Categories for Investigations

May 10

2021

Buffalo schools still reeling from hack

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How bad was the hack of the Buffalo school district’s computer system in mid-March? The paper equivalent of lost documents would fill KeyBank Center to the rafters, one source told Investigative Post. The missing records include decades of teaching materials, student records and some 5,000 applications for admission to schools in September. Systems essential to the operation of the district, such as legal and accounting, are crippled. The hack has caused minimal disruption to classroom instruction and distance learning, but it’s impacted the physical operation of school buildings. Automated functions such as operation of heating and cooling systems have been[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Apr 26

2021

Spiraling costs at remote industrial park

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The bill is coming due for putting an industrial park in the hinterlands of Genesee County and the cost to taxpayers is considerable. The Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park, being built on 1,250 acres in the rural Town of Alabama, flunked the state’s smart growth test when first proposed.  The project’s location rated so poorly that it failed to meet seven of ten smart growth criteria under the state’s own grading system, prompting one good government group to label it a “poster child for location inefficiency.” Empire State Development Corp. nevertheless approved spending state tax dollars to develop the[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Mar 1

2021

Cancer plagues West Valley nuke workers

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David Pyles says he lives on painkillers and moves with the help of a cane and walker. He worked for five years at the West Valley Demonstration Project, a failed experiment to process spent nuclear fuel. “What we were doing was insane. We were dealing with so much radiation,” he told Investigative Post from his home in New Hampshire.  “I’ve got absolutely no joints left in my knees — my knees are gone, my ankles are gone and my hips are gone,” he said.  “I wonder if it’s from working in that bathtub full of radiation.” Pyles was one of[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Feb 11

2021

Another Buffalo Billion boondoggle

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Economic development officials in Genesee County have spent more than $26 million on a massive industrial park in an “if you build it, they will come” gambit. So far, no one has come. The Genesee County Center for Economic Development not only doesn’t have any business deals to show for its decade of work, the industrial park consists of little more than empty fields.  There’s no infrastructure, aside from a six-tenths-of-a-mile road. No water service. No sewer lines. No electricity. No telecommunications. The agency has nevertheless managed to spend $26.8 million dollars, including some $13 million in Buffalo Billion funds.[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Feb 10

2021

Samsung to WNY? Unlikely.

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Samsung has economic development officials — and Sen. Chuck Schumer — dreaming big. The semiconductor giant has plans to build a $17 billion plant that would employ 1,800 and says it is considering five locations in the United States, including an undeveloped industrial park in Genesee County. Schumer has spoken directly with Samsung officials and offered federal assistance to entice Samsung to Western New York. Economic officials in Buffalo and Rochester stand ready to make their case, if they haven’t already. It seems unlikely that Samsung is coming, however.  In addition to Western New York, Samsung is weighing two sites[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jan 17

2021

Niagara County keeps hiring disgraced GOPers

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For the fourth time in 14 months, Niagara County has hired a politically connected Republican who had previously been accused of misconduct. The latest GOP loyalist to be added to the payroll is Robert W. Welch, who resigned last summer as director of constituent relations for Republican state Sen. Rob Ortt after he was accused of using a racial slur during an encounter with a group of teenagers near his home.  Welch, a North Tonawanda resident, has been hired as a contract administrator at an annual salary of $62,991. The job has been vacant for three years and was not[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 17

2020

Firms left behind in quest for pandemic aid

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Nearly 19,000 businesses in Western New York received a federal loan to help them through the pandemic. Laythanette Shine’s firm wasn’t one of them. Shine’s business, USA Occupational Services on Jefferson Avenue, provides drug and DNA testing services and background checks for employers. There’s a memorial in the front window to the man who helped her set up the office, one the earliest victims of COVID-19 in Buffalo.  Shine couldn’t access the Paycheck Protection Program because her business is a sole proprietorship with insufficient profitability. Those factors are common for new small businesses, but disqualified her from getting aid. She[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 16

2020

Popular nonprofits obtained pandemic aid

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Some 1,100 local nonprofits received federal aid to soften the pandemic’s economic blow, and the list of recipients reads like a who’s who of prominent cultural, medical, religious and educational institutions.  The Chautauqua Institution and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Mercy Flight and the Erie County Medical Center. The Diocese of Buffalo and The Chapel at Crosspoint. Nichols School and Nardin Academy. Even a sovereign state, the Seneca Nation of Indians, received a $1.5 million loan under the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Nonprofits with religious affiliations received the most number of loans, 406. That’s more than one-third of the 1,080 loans extended[...]

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post