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May 27

2024

Buffalo’s fiscal reckoning

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  Buffalo Common Council President Christopher P. Scanlon. Photo by Garrett Looker. Buffalo’s Common Council took some of the sting out of the mayor’s proposed property tax hike last week, at least for residential homeowners.  Legislators knocked Mayor Byron Brown’s 9 percent tax increase to 7.5 percent, with most of the relief directed to residential homeowners. But city dwellers shouldn’t rest easy. Taxes likely will continue to rise in the years to come. “This tax increase is nothing compared to what’s going to happen in the future,” Niagara District Council Member David Rivera said last week.   “We should have been[...]

Posted 11 months ago

May 27

2024

Americans are horribly misinformed on the economy

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll receive Jim Heaney’s recommended reading Sunday mornings in your inbox. We’re a nation that watches football, obsessives over Taylor Swift and can’t stop staring at our phone screens. Paying attention to reality, not so much. A poll released last week showed most Americans are horribly misinformed over the state of the economy, which in turn is coloring their views on national politics.  Consider: A majority say we’re in a recession; we’re not. Most say unemployment is at a record high; it’s actually near a 50-year low.  A majority say inflation is rising; it’s decreasing. Most[...]

Posted 11 months ago

May 24

2024

Buffalo back on top in race with Amherst

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Back in 2000, the value of taxable property in Amherst eclipsed that of Buffalo. It was believed to be the first time that had happened and raised questions about the city’s fiscal health. By 2015, Amherst growth was slowing as Buffalo’s picked up. In 2021, fueled in part by rising housing prices, as well as downtown and waterfront investment, Buffalo’s tax base edged ahead. The most recent figures peg the 2023 value of Buffalo’s taxable property at $15.3 billion, compared to Amherst’s $14.5 billion. We should note, however, that Amherst inches closer each year.

Posted 11 months ago

May 23

2024

Harris Beach, Hodgson Russ profiting off IDAs

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A meeting of the Erie County IDA board of directors. Photo by Garrett Looker. When New York’s industrial development agencies grant tax breaks, it’s not just local companies that benefit — two upstate law firms walk away with major paydays, too. Hodgson Russ and Harris Beach — based in Buffalo and the Rochester area, respectively — earn millions of dollars in fees each year, according to research from the watchdog groups Reinvent Albany and Good Jobs First. That report comes on the heels of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s annual IDA report, also released Wednesday. The comptroller’s report showed that for[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 22

2024

Who’s running for Buffalo school board

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Three at-large seats on Buffalo’s school board will be on the ballot this November. Two incumbents, Larry Scott and Terrance Heard, are running for reelection. The other, Ann Rivera, won’t seek another five-year term. So far there are at least four other candidates, three of whom are working together to make the ballot: Ed Speidel, president of the District Parent Coordinating Council and a former co-chair of the district’s Special Education Parents Advisory Committee. He’s the parent of two current Buffalo Public Schools students. He recently held a meat raffle fundraiser at the South Buffalo Moose Lodge. Raziya Hill, founder[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 21

2024

Censoring the news in New York prisons

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DOCCS banned entire issues of publications from New York magazine to Prison Legal News. | Maia Hibbett Editor’s note: This story is republished from New York Focus. Subscribe to their newsletter here. IN 2016, D’UONE MORRISON wanted to read about racial bias in New York’s prison system. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo had ordered an investigation into the topic, and Morrison, a Black man incarcerated in New York, asked a friend to mail him a news article about it. But the prison’s media review committee blocked the article, Morrison told New York Focus, citing its potential to disrupt order and threaten security.[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 20

2024

A Buffalo renaissance? Not with this much poverty.

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The most disturbing thing I read last week was a press release from  Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli about what he termed the state’s “staggering” childhood poverty rate. Nearly one in five live in poverty, half of them in deep poverty.  Poverty is especially pervasive in upstate’s largest cities, according to the comptroller’s report: When compared to other U.S. cities with similar population levels, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo have child poverty rates that are double the average rate of their cohort cities. Between 40 to 46% of children in Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo were living in poverty in 2022, and they[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 17

2024

Continuing need for mental health services

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Two years after the May 14 massacre at Tops Supermarket on Jefferson Avenue, counselors and other community advocates are calling for expanded mental health services on Buffalo’s East Side. What’s needed, they say, are more community centers serving as “safe spaces” where young people can go, as well as more mental health counseling and more funding for mental health services overall. The advocates and counselors are requesting funds be included in the 2024-25 city budget Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council are currently working on. “Traditionally, there has always been a lack of any kind of service, and I’m[...]

Posted 12 months ago
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