Categories for News

Mar 13

2024

Buffalo’s tax auction limbo

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Last September Delaware District Council Member Joel Feroleto held up the city’s sale of a house on Amherst Street because he knew the city had acquired the property through a tax foreclosure. He wanted to be sure the children of the former owner, who died, got any surplus funds generated by the sale. Feroleto had reason for concern. In 2019, the Brown administration changed its process for handling the money generated at tax foreclosure auctions so that the city could keep more of the proceeds. As a result, millions of dollars that in the past might have been returned to[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Mar 7

2024

Judge rules in favor of industrial park construction

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The Orleans County County Courthouse in Albion. A judge Thursday tossed out a lawsuit that threatened continued development of a massive industrial park in rural Genesee County. Orleans County had sued in an effort to halt construction of a sewage transmission line through its jurisdiction that would route wastewater from the STAMP industrial park into Oak Orchard Creek. Orleans officials contend the wastewater would pollute the creek and potentially damage the county’s fishing industry.   State Supreme Court Judge Frank Caruso dismissed the case on procedural grounds. He ruled Orleans County waited too long to file suit. The case pitted neighbor[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Mar 6

2024

Controversy around incoming Buff State president

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Editor’s note: Story has been updated to reflect new information and to correct the name of a faculty group. Some faculty at the University of Houston-Victoria are raising ethical concerns about their provost, Chance Glenn, selected to head Buffalo State University later this year. The concerns are over potential conflicts involving Glenn’s university position and his work with a private research corporation he founded, according to a March 2 article in Victoria Advocate. “We’re calling for an interim provost by the end of March,” Jeff Blodgett, a marketing professor at the Texas university, told Investigative Post. “We’re supposed to be[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Mar 5

2024

Lawsuit accuses Erie County Sheriff of stonewalling

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Erie County Sheriff John C. Garcia. Photo by Garrett Looker. The Erie County Sheriff’s Office is being sued for jail records. Again. The Partnership for the Public Good, which asked for records last May, filed suit in December after its request for documents for the downtown holding center and Alden lockup was refused. It’s the third time since 2018 that the sheriff’s office has been sued over jail records. In the two previous cases, courts ordered the sheriff’s office to provide requested documents.  “They don’t give up stuff they should give up,” said Nan Haynes, who sued the sheriff in[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Mar 1

2024

Demolition threatened for Buffalo’s ‘house from hell’

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Over a year after two dead bodies were found in a boarded-up Arkansas Street house, a city court judge is once again calling for demolition of the property.  Meanwhile, the owner is now facing similar issues with a burned-out house he owns in a different West Side neighborhood.  His attorney says Kwayo Ithe Bonkuka could afford to fix the problem properties if he gets back $80,000 he paid for a city-owned house, but never received ownership of. “If we enter into an agreement, money will be transferred back for properties,” attorney Daniel Tarantino said in a recent Housing Court appearance.[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Feb 23

2024

Downtown Buffalo hostel facing quick eviction

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Hostel Buffalo-Niagara at 667 Main Street in downtown Buffalo. Buffalo’s downtown hostel was notified this week that it must evacuate the Main Street building its occupied for nearly 30 years so stabilization work can begin on the hostel and an adjacent structure Initially, the hostel was given until March 1 to vacate. But by the end of  Friday, in response to concerns raised by the hostel, the city extended the deadline until March 25 – although representatives for the hostel are saying it’s still not enough time. “We feel heard for right now, but we need more and we want[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Feb 23

2024

OTB wants to expand gambling in Buffalo

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After an eight-month delay, Buffalo’s new representative on the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. board of directors participated in her first meeting Thursday and has already taken on a major project: Changing state law to make it easier for Buffalo residents to bet on horse races. Crystal Rodriguez-Dabney, former deputy mayor to Mayor Byron Brown, said she wants to give bars, restaurants and bowling alleys in Buffalo and Western New York the opportunity to install betting terminals, supplied by OTB, as a way to earn more revenue. The terminals, called E-Z Bet, allow gamblers to bet on any horse race[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Feb 22

2024

Attorney General investigating Buffalo landlords

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A state Attorney General’s probe into lead poisoning is focused on a group believed to own or manage more than 200 Buffalo properties – at least 25 of which were cited for lead-related violations, and at least 11 of which were homes to children who have tested positive for high lead levels, according to court papers. The nearly year-long investigation was disclosed in court papers filed Friday by Attorney General Letitia James’ office. The filings describe the landlord/management group as “a tangled web of limited liability companies, corporations, and individuals,” who appear to operate out of a boarded-up building on[...]

Posted 2 months ago
Investigative Post

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