Categories for Featured

Nov 30

2015

Outrages & Insights: Diversity at SolarCity

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There’s a problem with the pipeline that is feeding workers to the SolarCity project at Riverbend, Jim Heaney told Steve Brown on Sunday’s installment of Outrages & Insights. Heaney, referring to a story last week reported by Charlotte Keith, noted that African Americans accounted for only 5.7 percent of the construction workers employed at the SolarCity site during the quarter that ended in September. That contrasts with a city population that is 38 percent black. The project is nevertheless meeting its goal of employing a workforce that is at least 15 percent minority.

Posted 9 years ago

Nov 24

2015

Diversity, but few jobs for African Americans

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Diversity hiring goals set for the construction of the SolarCity plant in South Buffalo have not translated into a lot of jobs for African-American workers. While African Americans make up an increasing share of the project’s workforce, they accounted for only 5.7 percent of those on the job for the quarter ending this September, an Investigative Post analysis found. That’s in a city that’s almost 40 percent African-American and a county with a workforce that’s 11 percent black, according to the state Department of Labor. The project is nevertheless meeting its minority workforce goal of 15 percent, largely through the[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Nov 22

2015

Heaney details local refugee situation

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Jim Heaney and Steve Brown discuss the hot topic of the week, refugees, in the wake of the Paris terror attacks in the latest installment of Outrages & Insights. Heaney told Brown that Erie County accepts more refugees than any county in the state, more than 1,400 last year. Surprisingly, relatively few settle in New York City, despite its historic role as an entry point for immigrants. Heaney explained that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, refugees undergo more vigorous screening than others coming to America, a process that typically takes up to two years. Heaney also discussed the local refugee[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Nov 12

2015

Greenleaf garners support despite complaints

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Greenleaf & Company has a history that includes numerous tenant complaints, prosecutions in Housing Court and unpaid bills and taxes. Yet officials have lined up in support of the firm’s proposal to build off-campus student housing adjacent to Buffalo State College. College officials acknowledge they did not perform a background check on the company before they started collaborating on the project. Mayor Byron Brown said Greenleaf’s difficulties should not disqualify the company from the project. Meanwhile, community members said Housing Court Judge Patrick Carney voiced support for the project at a community meeting this summer even though Greenleaf had pending cases[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 11

2015

Housing firm has checkered history

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A landlord working with Buffalo State College to build off-campus student housing has a history of renting apartments with leaky ceilings, electrical hazards and insufficient heat. Take 353 Bird Ave., for example. The ceiling in the downstairs dining room has been stained for a couple of years from a leak that tenants believe comes from an upstairs toilet. The ceiling has collapsed on at least two tenants during that time, including Elizabeth Coffie. “It looked like colored rain and the smell was awful,” she said. Rather than fixing the problem, she said, the landlord simply replaced the ceiling tile. The[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 9

2015

Impressions of new superintendent

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Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney told Steve Brown that Kriner Cash made a favorable first impression during their interview last week. “He’s no-nonsense, he’s knowledgeable, he’s taking on the job with a sense of urgency and I think he made it very clear that he’s here to get a job done and he’s not going to put up with a lot of guff,” Heaney told Brown on Sunday’s installment of Outrages & Insights. Brown asked Heaney if Cash can succeed. It depends, Heaney said, on whether recent changes made in state education law are interpreted to grant the superintendent the[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 4

2015

Buffalo superintendent outlines reform agenda

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Buffalo Superintendent Kriner Cash said Wednesday he intends to be “very aggressive” pursuing reforms in Buffalo schools and indicated he’s prepared to place underperforming schools in receivership if he can’t bargain contract changes with the Buffalo Teachers Federation. Cash, on the job since the end of August, made the remarks during an interview with Jim Heaney during a luncheon at Osteria 166 sponsored by Investigative Post. Cash opened his remarks by both praising the city and saying he has found it parochial and resistant to change. He went on to outline an extensive, potentially exhausting agenda that he said needs[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 2

2015

State, Cheektowaga agree on Scajaquada plan

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Cheektowaga officials and the state have finally agreed on how the town will begin to address its sewer overflows. The problem is, it took seven years to end the dispute. Investigative Post reported the state Department of Environmental Conservation last month had rejected the town’s sewer plan for the second time in five years. DEC officials said the town was not taking enough steps to reduce problems on private property, such as roof downspouts and sump pumps connected to the sewer system. These connections are prohibited by town ordinance because they can flood the sewer system with rain water and cause[...]

Posted 10 years ago
Investigative Post