Categories for Investigations

Nov 5

2012

Recycling lessons from San Francisco

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San Francisco isn’t just a world champion in major league baseball. The City by the Bay’s recycling program is also world class. San Francisco has tripled its recycling rate since 1996 to about 78 percent. It’s one of the highest recycling rates in the nation and light years ahead of Buffalo’s, which fluctuates in the 12 to 16 percent range. How did San Francisco do it? Officials constantly educate the public and businesses, offer almost two dozen different recycling programs that are customized for each neighborhood district, and enforce the mandates in a way that could result in someone’s trash[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Nov 2

2012

City schools fail at recycling

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Buffalo’s public school system’s recycling efforts are even less ambitious than those of the city. Most schools aren’t even recycling bottles and cans, and the ones that do are only recycling paper and cardboard on a regular basis. “Most schools are not recycling,” said Andy Goldstein, the city’s former recycling coordinator said last month on WUFO-AM. “There are a few schools that have space issues and don’t have room for it, but it can be done.” Susan Eager, the district’s director of plant operations, said there have been varying degrees of recycling success over the years. Consistency has been a problem,[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Nov 1

2012

Recycling: City Hall’s bin is less than half full

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Editor’s note: This is a three-part series. Today’s story examines the city’s recycling program. Friday’s report, which will also be the subject of coverage on WGRZ, looks at recycling efforts in the city’s public schools.  On Monday, we look at the wildly success recycling program in San Francisco. City Hall’s halfhearted efforts to increase its anemic recycling rate is plagued by a failure to enforce laws, educate the public or act on a host of recommendations, Investigative Post has found. The result: Buffalo’s recycling rate is less than half the national average, costing Buffalo taxpayers more than $1 million in[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Oct 30

2012

Global warming not a hot topic at debates

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Maybe you can blame it on the moderators, but for the first time since 1988 neither of the presidential candidates said a word about global warming and neither did their vice-presidential counterparts during the debates. Even Sarah Palin acknowledged global warming in her 2008 debate with VP Joe Biden. In his debate with Obama in 2008, Sen. McCain said, “We may hand our children and grandchildren a damaged planet.” Obama said in that same debate that, “This is one of the biggest challenges of our times and it is absolutely critical that we understand that this is not just a[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Oct 28

2012

Nearly $4M spent on 7,800 commercials

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    Kathy Hochul and Chris Collins will spend more than $4 million on television advertising this campaign season to win a job that pays $174,000 a year. But it’s not really about the pay, it’s about control of Congress, which Democrats are trying to wrestle back from the Republicans after losing it two years ago. An Investigative Post analysis of spending in TV ads for the 27th District race, based on contracts on file with major network affiliates in Buffalo and Rochester, found that Collins has outspent Hochul $2.2 million vs. $1.7 million, thanks in large part to the[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Oct 18

2012

Man O’ Trouble

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The snail’s pace construction of a linear park up the spine of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus is a standing joke between the owner and patrons of Ulrich’s Tavern on Ellicott Street. “We have an over and under if it would get done before the 2016 Olympics,” said owner Jim Daley, whose tavern provides a front-row seat to the construction. It’s a simple enough project: The federal government earmarked $5.1 million of the $6.4 million project to landscape, resurface and otherwise improve about a half-mile stretch of Ellicott Street street through the medical campus. The idea was to improve traffic[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Oct 17

2012

Another politician who isn’t paying his taxes

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An elected official in the Town of Alden hasn’t paid his property taxes in more than five years and is in peril of losing his home to foreclosure. Carl E. Fix, highway superintendent for the town, and his wife, Ann, own a home and adjoining vacant lot on Broadway with an assessed value of $72,100. But the county, the town and the Alden Central School District haven’t received a dime in property taxes for either property since 2007. The couple now owes more than $33,000, according to county records. (Here is the payment history for the house and the vacant[...]

Posted 12 years ago
Investigative Post

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