Jan 6
2021
Zemsky’s donations to Democrats
Posted 4 years ago
Jan 6
2021
Jan 2
2021
Investigative Post has added two reporters to our staff. Mark Scheer joins us from the Niagara Gazette and Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, where he served as regional news director. Layne Dowdall begins a fellowship following her graduation from St. Bonaventure University. Our reporting staff has typically included three reporters in recent years. The addition of Scheer and Dowdall brings us to four full-time reporters. They join Geoff Kelly, former editor of The Public and Artvoice, and Phil Gambini, who worked with Scheer at the Gazette. Kelly covers local government and politics, Gambini is relaunching our environmental beat that has been[...]
Dec 30
2020
Our annual drive is winding down. If you’d still like to contribute, donations must be made by midnight Thursday to be eligible for matching dollars. We’ve had a successful campaign thus far. Last year, match-eligible donations of up to $1,000 totaled $23,312. Those donations this November and December, through Tuesday, come to $35,727. Those donations will be matched, dollar for dollar, by supporters that include NewsMatch, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, Try-It Distributing and the Mulroy Family Foundation. Our total donations for November and December total $84,353, including contributions over $1,000. That tops last year’s income for the same period. We’re grateful[...]
Dec 28
2020
Investigative Post has added five members to its board of directors who represent a cross-section of the community. New members include: Sarah Cohen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has worked at The Washington Post and New York Times, and who presently teaches data journalism at Arizona State University. Samuel Savarino, owner and CEO of Savarino Companies, and a past and present member of numerous nonprofit boards. Danielle Judge-Freeman, labor organizer for United University Professions, which represents the faculty and professional staff of the SUNY system. Bob Confer, president of Confer Plastics in North Tonawanda and a leader in the local[...]
Dec 27
2020
Donald Trump’s presidency is about to be past tense. What should our post-Trump politics look like? Joe Biden hopes it’s a time of healing. Conciliation is in his blood and I won’t blame him for trying. But good luck with that. More than 70 million Americans voted for Trump and I question if there’s more than a sliver that can be persuaded. Most of the Republican base is some combination of gullible, bigoted, woefully misinformed or hardcore one-issue voters, starting with abortion. (I almost feel sorry for traditional conservatives; relatively few of their values have been reflected in Trump’s policies.)[...]
Dec 22
2020
Dec 21
2020
The Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. has fired its second-in-command, a whistleblower assisting federal and state agencies investigating the organization. Michael Nolan, OTB’s chief operating officer, was notified of his termination Dec. 18 when he showed up to work, according to his attorney, Steve Cohen. His dismissal is the culmination of two years of harassment Nolan suffered for cooperating with investigators, Cohen said. “Michael was in favor with everybody, and then, when he began answering questions honestly, as he is required to do, he was stepped on, he was squashed,” Cohen told Investigative Post. Daniel Oliverio, an attorney who is[...]
Dec 19
2020
Since 2005, Mayor Byron Brown has raised and spent more than $5 million to win and hold the mayor’s office. He spent $1.4 million to fend off Bernie Tolbert, his Democratic primary challenger in 2013. Four years later, he spent another $1 million in his primary race against then Comptroller Mark Schroeder. As of July, however, when his campaign committee last filed a disclosure report, Brown had just $115,568 in the bank. That may sound like a lot of money — and for most Buffalonians it is — but for the four-term mayor of a medium-sized city, it is a[...]