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Apr 14

2025

Granville update, plus other Monday morning reads

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The Buffalo Police Department has put five officers on administrative leave as it continues to investigate the department’s response to the incident last April in which Erie County Sheriff Narcotics Chief D.J. Granville hit seven parked cars in his county-owned pickup truck. Police also, on the day the statute of limitations was set to expire, issued citations to Granville for leaving the scene of an accident. One of the five officers suspended is Lt. Lucia Esquilin, Granville’s sister-in-law, who responded to the scene and signed off on reports related to the incident. The other four were Police Officers Brittany Bartels,[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 10

2025

Notorious Buffalo slumlord Charles Dobucki arrested

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2 St. Louis Place, owned by Dobucki. Photo courtesy of WKBW. Buffalo Police this morning arrested one of the city’s most infamous and elusive landlords, whose blighted properties have been the subject of community complaints, Housing Court cases and most recently a partial demolition order for a long-vacant Allentown building. Charles Dobucki was taken into custody at a Delaware Avenue auto shop in North Buffalo, according to Mike Read, spokesman for Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon. Dobucki was subject to three arrest warrants stemming from his failure to appear in Buffalo Housing Court or respond to citations and fines for code[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 10

2025

The good and bad in Scanlon’s budget

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Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon in City Hall. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s first budget proposal is balanced with $30 million that may not materialize, absent cooperation from lawmakers in Albany. His $622 million spending plan also depends on upticks in the cost, enforcement and collection of city fees and fines that often have fallen short of expectations. Its viability also swings on a dramatic reduction in overtime costs, which in recent years have gone nowhere but up.  In short, Scanlon’s budget shares many characteristics with those of Byron Brown, his predecessor: some rosy revenue assumptions, a one-shot[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 9

2025

Buffalo landlord settles housing discrimination lawsuit

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The Mayflower, owned by Buffalo Management Group. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel A local real estate and property management company has settled a federal lawsuit accusing its employees and president of violating fair housing laws. Housing Opportunities Made Equal last November brought litigation against Buffalo Management Group after an investigation concluded that its president, Myron Robbins, established a company-wide policy that employees were not to rent apartments in the Medical Corridor to tenants with children. Discrimination based on familial status is a violation of state and federal fair housing laws. HOME and Buffalo Management Group last week reached a resolution that[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 8

2025

Tesla spends taxpayer ‘slush fund’ on new cafeteria

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When Tesla employees show up to work nowadays in South Buffalo, a cafeteria serving breakfast, lunch and dinner — along with snacks and coffee — awaits. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch: Tesla employees must pay for the meals, which include salads, pasta, pizza and sandwiches. The other catch? New York State taxpayers have footed the bill for the eatery, which cost $1.6 million to build. Records obtained by Investigative Post show the electric vehicle maker continues to spend taxpayer dollars each year on the factory, which the state spent $959 million to build and equip. The[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 7

2025

Big turnout in mayor’s race already

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Seven candidates for Buffalo mayor last week filed nominating petitions bearing the signatures of nearly 27,000 city voters. That’s more voters than took part in the 2013 and 2021 Democratic primaries for mayor. It’s nearly as many as cast valid ballots in 2005 and 2017. Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon led the pack with a whopping 7,565 signatures, nearly four times the number needed to qualify for the ballot. Garnell Whitfield, the former fire commissioner, filed the second-highest number of signatures, with 4,315. University District Council Member Rasheed Wyatt had more than 3,800 signatures, according to The Buffalo News. State Sen. Sean[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 3

2025

Lawmakers demand answers on border detentions

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Federal, state and local lawmakers across Western New York are denouncing a Trump administration practice of detaining individuals and families in cells at the U.S.-Canada border for as long as two weeks. The region’s federal lawmakers are demanding answers on the new practice. “Our office is looking into these disturbing allegations,” a spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Schumer said in a statement to Investigative Post, noting his office is also seeking answers on ICE’s recent arrest of a mother and children in Sackets Harbor. “There is no excuse for the cruel or inhumane treatment of children & families. [U.S. Customs and[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Apr 1

2025

Feds locking up families, children at Canadian border

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Pedestrian entrance to Rainbow Bridge Customs station. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. In a departure from past practice, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is detaining people — including families with young children — at official ports of entry along the New York-Canada border for as much as two weeks at a time. In multiple instances since mid-February, families with young children have been detained in cells at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. An Investigative Post reporter personally confirmed one of those family detentions. In that case, the family was held for two weeks.  Jennifer Connor, a Buffalo advocate for[...]

Posted 2 months ago
Investigative Post