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Dec 10

2019

Buffalo Billion felon: Wired and hired

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 Republicans on the Niagara County Legislature voted Tuesday to hire a felon involved in the Buffalo Billion scandal to serve as the county’s spokesperson. In a partisan 8-5 vote, the Legislature approved the hiring of Kevin Schuler, a politically wired executive at LPCiminelli until he pleaded guilty in May 2018 to two felony charges involving the fixing of a bid to manage the construction of the $750 million Tesla plant in South Buffalo. Schuler will serve as the county’s public information officer and earn $79,003, an increase of nearly $10,000 from the job’s 2019 salary. The job entails handling[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Dec 7

2019

Vote for Investigative Post’s top story of 2019

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Investigative Post has enjoyed a 70 percent growth in website traffic this year. This surge comes in addition to the audiences we garner through our partners at WGRZ, WBFO, The Capitol Pressroom and Buffalo Spree. What’s driving the growth in our online audience? The quality of our reporting. Investigative Post has chalked up another banner year, and now it’s time for you, our readers, to tell us what you think by voting in our online poll for the best story of the year. Here are the choices: City Hall cashing in on traffic tickets Buffalo’s in bad fiscal shape State[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Dec 7

2019

Gambini joins Investigative Post staff

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Phil Gambini is off to a running start with Investigative Post. Gambini joined the Investigative Post reporting staff last week after five years with the Niagara Gazette. He broke his first story Friday and has another teed up for this coming week. In recent months, while still with the Gazette, Gambini teamed with Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney to report on several stories on the Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp. “Phil’s a digger,” Heaney said. “He’s widely respected in Niagara County for his work with the Gazette and his reporting skills are going to be a real asset to[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Dec 7

2019

Spotlight reporter’s dismay over clerical abuse

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Matt Carroll has something to say about the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. And he said it Wednesday here in Buffalo. He was a reporter on The Boston Globe Spotlight team that produced more than 600 stories on the topic in 2002-03. He and his colleagues won a Pulitzer Prize and were later the subject of the Academy Award winning film “Spotlight.” Carroll spoke to an audience of about 140 on Wednesday at an event at 166 Chandler sponsored by Investigative Post. Attendees included many people involved in the effort to reform the Buffalo diocese.  Carroll answered questions[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Dec 6

2019

Buffalo Billion felon candidate for county job

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 A felon who played a central role in the Buffalo Billion scandal is now a finalist to land a job as the public face of Niagara County government. Kevin Schuler is one of two candidates county legislators are scheduled to interview Monday for the job of public information officer, who acts as spokesman for county government and fields media requests. The county’s 2020 budget proposes the PIO job pay $79,003 a year. The new salary amounts to a nearly $10,000 raise. Schuler was the longtime political fixer for Louis Ciminelli, a prominent developer and influential Republican until his fall[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Dec 5

2019

Heaney talks Control Board on ‘Pressroom

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Jim Heaney discusses Buffalo’s timid Control Board with David Lombardo, the new host of The Capitol Pressroom. The discussion follows a story by Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly that documented the board’s inaction in the face of bad budgeting practices by Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council.    

Posted 5 years ago

Nov 25

2019

Buffalo’s complacent Control Board

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 The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, better known as the control board, costs city and state taxpayers more than $1 million a year. Its job, since it was imposed by the state in 2003, has been to keep an eye on Buffalo’s finances.  But during the past eight years it has done nothing to stop Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council as they’ve drained the city of more than $100 million in reserves, leaving City Hall with nothing in the bank to close budget gaps.  In six of the last eight budget cycles, the Brown administration has depleted its[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Nov 21

2019

Buffalo’s No. 2 cop is moonlighting

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Joseph Gramaglia is the number two guy at the Buffalo Police Department, second only to the department’s titular head, Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood. That’s no 40-hour-per-week job. With more than 800 employees, Buffalo’s is the second-largest police department in the state. It’s a department that is making do with equipment shortages, introducing new taser and body camera programs, coping with overtime costs, and dealing with a series of police shootings that have strained community relations, especially with communities of color where police presence is felt most acutely. And yet Gramaglia — who, on behalf of Lockwood, manages day-to-day operations, strategic[...]

Posted 5 years ago
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