Sep 27
2016
The elephant in the room…
Posted 9 years ago
Sep 27
2016
Sep 23
2016
Gov. Andrew Cuomo obviously believes the best defense is a good offense. The governor came to town Friday, fresh off the indictment of three of his close associates and two of his major campaign contributors and attempted to claim victory. He told a gathering at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery that Buffalo is booming and announced a second phase of the Buffalo Billion program is coming as soon as Howard Zemsky figures out what it should involve. In short, Cuomo tried to change the topic. Only after his remarks before a sympathetic audience at the art gallery did he address the[...]
Sep 22
2016
I did a slew of interviews Thursday after news broke that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara indicted three Cuomo insiders and five development company officials on a variety of corruption charges. One question came up time and time again: “Was I surprised?” The answer, in a word, is “No.” I spelled out my reasoning in a blog post back in May. As I wrote then: The Cuomo crowd is obsessed with secrecy and operates with the mistaken notion that the rules don’t apply to them. The governor may or may not have knowledge of the supposed misdeeds of some of his[...]
Sep 22
2016
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect new developments as of Sept. 22, 2016. The close relationship between EYP Architecture and Engineering and (currently suspended) SUNY Polytechnic President Alain Kaloyeros was further described by state attorney general Eric Schneiderman in a complaint unsealed today. State investigators allege that EYP, referred to as “Architect-1” throughout the complaint, was described as SUNY Poly’s “in-house architect” by a former employee of Columbia development, whose president has been charged with collaborating with Kaloyeros to rig bids for a project to build SUNY Poly housing. The employee told investigators that EYP had been involved[...]
Sep 22
2016
In this episode of Investigative Postcast, environmental reporter Dan Telvock talks to Assemblyman Sean Ryan about lead poisoning, which remains a serious problem in Buffalo. Ryan recently convened a roundtable in Rochester where experts and lawmakers discussed obstacles to eliminating childhood lead poisoning in the state. He said the group had a notable discussion about how insurance companies exclude lead paint injury coverage in homeowner’s policies, which is allowed by the Department of Insurance. “There is an exclusion saying ‘we won’t cover any damages as a result of lead poisoning,’ ” Ryan said. Ryan said he hopes to convene a similar[...]
Sep 22
2016
Gov. Cuomo’s signature Buffalo Billion initiative was mired in corruption and bid-rigging, according to a federal complaint unsealed Thursday. The complaint alleges what has long been suspected: the RFP for Buffalo developers to build the $750 million factory for SolarCity was designed with one company, LPCiminelli, in mind. SUNY Polytechnic president Alain Kaloyeros, lobbyist Todd Howe, and executives at Buffalo-based LPCiminelli worked together to “secretly tailor” the required qualifications for a developer in Buffalo so that LPCiminelli would be guaranteed to win the work, according to the complaint. A similar pattern of collaboration is alleged to have taken place between Kaloyeros, Howe and[...]
Sep 21
2016
Sep 20
2016
The state Department of Environmental Conservation said Tuesday that its latest air monitoring program near the Peace Bridge shows the air people breathe in adjacent neighborhoods beset by high asthma rates is comparable to other similarly sized cities and high-traffic urban areas. In fact, state environmental regulators said during the community meeting at the Porter Street Library in Buffalo that some of the air toxins they measured near the Peace Bridge were similar to what one might find near Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks. Nonetheless, the DEC called on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to adopt stronger emission standards for[...]