Tag: Economy

Sep 17

2015

Contamination a challenge on Outer Harbor

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The state’s leaner and greener plan for the Outer Harbor still has some obstacles to overcome, chief among them the contamination of 60 acres adjacent to properties targeted for residential and commercial development. As Investigative Post reported in March, about 40 percent of the soil samples taken on the parcel detected contamination levels that made it unsafe for use as a park. The standards would be even stricter for using the property for residential purposes. If that’s not bad enough, one acre in the parcel is a partly remediated Superfund with a restriction against residential development. Officials concede it’s going to[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Sep 17

2015

Heaney joins Capitol Pressroom lineup

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Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney has joined the list of regular contributors to The Capitol Pressroom, heard daily on 20 public radio stations across Upstate New York. Heaney will field questions every other Thursday from Capitol Pressroom host Susan Arbetter. The program attracts about 100,000 listeners daily on outlets that include WBFO, 88.7 FM in Buffalo. “We are thrilled to have a journalist of Jim’s caliber appear regularly on the show. His commitment to investigative journalism will help further engage our savvy audience,” Arbetter said. Added Heaney: “The Capitol Pressroom attracts a large and influential audience that we’re eager to[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Sep 17

2015

Heaney talks SolarCity on Capitol Pressroom

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The state’s investment of $750 million to build and equip a solar panel manufacturing plant for SolarCity is a high-risk, high-reward proposition, Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney told Susan Arbetter of The Capitol Pressroom on Thursday. Heaney noted the company’s sagging financial fortunes and continuing concerns in the investment community over SolarCity’s long-term prospects. He noted a recent story in an investment trade journal that concluded the plant is shaping up as a “white elephant.” Heaney also pointed out that SolarCity is on track to post record losses this year; the company finished the first half of this year $303 million[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Aug 31

2015

Heaney talks ‘Billion with Capitol Pressroom

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Susan Arbetter of Capitol Pressroom interviewed Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney on Monday regarding transparency and the Buffalo Billion. The 9 minute, 19 second interview runs from 13:10 to 22:29. The Capitol Pressroom broadcasts on National Public Radio affiliates as well as non-profit community stations across New York State and is produced in association with WCNY, which is based in Syracuse.

Posted 9 years ago

Aug 26

2015

Labor groups protest hotel subsidies

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Around 100 people from local labor groups gathered Wednesday morning to protest the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency’s awarding of tax breaks to hotels. They say low-cost hotels like the Budget Inn on Niagara Falls Boulevard, where the protest was held, should not receive subsidies because they don’t create good-paying jobs. The protest was organized by the Coalition for Economic Justice. Investigative Post reported on the subsidies in January, documenting how the IDA’s indiscriminate granting of tax breaks to hotels defied the recommendations of a 2011 study commissioned by the state. That study found that the city had already had a “glut” of lower-end hotel[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Jul 28

2015

State relents on Buffalo Billion records

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I interrupt the state’s incessant stonewalling of my efforts to use public records to track the Buffalo Billion program to report some progress. Cuomo administration officials, for more than a year, refused to release documents related to the selection of LPCiminelli to develop SolarCity’s sprawling plant in South Buffalo. The SUNY Research Foundation and the Fort Schuyler Management Corp. went to great lengths to thwart my efforts to obtain records under the state Freedom of Information Law, as I documented in December. Alain Kaloyeros and his associates at Fort Schuyler wouldn’t budge when the state Committee on Open Government issued[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Jun 24

2015

Demone Smith promoted despite violations

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Demone Smith’s long history of violating the state elections law hasn’t stopped Mayor Byron Brown from appointing him to a key position in his cabinet. Smith, majority leader of the Common Council and a political ally of the mayor, starts next week as executive director of the Buffalo Employment and Training Center. The center matches employers with city and county residents seeking jobs. Over the past decade, Smith has failed to file campaign disclosure reports on time 28 times. That’s prompted the state Board of Elections to impose seven penalties, five of which remain unpaid. Smith owes $3,382 in penalties.[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Jun 22

2015

Shenanigans beset Buffalo Billion

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Editors note: A version of the following story published this past weekend in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Albany Times Union, Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, and Poughkeepsie Journal. The accompanying video was co-produced with WGRZ.  Editorials calling for greater transparency in the program were subsequently published by the Democrat & Chronicle and Times Union. The Buffalo Billion program championed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a bold and costly experiment in economic development that is beset by secrecy and politics, and banking on a company with a history of losing money. The program — hailed in Buffalo but resented across much of the rest of New[...]

Posted 9 years ago
Investigative Post

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