Categories for News

Apr 13

2022

The Poloncarz exchange with stadium critic

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Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz didn’t talk about a new Buffalo Bills stadium while county and state officials were still negotiating terms of an agreement with the team.  With the $1.4 billion stadium deal now approved as part of the new state budget, Poloncarz had a lot more to say this week.  Well, he didn’t actually “say” anything. Instead, he Tweeted .  On Monday, Poloncarz defended the stadium plan that will cost state and county taxpayers at least $1.13 billion over a 30-year lease term in a series of Twitter exchanges between him and Dr. Ryan Miller, a supporter of[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 5

2022

Allegations of ICE mistreatment of detainees

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A coalition of advocates for immigrants’ rights claims that “egregious conditions” and “unsafe release practices” at the federal detention center in Batavia have caused detainees “serious injury and even death.” Those claims are leveled in a Freedom of Information request filed Wednesday with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the agency that runs the Batavia facility, formally known as the Buffalo Service Processing Center.  In the FOIA request, the coalition cites current and former detainees’ accounts of beatings, medical neglect and other abuses.  In addition to conditions inside the detention center, the coalition takes issue with ICE’s practice of[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 4

2022

WNY tops the list of most wasteful subsidies

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New York state has a long history of squandering huge amounts of taxpayer money on economic development projects that yield little to no returns.  A new report highlighting the state’s “Dirtiest Dozen” economic development deals ranked four Western New York projects at the top of the list.  The report, developed by the American Economics Liberties Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for corporate accountability, singled out the subsidy package offered to Plug Power to locate a facility in Genesee County – at a public cost of $4 million per job – as the worst of the worst.  “The most expensive[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 29

2022

State lawmakers object to Bills stadium deal

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New York state Assemblyman Ron Kim did not hold back on Tuesday when asked for his thoughts on the plan to commit $1.13 billion in public funds to help the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills build a new $1.4 billion stadium in Orchard Park.  Tempering enthusiasm expressed on Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul and other advocates for the project, the Bronx Democrat described the Bills stadium proposal as “one giant scam” that he predicts will be a “horrible” deal for New York State.  “The process of how we got here speaks volume of where we are in the state[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 24

2022

Hochul pressed on subsidy reform

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New York doles out more subsidy dollars than almost any state in the nation and one of its more noteworthy programs was marred by corruption. The problems have been evident for years, and especially since Investigative Post exposed bid-rigging in the Buffalo Billion program in 2014 that eventually sent one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top economic development officials, along with a major campaign contributor, to federal prison. So what have state officials done to promote transparency and accountability? Not much, according to a coalition of 18 good government groups whose philosophies span the political spectrum. In a letter earlier this[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 17

2022

Buffalo schools shedding administrators

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There’s an exodus of sorts from the ranks of Buffalo school administrators. It started in January when Myra Burden, who earned $145,000 as chief of technology, resigned after only two years. She led the district through a rocky period, including the switch to remote learning due to the pandemic and a ransomware attack that hindered the district’s operations. The position remains unfilled. Elena Cala, who earned $88,265 as special assistant to the superintendent for public relations, was quick to follow and resigned to accept a similar position at West Seneca schools. She had worked for the district since 2010 and[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 15

2022

Brown cited for election law violations

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Last August, Peter Rizzo sent the state elections board a detailed analysis alleging Mayor Byron Brown had violated a number of campaign finance laws. First, Rizzo wrote, the mayor’s campaign failed to identify the individual owners of limited liability corporations, as required by state law. Rizzo identified “more than 100 campaign contributions from limited liability companies during the current election cycle” which were improperly documented. Second, Rizzo said, the mayor’s campaign accepted more money from several individuals and corporations than the law allowed.  These over-contributions were in some cases obfuscated by other filing failures and violations, Rizzo wrote. His complaint[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 14

2022

A step backwards on police accountability

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Last summer, the state Legislature peeled away exemptions to the state’s Freedom of Information Law that made it difficult for the public to obtain video recorded on officers’ body cameras and related evidence. Awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature now — during “Sunshine Week” — is a bill making “technical corrections” to that measure.  In fact, transparency advocates say, the bill on Hochul’s desk will eviscerate it.  “This is a disaster for holding police accountable and for New York State’s Freedom of Information Law,” lawyer-journalist James S. Henry of Sag Harbor, one of the backers of the 2021 police accountability law,[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post