Categories for News

Feb 20

2013

Peace Bridge duty free operators big political donors

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The Florida-based owners of the duty free store on the Buffalo side of the Peace Bridge are big-time operators with more than 100 stores here and abroad. They’re also big-time donors to politicians in both the United States and Israel with contributions approaching $1.8 million, although none of the money has funneled into Western New York. Their company, Duty Free Americas, stands to potentially profit by an expansion of the Peace Bridge plaza on the Buffalo side. The expansion would likely require the duty free store to relocate, presumably into bigger, better and more profitable quarters on the Episcopal Church Home campus[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Feb 8

2013

Concerns over City Hall spending

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Investigative Post and WGRZ team up to report on Buffalo Comptroller Mark Schroeder’s concern, and Mayor Byron Brown’s response, over the continuing use of reserve funds to balance the city budget.

Posted 11 years ago

Feb 5

2013

Buffalonians getting stuck in traffic more often

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You know this: Buffalo-area commuters are stuck in traffic a lot less than their counterparts in many other large cities. What you probably don’t know: Buffalonians are sitting in traffic a lot longer than they used to. The 2012 Urban Mobility Report issued by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute considered traffic congestion in the nation’s 101 largest metropolitan areas. The report includes slews of tables from which we gleaned a few highlights, Buffalo-area motorists spent an average of 33 hours in traffic due to congestion, ranking the region No. 45. The average in comparable large metro areas is 37 hours.[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Feb 4

2013

High taxes land one-third of local governments on fiscally distressed list

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to cap binding arbitration rulings involving public employee union contracts working for local governments deemed in “fiscal distress”. Localities would earn this dubious distinction if their reserves represent less than 5 percent of their operating budgets if their tax rates rank among the state’s top quartile. The Albany Times Union has a good primer, including a table listing the status of each county, city, town and village in the state. Investigative Post has broken out the list for Erie and Niagara counties. The bottom line for the locals: 23 of 75 units of government are defined as in[...]

Posted 11 years ago
Investigative Post

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