Categories for News

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 6 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 6 months ago

Apr 1

2025

Judge rules radioactive waste lawsuit “untimely”

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Metal plate bearing the name “Titanium Alloy Manufacturing Co.” Photo from court records. A federal magistrate has recommended dismissal of a wrongful death claim filed last year by a Lewiston man who blamed his wife’s death on radioactive waste buried on the couple’s property. U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Roemer ruled Philip Palmeri filed his lawsuit long after the two-year statute of limitations had expired, as measured from the date in 2018 when his wife, Tracey Palmeri, was first diagnosed with breast cancer. In a footnote to his ruling, Roemer acknowledged this was not “a fair result” for the plaintiff.  Palmeri[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Mar 27

2025

A new approach to East Side development

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Henry Louis Taylor of UB presents plans for Census Tract 166. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel Census Tract 166 — an economically devastated community situated in the heart of the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood — will be ground zero for a new approach to revitalizing the East Side. The census tract is peppered with 1,300 vacant lots, more than any other neighborhood in the city.  Only 25 percent of its adult residents work, according to 2022 US census estimates. More than a quarter of its households live below the poverty level. Henry Taylor, director of the University at Buffalo’s Center for Urban Studies,[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Mar 25

2025

Wage theft widespread in Western New York

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The theft of employee wages is widespread across Western New York, data from state and federal labor departments show. State and federal labor investigators found some 1,900 regional employers withheld $17.1 million in pay and benefits from 23,613 workers over the past decade.  That’s an average of $3,066 per affected worker, according to data collected by Documented and analyzed by Investigative Post. Some employers were found to owe a handful of employees large amounts — more than $40,000 in some cases — while others were found to owe many workers small amounts. The median worker was returned $500 due to[...]

Posted 7 months ago
Investigative Post