Categories for Featured

May 16

2016

Lies, spin and SolarCity

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SolarCity has some ‘splaining’ to do, to quote Ricky Ricardo. For starters, company executives – and state officials, for that matter – can ‘splain’ why the $750 million solar panel manufacturing plant taxpayers are building for them is going to employ only 500, not the 1,460 originally promised. This scaled-back commitment, reported Friday by Investigative Post and WGRZ, came as news to a lot of people. Mayor Byron Brown told Dave McKinley of WGRZ on Friday that the reduced goal was news to him. Assemblyman Sean Ryan went one better, telling the station’s Michael Wooten that SolarCity officials assured him[...]

Posted 9 years ago

May 13

2016

SolarCity slashes Buffalo factory commitment

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SolarCity has sharply reduced its job creation commitment for the solar panel manufacturing plant under construction in Buffalo from 1,460 to 500 jobs, according to state records and filings the company submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission last fall. The company remains committed to a total of 1,460 jobs in Buffalo, but the majority of them will not be employed at the plant. Documents do not specify what kind of jobs they might be. “With new advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment that enables automation, we believe 500 is the minimum number of manufacturing jobs the factory will require,” said Kady Cooper,[...]

Posted 9 years ago

May 10

2016

How to diversify the building trades in Buffalo

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  When Minnesota lawmakers agreed to put millions of dollars toward building a new football stadium for the Minnesota Vikings, contractors were told they had to what some thought impossible: ensure that minorities accounted for a third of the construction workforce. Work on the $1.1 billion stadium is wrapping up, and contractors, despite their initial skepticism, have not only met the 32 percent goal but exceeded it, reaching 36 percent minority participation. This kind of ambitious goal-setting has been absent on major projects in the Buffalo area. The minority workforce goal was just 13.2 percent on the $130 million renovations[...]

Posted 9 years ago

May 10

2016

Yet more bad news on SolarCity

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I’ll dispense with the MayDay! declarations of past and get to the latest double-barrel dose of bad news regarding SolarCity. The company released its first quarter earnings report Monday afternoon and it was drenched with more red ink than usual. SolarCity lost a record $283.1 million. That was double the $149.9 million it lost for the same period in 2015. The stock market reacted as you’d expect, with the trading price dropping by 21 percent from the close of trading Monday to Tuesday. SolarCity is now going for $17.54 a share, down from $57.26 as recently as mid-December. Yet another crisis in[...]

Posted 9 years ago

May 3

2016

Lead poisoning worse than previously disclosed

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Buffalo’s lead poisoning problem – already recognized as serious – is much worse than previously reported by state and local health officials. Officials to this point have only released data that shows the number of children with blood levels that exceed the state’s threshold. Those numbers approached 300 last year. But new data obtained by Investigative Post shows that the number of children whose lead levels exceed a stricter federal threshold exceeded an estimated 1,100. Put another way: At least three times more children have harmful blood lead levels than previously disclosed. This in a city already regarded as Ground[...]

Posted 9 years ago

May 2

2016

Cuomo’s M.O. enables corruption

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One Albany insider told The Buffalo News over the weekend that “everyone is literally flabbergasted” at the turn of events in the federal probe of what can safely be termed the “embattled” Buffalo Billion program. I suppose the spectacle of Cuomo insiders turning on each other as the governor scrambles into damage control mode is a bit jarring. But no one who has been paying attention to Cuomo’s governing style in general, and his administration’s management of the Buffalo Billion program in particular, should be the least bit surprised. In short, the Cuomo crowd is obsessed with secrecy and operates[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Apr 29

2016

Buffalo Billion probe targets Cuomo insiders

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U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s investigation into the Buffalo Billion, triggered by Investigative Post’s relentless reporting, appears to have targeted members of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s inner-circle. The feds issued subpoenas to the governor’s office Friday, and, in turn, the Cuomo administration announced its own investigation and issued a press release that appeared to throw one or more close associates under the bus. Folks, this could get real ugly real quick. Those under scrutiny include Joseph Percoco, a top Cuomo aid and political enforcer who recently left the administration; longtime associate and lobbyist Todd Howe; and Alain Kaloyeros, the so-called nanotech guru who the[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Apr 27

2016

Buffalo snubs county on lead poisoning

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Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz’s lead prevention proposal is stuck in the County Legislature’s Finance and Management Committee after city officials twice declined invitations to appear to answer questions. The absence of city officials at these committee meetings is a continuation of a pattern on the part of City Hall officials, which Poloncarz administration officials fear is playing into the hands of suburban Republican legislators who appear reluctant to support the county executive’s initiative. Majority Leader Joseph Lorigo said during an April 7 committee meeting that he had invited Louis Petrucci, the city’s assistant director of permit and inspection services,[...]

Posted 9 years ago
Investigative Post