Jun 12
2015
New York Post political columnist Fred Dicker interviews Jim Heaney on Investigative Post’s ongoing battle to obtain records related to the Buffalo Billion program. Heaney described the foot dragging and stonewalling by several state development corporations. The 8 minute, 45 second interview was broadcast June 9 on Talk 1300 in Albany. Dicker previously interviewed Heaney in December.
May 19
2015
Investigative Post has sued a state development corporation so intent on withholding records involving the Buffalo Billion program that a leading state official likened efforts to obtain them under the Freedom of Information Law to an act of terrorism. Investigative Post has asked the State Supreme Court to rule on whether the Fort Schuyler Management Corp. is subject to the state FOI Law. WGRZ and the Gannett Company are helping to finance the lawsuit that was filed Monday in Albany. Fort Schuyler is managing the construction of three facilities that will house SolarCity, IBM and Albany Molecular Research Inc., which have been[...]
Apr 29
2015
Everyone in these parts has heard of the Buffalo Billion. Overlooked is another government subsidy program that could be called the Lockport Half-Billion. By any standard, the incentives granted Yahoo to build a data and call center in Lockport are generous. Consider that the Yahoo subsidies: Will cost up to $478 million to build a single facility that employs 200 people. The Buffalo Billion, by comparison, will finance the construction of three major facilities projected to create some 3,750 jobs and underwrite several dozen smaller projects. Work out to $2.4 million per job – an “astronomical” figure in the words[...]
Mar 26
2015
A new stadium for the Buffalo Bills would cost $1 billion to construct and require up to $600 million in public infrastructure improvements, an entrepreneur who has proposed building a facility on the Outer Harbor says. A new Bills stadium was the topic of discussion for a panel of speakers Wednesday during a happy hour discussion at Allen Street Hardware sponsored by Investigative Post. But do the Bills really need one, especially considering the $130 million in renovations to Ralph Wilson stadium that the team unveiled this past season? “Absolutely yes,” said George Hasiotis, vice president of the Greater Buffalo Sports &[...]
Mar 24
2015
The Cuomo administration has redoubled its efforts to suppress the release of documents that disclose how it is selecting developers and spending money on the Buffalo Billion program. The Fort Schuyler Management Corp., charged with managing the program, is still refusing to release information sought by Investigative Post despite a legal opinion recently issued by the State Committee on Open Government that concluded the agency is subject to the Freedom of Information Law. “In my opinion, it is cut and dried,” said Robert Freeman, the committee’s executive director. “It is, in essence, a governmental agency, that it is required to[...]
Mar 5
2015
(Editor’s note: Watch WGRZ’s 6 p.m. newscast Friday for a second installment of the package.) The state’s latest approach to developing the Outer Harbor calls for expediting the construction of housing next to a partially remediated Superfund site contaminated with sludge that possibly causes cancer. The revised scheme is aimed at mollifying opposition to the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation’s original plan to build housing next to the environmentally sensitive Times Beach Nature Preserve. Shifting the first phase of residential and commercial development a mile south of Times Beach borrows from a plan advocated by Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper that has[...]
Feb 12
2015
The Investigative Post crew after Wednesday’s event: reporters Charlotte Keith and Dan Telvock, Editor Jim Heaney, Development Director Kate Heidinger. (Photo by Sara Heidinger Photography.) Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney delivered his first “Real State of the Community” address Wednesday night before a packed conference room at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site. The audience, which included City Comptroller Mark Schroeder and Erie County Clerk Chris Jacobs, heard Heaney use data to detail the state of the Buffalo and Western New York economy. The region is enjoying the start of an economic revival, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo has described as a “national[...]
Feb 12
2015
The American side of Niagara Falls has too many cheap hotels and not enough high-end ones – so a specialist consultant told state officials in a 2011 report. The proposed solution: build more high-end hotels and don’t subsidize budget or mid-range ones because of their “limited potential for economic impacts.” The state has since invested $5.6 million to help finance three upscale hotels. The Niagara County Industrial Development Agency has given another $8.3 million in tax breaks to three high-end hotels, including two that also received money from the state. But the IDA has also approved $7 million in tax[...]