Categories for Investigations

Jul 2

2015

Update: Buffalo’s lead poisoning problem

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March Moon fled Burma for a better quality of life in Buffalo. Instead, she’s got a sick kid suffering from lead poisoning. Her five-year-old son has kidney problems. He struggles to eat and sleep. His stunted growth makes him the smallest pupil in preschool. He’s been hospitalized numerous times with stays of up to eight days. “The Erie County Department of Health came to my house and they said that my son has lead poisoning,” Moon said. “I had never heard of that before. What is that?” Moon and her ailing son are not alone. Thirty-seven years after lead was[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Jun 24

2015

Demone Smith promoted despite violations

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Demone Smith’s long history of violating the state elections law hasn’t stopped Mayor Byron Brown from appointing him to a key position in his cabinet. Smith, majority leader of the Common Council and a political ally of the mayor, starts next week as executive director of the Buffalo Employment and Training Center. The center matches employers with city and county residents seeking jobs. Over the past decade, Smith has failed to file campaign disclosure reports on time 28 times. That’s prompted the state Board of Elections to impose seven penalties, five of which remain unpaid. Smith owes $3,382 in penalties.[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Jun 22

2015

Shenanigans beset Buffalo Billion

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Editors note: A version of the following story published this past weekend in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Albany Times Union, Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, and Poughkeepsie Journal. The accompanying video was co-produced with WGRZ.  Editorials calling for greater transparency in the program were subsequently published by the Democrat & Chronicle and Times Union. The Buffalo Billion program championed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a bold and costly experiment in economic development that is beset by secrecy and politics, and banking on a company with a history of losing money. The program — hailed in Buffalo but resented across much of the rest of New[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Jun 17

2015

SolarCity update: Progress and problems

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Construction of the massive $750 million solar panel manufacturing plant is approaching the half-way point and SolarCity is starting to hire in anticipation of a phase in of operations early next year. Meanwhile, the company is losing record amounts of money, its stock price is languishing and federal investigators continue to look at some of its past dealings out of state. New York officials, for their part, continue to thwart efforts to open the SolarCity project to public scrutiny.

Posted 10 years ago

Jun 2

2015

Goodyear’s emissions a concern

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Investigative Post and WGRZ continue their coverage of the potential risk air pollution poses to residents in Niagara County. We reported Monday that the risk to public health from air pollution released from chemical and industrial plants, most of them in or around Niagara Falls, is higher in Niagara County than in nine out of every 10 counties across the United States where emissions are reported to the federal government. In Tuesday’s report, we focus on Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. The plant’s emissions, which include two carcinogenic chemicals, account for nearly half the county’s risk score. Goodyear’s risk score is[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Jun 1

2015

Pollution risks in Niagara Falls

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Joe Cessna’s neighbors include chemical plants that are as much a part of the Niagara Falls landscape as the Cataracts. He’s constantly reminded of their presence. There’s the “nasty smell” that permeates his neighborhood and the greasy film that coats his pool in the summer and car year-round. “I can wash my car and within a couple of hours there’s a film on it,” he said. “Everybody says it’s safe, but you’ve got to wonder.” Cessna has good reason to wonder. And perhaps worry. Twenty-six industrial plants in Niagara County, most of the larger ones located in Niagara Falls, reported[...]

Posted 10 years ago

May 21

2015

Central Terminal decays as board delays

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For years, the Central Terminal suffered from willful neglect at the hands of its private owners. While the building lay open to vandals, artifacts were stolen and metal pipes stripped out. When the non-profit Central Terminal Restoration Corporation took ownership in 1997, the hope was that the group would halt the building’s deterioration and find a responsible developer to secure its long-term future. But the building is still deteriorating. And dysfunction in the Restoration Corporation’s board of directors has hampered progress in preserving and redeveloping it, former board members have told Investigative Post. “There’s so many different things wrong with[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Apr 29

2015

Yahoo’s sky-high subsidies

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Everyone in these parts has heard of the Buffalo Billion. Overlooked is another government subsidy program that could be called the Lockport Half-Billion. By any standard, the incentives granted Yahoo to build a data and call center in Lockport are generous. Consider that the Yahoo subsidies: Will cost up to $478 million to build a single facility that employs 200 people. The Buffalo Billion, by comparison, will finance the construction of three major facilities projected to create some 3,750 jobs and underwrite several dozen smaller projects. Work out to $2.4 million per job – an “astronomical” figure in the words[...]

Posted 10 years ago
Investigative Post