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Oct 24

2024

OTB hires two Brown lieutenants from City Hall

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Byron Brown answers questions from reporters at Thursday’s OTB meeting. Photo by Garrett Looker. Steven Casey, a longtime aide to Byron Brown and a political operative whose consulting firm pleaded guilty to felony charges in 2021, was hired Thursday as the former mayor’s right-hand man at the Western Regional Off-Track Betting. The OTB board voted to hire Casey for one year as chief administrative officer and chief of staff under Brown, OTB’s new president and CEO. Casey will be paid $190,000. OTB will retain Scott Kiedrowski, OTB’s current No. 2, who is named in a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Oct 24

2024

Braymiller Market pays its delinquent taxes

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Braymiller’s grocery includes a deli. Photo by Garrett Looker. It took two formal warnings from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency and the threat of losing a key tax break, but Braymiller Market owner Stuart Green paid his overdue city taxes Wednesday. Green’s $8,200 payment, half his annual bill, was nearly three months late and was at least the third time he’d missed the deadline for paying his city property tax, according to city records. Under the terms of a 2019 package of tax breaks, which totaled $765,000, Bryamiller is responsible for paying 20 percent of its tax bill. John[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Oct 24

2024

Buffalo asks judge to dismiss lead inspection lawsuit

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Attorneys Matthew Parham, far left, with John Lipsitz, representing groups suing Buffalo, and Assistant Corporation Counsel David Lee, right, representing the city, appear before State Supreme Court Judge Michael Siragusa.  Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. The City of Buffalo is asking a judge to toss out a lawsuit accusing the city of failing to enforce a rental inspection law aimed at reducing lead paint in its aging housing stock. Here’s why the case has no merit, according to the city: Buffalo is enforcing its inspections law, known as the Proactive Rental Inspections Program or PRI — just not as quickly as[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Oct 23

2024

Brown’s OTB contract could rise to $315,000 in 2027

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Outgoing OTB CEO Henry Wojtaszek, left, recently appointed CEO Byron Brown, center, and attorney Rajat Shah. Photo by Mark Scheer. Former Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has the chance to boost his annual salary of $295,000 by another $20,000 within two years as the new CEO and president of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. At the start of Wednesday’s OTB board of directors meeting — the first attended by Brown since he resigned as mayor to head the public gambling agency — Brown released a copy of his employment contract. The three-year contract will, as has been previously reported, pay Brown[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Oct 22

2024

City loan has not stabilized Braymiller Market

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Story updated 10:34 a.m. Oct. 24. A year after the City of Buffalo threw Braymiller Market a half-million dollar lifeline, the downtown grocery store continues to struggle financially. For a third year in a row, records show that owner Stuart Green is months behind on his city tax payments.  That failure to pay $8,119 in taxes, half the annual bill, prompted the Erie County Industrial Development Agency to warn him Sept. 10 and again last week that the property tax abatement it granted him in 2019 could be revoked. On Wednesday, IDA leaders said they were prepared to begin the[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Oct 22

2024

Poloncarz blasts Brown for hiring Steve Casey at OTB

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The elected official with the greatest sway over Western Regional Off-Track Betting is “incredibly disappointed” that former Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has brought a controversial former deputy with him to his new post as head of the troubled public gambling corporation. “Former Mayor Brown committed to the Board of Directors that he would move Western Region OTB towards transparency and accountability,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said in a statement to Investigative Post. Hiring Steven M. Casey — “an incredibly toxic force in Buffalo City Hall for decades,” according to Poloncarz — “moves Western Region OTB in the complete opposite[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Oct 20

2024

Brown brings long-time aide Steve Casey to OTB

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Steven Casey, left, and Byron Brown, right. File photo by WKBW. Steven M. Casey — Byron Brown’s former deputy mayor and top political advisor — is following his old boss to a job at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. A source close to OTB leadership confirmed Casey, 58, is now working for the publicly owned gambling corporation and is on-site at Batavia Downs. The state comptroller’s office confirmed Casey began working part-time for OTB in September. OTB did not report a job title to the comptroller but projected his annual part-time wages would total $49,920. Casey — whose company pleaded[...]

Posted 8 months ago

Oct 20

2024

The Legal Loopholes in Online Gambling Regulations: Political Will or Political Gridlock?

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Despite the growth of online casinos and sports betting in the U.S., a key issue remains unresolved: legal loopholes that let operators bypass regulations. Many states have legalized online gambling to capture new revenue. But laws haven’t kept pace with the industry’s rapid changes. These gaps leave users exposed and weaken the legitimacy of the entire system. The question is whether this failure comes from political inaction, lack of will, or both. The Rise of Online Gambling and the Regulatory Lag Online gambling has expanded quickly. Many states moved fast to legalize it, but didn’t modernize their laws. New Jersey[...]

Posted 8 months ago
Investigative Post