Categories for News

Dec 22

2023

Buffalo barista alleges illegal firing

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A trendy new coffee shop near the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus has been hit with a lawsuit alleging the owners illegally fired a barista after she fainted due to being overworked. Angel Krempa, the barista, worked at Penny’s from June through August. Her lawsuit alleges that the owners of Penny’s Coffee Shop — located near the corner of Main and Allen streets — forced her to work eight to 12 hour shifts without breaks or overtime pay in violation of New York Labor Law. The workload exacerbated a pre-existing medical condition that caused  her to pass out on the job,[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Dec 14

2023

Lawsuit: Radioactive slag at affordable housing project

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A developer claims subcontractors used radioactive slag as construction fill at an affordable housing project just north of Buffalo’s medical campus. Now the developer wants the subcontractors, and the company that sold them the contaminated material, to pay $1.6 million for the cleanup, and other costs. The allegations were made in a lawsuit filed last week in federal court by the Buffalo-based McGuire PV Holdings, LLC. The company is in the midst of a years-long effort to revitalize the Pilgrim Village affordable housing complex, located between Michigan Avenue and Ellicott Street, across the street from Gates Vascular Institute. McGuire claims[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Dec 12

2023

City worker in paid leave limbo

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Two years ago, a dispatcher in the city’s water department complained to his supervisors about work conditions at the pumping station on Porter Avenue. His computer didn’t work properly, often compelling him to do the same data-entry work twice, Rashimee Wilson wrote in an email to his bosses, including then Public Works Commissioner Mike Finn.  Worse, he wrote, he wasn’t allowed to leave his post for meal breaks, not even when he was asked to work two eight-hour shifts in a row.  Further, Wilson claimed, the department’s seniority system granted privileges and accommodations to white employees that were denied to[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Dec 6

2023

City employee retires after years on paid suspension

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The Buffalo Fire Department clerk who spent seven and a half years on paid leave — costing taxpayers nearly $600,000 for no work — has retired. Officially, Jill Repman’s last day on the job was Nov. 30, according to the Office of the State Comptroller.  In reality, she hasn’t done a lick of work for the fire department since accused of wrongdoing in January 2016 and suspended with pay. Even after being ordered back to work in September, Repman used vacation days and other paid time off to avoid coming to work before filing for retirement. It’s been nearly eight[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Dec 4

2023

Poloncarz swaps one potential OTB critic for another

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A recently-appointed director of the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp.— expected to be a watchdog over the embattled gambling agency — has resigned.  State law prohibits public and political party officials from holding a license necessary to serve on the governing board of off-track betting corporations. That’s the law that prompted Jennifer Hibit — secretary of the Erie County Democratic Committee — to resign Monday from her position as Erie County’s representative on the board of the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp., based in Batavia.  It’s unclear if the law is being applied uniformly.  Former OTB Board Chairman Richard Bianchi,[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 30

2023

Tonawanda Senecas sue to halt pipeline

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The major industrial park under construction in rural Genesee County has hit yet another roadblock. The Tonawanda Seneca Nation has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and several officials, including Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, arguing that they violated several environmental laws in issuing a permit to the industrial park’s wastewater pipeline. The pipeline, which is being built by the Genesee County Economic Development Center through the federally managed Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge, required a right-of-way permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service. “We’re asking them to revoke that permit,” Chief Roger[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 30

2023

City will repair building, won’t evict hostel — yet

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Hostel Buffalo-Niagara lives on. For now. Over two dozen board members and supporters of the institution attended an emergency meeting held by the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency Thursday morning to determine the future of the hostel at its current location.  The BURA board voted unanimously to approve renovations to 664 Washington St. — a building attached to the rear of the hostel, which faces Main Street — not to exceed $2 million in cost. The structure, owned by BURA since 2002, was cited earlier this year by both the city and an engineering report for posing extreme safety hazards to[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 26

2023

Punishment not befitting the crime

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In the wee hours last January, prosecutors say, Jones Woods threw a rock through a window at the U.S. Attorney’s office in downtown Buffalo. No one came. Woods left after 15 minutes, authorities say. Police found him later that day at the downtown bus station on Ellicott Street. After being arrested and charged with criminal mischief, he appeared in City Court the next day and was sent on his way. Ten minutes later, he threw another rock through a window at the U.S. Attorney’s office.  “I knew if I came back here, I would go to federal prison,” he told[...]

Posted 5 months ago
Investigative Post

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