Categories for Featured

Oct 25

2021

Buffalo’s beleaguered municipal finances

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 The story of Buffalo’s municipal finances under Mayor Byron Brown is divided into two chapters. Chapter One covers the five years before the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority — the city’s control board, formed in 2003 to keep the city from going bankrupt — relinquished its oversight power. In the beginning of Brown’s tenure, which began in 2006, the control board helped the city balance budgets and build up millions in reserves. Chapter Two covers the decade since the control board went “soft” in 2011. It’s a very different tale. Since 2011, Brown has proposed — and year after year[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 20

2021

Violent crime in Buffalo is declining, but still high

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Statistically speaking, Buffalo is safer today than it was when Mayor Byron Brown took office in 2006. But it doesn’t feel that way to Gayla Ross.  Ross lost her only son, Amir Jemes, in 2018. Jemes, 19, an aspiring musician, was shot and killed while being robbed on Littlefield Avenue on the city’s East Side. “Everyday somebody’s shooting, or somebody is getting shot, or somebody is dying, or somebody is getting robbed or mugged,” Ross told Investigative Post. “It’s not getting safer.” Citywide, however, violent crime is down substantially, as it is across the nation. An Investigative Post analysis shows[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 18

2021

911 calls down 5%; traffic stops up 48%

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You might imagine Buffalo police spend their shifts busting drug dealers, foiling burglaries and taking guns off the street. There’s some of that, certainly.  But an analysis by Investigative Post of five years of 911 calls shows that sort of policing accounts for only a sliver of what cops do. More than anything else, they hand out traffic tickets. A lot fewer people have called Buffalo police about crime in recent years, according to our analysis.  The number of 911 calls for high-priority crimes — such as shots fired, domestic violence and assaults in progress — fell almost 21 percent[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 12

2021

Buffalo remains an impoverished city

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Buffalo ranked as the nation’s second-poorest city when Byron Brown took office in 2006.  The following year, the mayor declared that his administration was working hard to “bring people into the mainstream of Buffalo’s economy” while “taking steps” to reverse the “alarming numbers.”  Fifteen years later, the numbers haven’t changed. Buffalo’s poverty rate in 2006 was 29.9 percent.  In 2019, the last year for which figures are available, it stood at 28.8 percent. Put another way: Buffalo is no longer the nation’s second poorest city. It’s now the third poorest. Even more disconcerting: Buffalo’s childhood poverty rate stands at 43.4[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 23

2021

Comptroller audits fault OTB

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 Officials at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. improperly helped themselves to tickets for sporting events and concerts, and CEO Henry Wojtaszek failed to account for personal use of his agency-assigned car, according to a pair of audits published Thursday by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The audits, which confirm reporting by Investigative Post over the last three years, criticize officials at the state-created public authority for deficient oversight.  “The Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation needs to clean up its operations,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement accompanying the release of the audits.  “Revenues from the OTB are supposed to[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 22

2021

Brown’s tepid support of Buffalo schools

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Editor’s note: This is a second in a series of stories assessing the state of the city, 15 years after Bryon Brown took office. Our first story dealt with City Hall’s enforcement of its fair housing laws. Today; Buffalo public schools. Buffalo schools were plagued by poor attendance and low student achievement when Byron Brown took office 15 years ago. Not much has changed since then. The mayor is not directly responsible for the school district. That falls on the nine members of its elected Board of Education and the superintendent they supervise. But many big-city mayors have used the[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 1

2021

More danger lurking in the water

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A concrete pier juts hundreds of feet into the Niagara River from the northern tip of Unity Island. It’s isolated, quiet and where Antawyn Parker likes to fish. He makes dinner with his catch about once a month, Parker told Investigative Post. But unbeknownst to him the fish are contaminated with a toxin recently linked to a slate of disorders and illnesses, including cancer and immune system concerns. According to a study by the state Department of Health, Western New Yorkers who eat local fish have “substantially elevated” levels of the toxin PFOS in their bodies. Some of the readings[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 25

2021

Paladino disavows Brown

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Carl Paladino, stung by Byron Brown’s repudiation of his support, has turned on the mayor, calling him a “mope” and saying voters should stay home on Election Day. In an interview with Investigative Post, Paladino said he was finished backing the four-term incumbent. He said he advised anyone who asked him to stay out of the race. “I got all kinds of people calling me: ‘What should we do?’” Paladino said. “I tell them, ‘Stay home, stay home.’ Let the chips fall where they may.” Paladino claimed many business people shared his opinion and were withholding financial support for Brown’s[...]

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post