Jul 10
2019
Heaney talks fiscal problems on ‘Pressroom
Geoff Kelly reported Tuesday that Buffalo has fiscal problems. Jim Heaney on Wednesday discussed the story with Susan Arbetter on The Capitol Pressroom.
Posted 6 years ago
Jul 10
2019
Geoff Kelly reported Tuesday that Buffalo has fiscal problems. Jim Heaney on Wednesday discussed the story with Susan Arbetter on The Capitol Pressroom.
Jul 9
2019
To hear Mayor Byron Brown tell the story, the City of Buffalo’s finances are strong and stable, and his finance team has constructed another in a series of sound, responsible budgets. Two important bellwethers put the lie to that narrative. The first is the depletion of the city’s reserves. In the past decade, the Brown and the Common Council have used $107 million in reserves to close budget shortfalls. As a result, the city has no reserves left to plug future deficits. The lack of reserves has contributed to a second problem — poor cash flow — that resulted in[...]
Jun 27
2019
Developer Rocco Termini and several businesses that operate out of his company’s downtown properties filed a lawsuit last week against the City of Buffalo and Ciminelli Real Estate Corp., seeking to hit pause on Ciminelli’s most-recent plan to develop a city-owned surface parking lot at 201 Ellicott Street. The Ciminelli plan entails 200 apartments and condominiums, plus a grocery store and food distribution terminal run by Braymiller Market, based in Hamburg. Braymiller is also named in the lawsuit. The 2.5-acre site is across Ellicott Street from Termini’s Hotel @ The Lafayette. The downtown public library is to its north; the[...]
Jun 26
2019
Back in January, this looked to be a dynamic election cycle for Buffalo Democrats. There were two long-time incumbents vacating their seats on the city’s Common Council and two more leaving the Erie County Legislature, creating the potential for wide-open races. That doesn’t happen often. In response, a host of candidates signaled their intention to run and began circulating nominating petitions in the bitter grip of midwinter. Many of these prospects were entering electoral politics for the first time, driven by a variety motivations: a wish to elect women to the all-male Council, for one example; for another, a desire[...]
Jun 19
2019
If you follow local politics, and bless your heart if you do, you might have heard about a poll showing incumbent Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz in a statistical tie with his challenger, Erie County Legislator Lynne Dixon. The top-line conclusion of the poll, which was commissioned by Dixon’s campaign: Of the 1,325 respondents, 42 percent said they’d vote for Poloncarz if the election were held today; 40 percent said they’d vote for Dixon; and 18 percent said they were undecided. The margin of error is listed as 3.5 percent — thus, a statistical tie. The race might be that[...]
Jun 6
2019
The Buffalo Police Department has finally been accredited by outside evaluators. The City Charter requires such accreditation, but the department had long ignored the mandate. That changed when Investigative Post reported the requirement in January 2017. Since then, police officials have been working with a division of the state Department of Criminal Justice to review practices and policies. A state panel approved the accreditation at a meeting Thursday morning. Most police departments seek the accreditation, which is good for five years. The objective is to improve the professionalism and efficiency of departments.
Jun 6
2019
On Tuesday morning, the Buffalo Common Council’s Legislation Committee expected a visit from interim Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams. Miller-Williams had been invited to explain why she had issued a second, amended evaluation of Mayor Byron Brown’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2019-2020. She didn’t show on Tuesday morning. Instead, Miller-Williams sent a deputy and her special assistant — newly hired out of the mayor’s budget office — to tell the committee that she had decided, upon further review, to withdraw the second budget response and go with the first one. You can read about the first report here and here, and[...]
Jun 4
2019
Declaring “a healthy community starts with transparency,” Michael F. Newman, a civically engaged business executive has joined the board of Investigative Post. Newman is executive vice president of NOCO Energy Corp., where he is responsible for business development. Newman is very active in the community, presently serving as chairman of the Kaleida Foundation, treasurer of Buffalo Prep, and a board member of Erie Community College. He was named one of the 125 Most Influential People in Western New York in 2012. Newman graduated from Canisius College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and a Master of Business Administration in[...]