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Jun 17

2024

Buffalo needs a hard control board

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Mayor Byron Brown made it clear last week he has no intention of resolving the city’s pending fiscal crisis. In an interview with Deidre Williams of The Buffalo News, the mayor said rather than cutting spending, he’s looking for increased revenue from the county, state and perhaps federal governments to close a projected deficit of at least $41 million for the budget year starting July 2025.  In fact, the feds have already been bailing him out. In the past three budgets, the city has used $100 million in federal pandemic aid to balance the books. It expects to use at[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Jun 14

2024

Buffalo getting safer — but keep an eye on your car

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Despite a spike in homicides during the Covid pandemic, violent crime in Buffalo has been trending down. That's also true for a post-pandemic spike in car thefts. But even with those numbers dropping in recent months, there's still plenty of vehicles being stolen. For those who haven't been following the social-media-inspired crime surge, car theft began spiking nationally after videos posted on TikTok a few years ago showed how a design flaw made it relatively easy to steal Kias and Hyundais. Thus was born the "Kia challenge," encouraging young people to joy-ride in a stolen car. Buffalo experienced the full[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Jun 13

2024

Double trouble involving Buffalo cop

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A Buffalo Police vehicle parked on Niagara Street. Photo by Garrett Looker. Buffalo Police Officer Kiam Gunn knows the law from both sides of the badge. Before becoming a cop in 2018, Gunn, 44, was arrested at least five times on charges ranging from drug possession to assault. He’s also gotten in trouble while a police officer. During his six years on the force, Gunn has been the target of six internal affairs complaints. Two were upheld, resulting in discipline. Gunn was suspended without pay for 45 days in May 2022, after witnesses reported seeing him smoke marijuana at Delaware[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Jun 12

2024

A mixed bag on IDA reform in Albany

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New York State Sen. Sean Ryan.  The push to reform New York’s industrial development agencies gained significant momentum this year, but not enough to net a serious win for the coalition of labor unions, teachers and good government groups backing the effort. Smaller measures, however, did make it over the finish line, including one expanding representation on IDA boards and another increasing transparency over agency projects. “The momentum is building and we’re going to continue to build that momentum,” said state Sen. Sean Ryan of Buffalo. “But the community itself is building it.” IDAs, of which there are 107 across[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Jun 11

2024

Buffalo lawmakers’ side gigs

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Buffalo Common Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope, President Pro Tempore Bryan Bollman, and University District Council Member Rasheed Wyatt. Photo by Garrett Looker. The Buffalo Common Council’s majority leader, Leah Halton-Pope, was sworn into office — and onto the city’s payroll — on Jan. 1. But she was collecting more than a city paycheck during her first four months in office. Halton-Pope continued to work as a part-time policy consultant for Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes — the woman she has called her “forever boss” — until the end of April, making about $3,000 a month. And she continues to[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Jun 10

2024

Price gouging that makes Terry Pegula look good

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If you’re a regular reader of this column, you know I’m not a fan of the way Terry Pegula operates his sports teams. (Personal seat licenses, for staters.) But there is something to be said about how he prices Sabres tickets, although the size of our market probably has a lot more to do with it than his benevolence. The Arizona Coyotes of the National Hockey League are relocating to Salt Lake City for the coming season and the team last week announced its ticket prices. Let’s compare with Buffalo. Season tickets in the lower seating bowl for the Sabres [...]

Posted 12 months ago

Jun 7

2024

Buffalo-areas schools spending about $28,000 per student

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Thirty-nine school budgets totaling $4 billion were recently approved in Erie and Niagara counties for the upcoming school year. The money will educate some 138,000 public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The individual budgets range from a low of $17.7 million in North Collins, the smallest school district, with just 564 students, to a high of almost $1 billion in the largest district, Buffalo public schools, with some 30,000 students. (Charter schools in the Buffalo area, with some 12,000 students, are not included in this analysis.) We looked at per pupil spending - total budget divided by enrollment.[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Jun 6

2024

Charters outperform urban public schools in reading

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The reading skills of young students who attend charter schools in and around Buffalo are slightly better than those attending urban public schools, an Investigative Post analysis has found. The results of 2023’s testing showed 30 percent of third through fifth grade students at the 19 charter schools tested in Erie and Niagara counties could read and write at or above grade level, according to the New York State Education Department.  That compares with 25 percent of students in the same grades in Buffalo public schools. “There’s more we want to achieve for our kids, clearly,” said Fatimah Barker, executive[...]

Posted 12 months ago
Investigative Post