Latest

Jan 2

2026

Granville report voted iPost’s top story of 2025

Published by

Readers have voted Geoff Kelly’s story on the hit-and-run accidents of Erie County narcotics chief D.J. Granville the top story of 2025. Kelly was the first reporter to break the story, which published March 11. The story not only detailed the accidents, in which Granville struck seven parked vehicles on the city’s West Side, but the failure of Buffalo police to conduct a roadside sobriety test and the apparent cover-up of the accidents by Erie County Sheriff John Garcia. Kelly wrote: Granville’s spree began not long before midnight on April 11 of last year, as he headed east on Jersey[...]

Posted 3 days ago

Jan 1

2026

Adam Smith-Perez’s first year covering Buffalo

Published by

I’ve visited Buffalo’s East Side to report over a dozen times, but the first time will stick with me. During my first weeks, my editor, Jim Heaney, told me to meet a few sources on the East Side: Steve Karnath at Broadway-Fillmore Neighborhood Housing Services, and Chris Hawley at his socialist, volunteer-run bar, the Eugene V. Debs Social Hall. I arrived at Debs at dusk on a summer evening. All the doors and windows were open. Hawley and his giant dog greeted me, along with a couple of his friends. A regular was barbecuing out front. I sampled a few[...]

Posted 4 days ago

Dec 31

2025

Covering ICE in Western NY throughout 2025

Published by

Until January 20, it was easy to forget that Buffalo is a border town. If you thought about the border at all it was probably because you were traveling to Canada or coming back home — one of the best perks of living in the Queen City. The only time it was really front of mind was when you were showing your ID to an agent on the Peace Bridge. But Buffalo is a border town, and that means it’s home — and has been for years — to all the federal infrastructure a border entails: immigration agents and court[...]

Posted 5 days ago

Dec 30

2025

Geoff Kelly’s year in review

Published by

This year my plate was full with Buffalo politics, as city voters were asked to elect the city’s first new mayor in 20 years. I kicked off the year, fittingly, with a three-part profile of Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon, who was at the time competing for the Democratic Party endorsement in June’s primary election.  This month, to ring out the year, Jim Heaney and I interviewed the guy who won the endorsement, the primary and November’s general election — incoming Mayor Sean Ryan. We did the interview in front of an audience at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. I also[...]

Posted 6 days ago

Dec 29

2025

A revolution and civil war, all in one

Published by

The Ken Burns documentary series on the American Revolution that recently aired on PBS is an unsanitized version that they didn’t teach us in school. The fight for independence was one part revolution, one part civil war, with brutalities on both sides. That was one takeaway. Others include: George Washington was not all that hot of a military strategist, but he was a great leader of men. He was the towering figure of the revolution after the  Declaration of Independence. Patriot soldiers won the war in part due to their sheer fortitude. The militias and Continental army were not to[...]

Posted 7 days ago

Dec 24

2025

Tenants again sue judge-turned-landlord

Published by

  APL Property’s apartment building on Elmwood Avenue. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. A Buffalo couple is suing former county judge-turned-developer Anthony LoRusso for alleged rental fraud — the third lawsuit LoRusso and his real estate companies have faced this year. Two of those court actions originated with renters, the other with a contractor. All told, courts this year have levied more than $300,000 in judgments against LoRusso’s companies. The first suit was filed by LaBella Associates D.P.C., an environmental consulting firm, in March, followed by the attorney general’s in May.  In September, Sabrina and Antonéo Page filed a lawsuit against[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Dec 23

2025

Subsidies, nonprofits reduce Buffalo taxes by $20M

Published by

The Delaware North building, recipient of major tax breaks. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. The City of Buffalo last fiscal year missed out on $20 million in revenue due to a variety of property tax exemptions and abatements, according to a recently released audit. That’s the biggest loss the city has recorded since it began tabulating the figure in 2017, city financial audits show. For a city facing a current-year deficit that could be as high as $54 million, the uncollected property tax is “obviously a concern,” said Benjamin Swanekamp, who will be Ryan’s deputy mayor overseeing tax and finance[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Dec 22

2025

The many costs of proposed data center

Published by

There’s a lot to not like about data centers. They consume a lot of energy, and oftentimes water, and usually demand a lot of public subsidies. All to fuel the operations — and profits — of the likes of Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta. J. Dale Shoemaker reported last week about a new proposal to build a massive data center at the STAMP industrial park in Genesee County, located midway between Buffalo and Rochester. How massive?  There’s its physical size: 38 football fields. And its energy consumption: 500 megawatts. That’s enough electricity to power practically every residence in Erie County.[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago
Investigative Post