, if they haven’t already. It seems unlikely that Samsung is coming, however.  In addition to Western New York, Samsung is weighing two sites[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jan 27

2021

Progress, at last, addressing lead poisoning

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For years, City Hall dallied in the face of  a lead poisoning epidemic among children in Buffalo’s poorest neighborhoods. City officials have finally put in place a plan being praised as a “huge step forward.” Most importantly, ordinance updates approved by the Common Council in November give inspectors, for the first time, the right to test the interiors of apartments for lead paint. It also prohibits landlords from renting contaminated units. Another improvement: loan and grant programs are being established to help landlords pay for the cost of remediating contaminated units. Shortcomings remain in the city’s approach, however. Owner-occupied rental[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 19

2020

Brown a formidable, yet vulnerable candidate

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Since 2005, Mayor Byron Brown has raised and spent more than $5 million to win and hold the mayor’s office.  He spent $1.4 million to fend off Bernie Tolbert, his Democratic primary challenger in 2013. Four years later, he spent another $1 million in his primary race against then Comptroller Mark Schroeder. As of July, however, when his campaign committee last filed a disclosure report, Brown had just $115,568 in the bank. That may sound like a lot of money — and for most Buffalonians it is — but for the four-term mayor of a medium-sized city, it is a[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 16

2020

Popular nonprofits obtained pandemic aid

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Some 1,100 local nonprofits received federal aid to soften the pandemic’s economic blow, and the list of recipients reads like a who’s who of prominent cultural, medical, religious and educational institutions.  The Chautauqua Institution and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Mercy Flight and the Erie County Medical Center. The Diocese of Buffalo and The Chapel at Crosspoint. Nichols School and Nardin Academy. Even a sovereign state, the Seneca Nation of Indians, received a $1.5 million loan under the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Nonprofits with religious affiliations received the most number of loans, 406. That’s more than one-third of the 1,080 loans extended[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 15

2020

Sliver of companies got half of pandemic aid

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A lot of businesses received forgivable loans from the federal government to help them through the pandemic. To be exact, 18,768 in the eight counties of Western New York. The loans were worth $2.2 billion, altogether. But a fraction of the companies — some 5 percent — received about half that sum.  Two businesses got the maximum $10 million loan allowed under the Paycheck Protection Program: Ferguson Electric and the Buffalo Medical Group. New Era Cap, widely criticized by public officials earlier this year for taking PPP money then laying off 117 employees, received the third-largest loan, $8.4 million. Other[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 14

2020

Doctors and lawyers cash in on pandemic aid

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The final numbers are in: the federal government poured more than $2 billion into the local economy this spring and summer in an effort to blunt the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. About 19,850 for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations in the region’s eight counties received $2.4 billion in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program. The loans, convertible to grants, ranged from $10 million to less than $1,000. As a group, no one secured more money than doctors. Other top recipients include restaurants, lawyers, car dealers, skilled nursing facilities and construction contractors. Three recipients received $10 million, the maximum allowed[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 10

2020

Tech firm leaves Buffalo students in a lurch

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After nearly two years of doubts and delays, Buffalo Public Schools is canceling a contract to provide free wireless internet to some of the district’s neediest students.  The reason: HarpData, the company the district hired to do the job, is going out of business. An attorney for HarpData, Joseph Makowski, confirmed that CEO Ivory Robinson Jr. is “winding down” the company’s operations. Staff has been laid off. The company’s offices on Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo remain under lease, Makowski said, but are closed for business. As a result, the beleaguered Connected Communities initiative — a $1.3 million project meant[...]

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post