Categories for Featured

Sep 12

2018

Council presses mayor’s staff on fair housing

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 The Common Council has asked the Brown administration to account for its enforcement of – or, failure to enforce – the city’s fair housing law. Last week, the Council asked for a report on the city’s handling of housing discrimination complaints over the past three years. At a brief appearance before a Council committee Tuesday, Harold Cardwell, the city’s fair housing officer, agreed to provide that report within 30 days. The Council’s request, initiated by President Darius Pridgen, came after Investigative Post reported in July that City Hall has largely failed to enforce the fair housing law. The law[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Sep 12

2018

A looming threat to the Niagara River

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Researchers are concerned that climate change could be helping to lay the groundwork for an eventual collapse of the Niagara River’s ecosystem. Populations of the Emerald Shiner, a minnow that serves as the foundation of the river’s food chain, have been cut drastically this summer. Researchers worry that as the region heats up, this could become the new norm. The Emerald Shiner is the primary source of food for many of the larger sporting fish in the Niagara River, such as bass, trout and walleye. Birds also feast on both the minnows and the larger fish that eat them. Because[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Aug 22

2018

Buffalo’s roadblock to reform

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A lot of issues scream for reform in Albany: ethics, campaign finance, cash bail. But nothing rivals state contracting practices, not in the wake of the corruption convictions of Alain Kaloyeros and three developers who contributed heavily to Andrew Cuomo’s gubernatorial campaign, including Lou Ciminelli of Buffalo. Yet here we are, 21 months after the indictments, two months after the convictions, with no reform. Yes, Cuomo has proposed a handful of changes, but they satisfy practically no one. Meanwhile, a trio of bills sit stalled in the Assembly, a victim of Speaker Carl Heastie’s willingness to appease the governor by[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Aug 6

2018

Sara Jerving joins Investigative Post staff

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Sara Jerving, who has reported from over a dozen countries and been published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, has joined the staff of Investigative Post. Jerving will primarily cover environmental issues. “I have long been passionate about environmental reporting and I’m excited to join Investigative Post, which has a strong record of producing quality environmental coverage,” said Jerving. Jerving most recently worked in Nairobi, Kenya, for Devex, a U.S.-based publication, where she covered health, agriculture, climate change and humanitarian disasters. She previously worked as an associate producer at Vice News Tonight on HBO[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Aug 1

2018

Council considers action on fair housing law

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Buffalo’s fair housing law is supposed to prevent landlords from refusing to rent to someone simply because they rely on government assistance – like a Section 8 voucher – to help pay their rent. But that law, introduced in 2006, has gone largely unenforced, despite the more than two dozen discrimination complaints, most of them substantiated by undercover testing, that have been filed with the city. Last week, members of the Common Council said they would consider taking steps to ensure the law is enforced. “If we find out something is not being enforced or something is not staffed, it[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Jul 23

2018

Another ‘Billion project falling short on jobs

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It was one of the first Buffalo Billion projects announced: a $50 million state investment in drug discovery company Albany Molecular Research Inc. which, Gov. Cuomo promised, would yield almost 200 spinoff jobs. Five years on, there’s little evidence those jobs have materialized. AMRI was responsible for creating only 55 jobs, a goal the company met earlier this year. The partner companies whose jobs the state had been counting towards the project’s overall goal of 25o jobs appear to employ only a few dozen people, rather than the 195 anticipated. And only a handful of those jobs seem to be directly[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Jul 12

2018

Buffalo Billion verdicts warrant further action

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Alain Kaloyeros has been known as many things during his career. Dr. K. Near genius. Nanotech guru. And as of Thursday, convicted criminal. Ditto for Lou Ciminelli. Civic leader. Power broker. Philanthropist. And yes, convicted felon. Down the list of defendants we go. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. And, at the risk of repeating myself, guilty. It was a good day for clean contracting, for good government. But the job is far from done. Testimony during the trial established that the governor’s office installed Todd Howe, a longtime Cuomo associate, as the administration’s “eyes and ears” inside the operation that Kaloyeros headed[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Jul 5

2018

Vet a victim of discrimination – and inaction

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The red brick apartment building on Crescent Avenue is two blocks from Delaware Park. Online listings show pictures of light-filled rooms with hardwood floors and decorative fireplaces. Reginald Holloway never got to see inside. In 2008, Holloway, a disabled Marine Corps veteran, was looking for a one-bedroom apartment in a peaceful neighborhood. He still struggled with flashbacks and nightmares from his military service and wanted to live somewhere quiet; doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs had diagnosed him with chronic post traumatic stress disorder. Holloway had a Section 8 voucher that would help him pay the rent and, in[...]

Posted 7 years ago
Investigative Post