Categories for Featured

Jan 12

2015

Scajaquada story voted best of 2014

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Our readers have spoken – Dan Telvock’s coverage of sewage-clogged Scajaquada Creek was the best work produced by Investigative Post in 2014. Thirty-six percent of the 92 readers who cast a vote in our online poll that closed at midnight selected “The Scajaquada is a crippled creek,” which also aired on WGRZ and published in Artvoice. It was the first of nine stories Telvock did on the creek, into which Buffalo and Cheektowaga dump 500 million gallons of sewage and stormwater runoff annually. As a result, sludge up to five feet deep lines some sections of the creek and the water[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 29

2014

Local government websites earn ‘F’ grade

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Have a complaint about uncollected trash or a noisy neighbor? New York City has an app for that. Want to know if the streets you’re about to travel to work have been plowed? Chicago has an app for that. Curious about crime in your neighborhood? Louisville provides an online map where you can check for types of crime by day, week or month. It’s another story in Buffalo and Western New York, where local governments’ use of technology to inform citizens and taxpayers is behind the times in two critical ways. First, local government websites are failing to provide even[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 22

2014

Suppression of Buffalo Billion spending records

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants everyone to know he’s spending $1 billion to revitalize the Western New York economy. But the bureaucrats he’s charged with managing the Buffalo Billion are refusing to account for how they are spending $855 million earmarked for the program’s big-ticket projects. Three developers, all significant contributors to Cuomo’s gubernatorial campaign, have been selected to build and equip facilities that will house companies recruited to set up shop in Buffalo. But the state-affiliated non-profit corporation managing that work has refused to release contracts and other documents to Investigative Post that detail, among other things, how the contractors[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 11

2014

Scajaquada progress, at a price

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Engineers have told Cheektowaga it’s going to cost up to $53 million to update the town’s aging sewer system, which spews hundreds of million of gallons of sewage mixed with stormwater into local waterways every year. A number of options are under consideration, including lining leaky sewer lines and building underground storage tanks to hold sewage until it can be treated. The work could take up to a decade to complete and might require financing that would be subject to a referendum. The town is also considering steps that would end illegal connections of downspouts, basement drains and sump pumps[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 10

2014

Termini questions Outer Harbor housing

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Rocco Termini, one of the city’s preeminent residential developers, doubts there’s a significant market for housing at the Outer Harbor. “Everyone is talking about it but no one has produced a market study or any numbers,” Termini said Wednesday at a luncheon sponsored by Investigative Post on urban development. The Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. has proposed building some 2,100 housing units, as well as retail, restaurants and some parkland, on a portion of the Outer Harbor’s northern 171 acres. That plan has proved controversial, with Rep. Brian Higgins and Assembly Member Sean Ryan, among others, contending it lacks public support.[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 26

2014

Troubled families, troubled services?

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Seven social workers on the front lines of dealing with troubled families have taken the unusual step of accusing their employer of cheating both taxpayers and the families they are tasked with helping. The social workers – who are employed by the Buffalo Urban League – sent a letter to the Erie County Comptroller’s office Nov. 14 expressing “extreme concern” that their organization was failing to live up to the standards agreed upon in its county contract. Their letter outlines a number of problems, including short staffing, inflated billing and a failure to store client information securely or train staff[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 12

2014

Rochester leads on lead while Buffalo dallies

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Rochester used to have a lead problem at least as bad as Buffalo’s. But officials there got serious a decade ago and developed a program that’s considered a national model that some think Buffalo should emulate. Ralph Spezio, principal of an inner-city elementary school, was Rochester’s catalyst for change. Fifteen years ago he overheard two nurses talking about a pupil’s high blood lead level. “Then the other one said, ‘They are all lead poisoned,’” Spezio said. He was alarmed and wanted to know more. He signed a confidentiality agreement with the Monroe County Health Department and obtained lead test results[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Nov 12

2014

Another round of tax breaks for Summit Mall

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Declaring “jobs are jobs,” Niagara County officials voted Wednesday to grant $700,000 in tax breaks to redevelop a shopping mall that’s failed to make good on two previous subsidies. The Niagara County Industrial Development Agency voted unanimously to approve property and sales tax breaks to Toronto developer Zoran Cocov to assist his $17.4 million plan to revitalize Summit Mall in Wheatfield. Cocov’s application promises “entertainment venues” – museums and theaters – as well as shops, restaurants, a regional wine tasting outlet, a farmers’ market and a small business incubator, as reported Tuesday by Investigative Post. They would be joined by[...]

Posted 11 years ago
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