Jan 16
2014
Unshackle Upstate is a pro-business, anti-tax group funded by corporate interests, including the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. It opposes public financing of political campaigns despite the corrupt culture the present system has fostered. LittleSis crunched the numbers and found out Unshackle has donated nearly $2 million to state pols, including more than $160,000 to Gov. Cuomo.
Jan 16
2014
A large grant obtained by a coalition of progressive organizations in Buffalo includes funding for Investigative Post. The Open Society Foundation, funded by billionaire George Soros, has selected Buffalo, San Diego and Puerto Rico for two-year grants of $1.9 million each. Organizations in the three regions will be candidates for additional funding of up to $1 million a year for the following three to eight years. “Our commitment to them is long-term,” wrote Kenneth Zimmerman, a senior official with the foundation, in explaining the initiative. Here is how Zimmerman explained the plans for here: In Buffalo, a city suffering the[...]
Jan 7
2014
Readers voted Dan Telvock’s story on potentially contaminated water at a proposed state beach as Investigative Post’s story of the year. The story, which aired Oct. 3 on WGRZ and published in Artvoice and on InvestigativePost.org, garnered 37 percent of votes in an online poll. Telvock reported that the beach, off Route 5 in South Buffalo, is adjacent to two Superfund sites and that an Erie County Health Department consultant had concluded that opening the beach for swimming was “probably impractical from a public health standpoint.” State officials responded to the report by first refusing to commit to testing the water[...]
Dec 16
2013
The Center for Public Integrity references a yet-to-be-published federal study that found 50 cases of bladder cancer at the Goodyear plant in Niagara Falls through 2007. A chemical called ortho-toluidine is believed to be the trigger, but Goodyear didn’t reduce employees’ exposure for over a decade, and by that time it was too late.
Dec 9
2013
The governors of eight Northeast states, including New York, want the federal government to force Midwest-Rust Belt states to prevent coal plant soot and smog from wafting across borders. The solutions are costly air pollution control technology or closing the coal plants for good.
Dec 2
2013
Two Erie County towns–Tonawanda and Amherst–rank in the top 10 of courts in the state that collect the most fines. A data and map project from the The Post-Standard.
Nov 25
2013
Wealthy interests are driving the state’s education reform efforts, usurping veteran Education Department staffers. “It is unsettling to watch the dismantling of public education by inexperienced employees hired from a special fund,” one principal told the Albany Times Union.
Nov 22
2013
Jim Heaney interviews Alain Kaloyeros, who put together the clean energy project announced Thursday, and Howard Zemsky, co-chairman of the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council. Some underreported details emerged from the 20-minute interview, which was conducted Thursday afternoon at WGRZ.