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Jun 3

2019

iPost coverage of police drowning wins award

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Reporting that showed how the Buffalo Police Department put Officer Craig Lehner in harm’s way before his drowning in 2017 has won a statewide reporting award. The New York State Associated Press selected the story by Daniela Porat as the top investigative  story broadcast in 2018 on radio stations in mid-sized markets. The story aired on WBFO. Porat reported that the current in the Niagara River was too swift for an inexperienced diver like Lehner and that he was not properly trained and equipped.   The Lehner family subsequently filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city and police department.[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 31

2019

Ciminelli appeals corruption conviction

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 Lawyers for Louis Ciminelli have appealed his felony conviction last summer on corruption charges related to the Buffalo Billion. Ciminelli, president of LPCiminelli, and Alain Kaloyeros, head of a state-affiliated development corporation, were convicted for their roles in the awarding of the contract to develop the $750 million facility to house Tesla’s solar panel manufacturing plant. Jim Heaney told WGRZ that Ciminelli’s attorney is using the same failed legal arguments in the appeal that he did during the trial.  

Posted 6 years ago

May 30

2019

Troubling signs from Buffalo’s comptroller

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Well, she went ahead and did it. There was no good reason to do it, but she did it anyway. Interim Buffalo Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams has issued an amendment to her own office’s critical assessment of Mayor Byron Brown’s projected 2019-2020 budget. The initial comptroller’s response was released on May 10, the deadline for the comptroller’s office to issue its response to the mayor’s annual budget proposal, according to the city charter. This new, amended response is dated May 15 and wasn’t submitted to the Common Council until a week after that — too late to count. But let that[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 29

2019

Investigative Post is hiring reporters

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Investigative Post, a nonprofit investigative reporting center in Buffalo, N.Y., is looking for two experienced reporters to join our award-winning team. We’re looking for reporters with at least five years of experience and  a track record of producing compelling, high-impact stories. Good writing skills are a must; data skills a plus. We produce stories for online, television, radio and print; applicants with a newspaper background will get plenty of help learning broadcasting skills. And if you’re a television investigative reporter, by all means apply. Salary commensurate with experience and skills; compensation includes health insurance and retirement plan. Send cover letter,[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 21

2019

The cost of suspending driver’s licenses

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 A “staggering” number of motorists across the state, including Western New York, lose their driver’s license every year. The state suspends more than a half-million annually; the count in Erie County approaches 26,000. Drivers can lose their license without violating traffic laws. Failure to pay state taxes or make child support payments are among the offenses that can result in a driver losing their license. Still, nearly two-thirds of suspensions result from the failure to pay traffic tickets or show up in court in response to getting one. In theory, losing a license keeps drivers off the road. But national studies[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 20

2019

City Hall’s looming fiscal reckoning

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A malfunctioning fire alarm rang shrill and unrelenting on the 13th floor of City Hall last Thursday morning, contributing to an hour-and-a-half delay of the Common Council’s special session to adopt its amendments to Mayor Byron Brown’s proposed 2019-2020 budget. Maybe the universe was trying to tell the Common Council something about that budget. If it was, they weren’t listening. Once it began, the meeting took about 10 minutes. The result: The Council moved some money around various budget lines in order to fund projects and purchases dear to each member’s heart, but left Brown’s budget essentially intact. This, despite[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 16

2019

Another Buffalo Billion project is struggling

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There were supposed to be almost 500 jobs created by now. Instead, there are just 51. An ambitious economic development project at the University of Buffalo, intended to bolster the region’s biotech sector and create high-tech jobs, is years behind its original schedule and coming up short on its hiring goals. The Buffalo Institute for Genomics and Data Analytics, funded with almost $50 million in state grants as part of the Buffalo Billion initiative, was launched five years ago and remains a work in progress. The project was originally supposed to create 490 jobs by January of this year. That[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 16

2019

Lawyers tell OTB to ditch the perks

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A prominent law firm has told the board of the Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp. that its members should not be helping themselves to free health, dental and vision insurance. “We recommend that Western region directors no longer accept health insurance benefits,” lawyers for the firm of Barclay Damon wrote in a March 26 opinion obtained by Investigative Post and the Niagara Gazette. The opinion cited caps on board compensation established in state law and previous rulings made by the state Comptroller and Attorney General. Attorneys for Barclay Damon also cautioned that board members may face financial penalties if the[...]

Posted 6 years ago
Investigative Post