Categories for PoliticalPost

Sep 7

2023

What’s news in government and politics

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A digest of noteworthy reporting — some local, some state and some national — from the last week in government and politics:   Campaign finance shenanigans New York Focus reports on a new dodge for candidates who feel constrained by the state’s limits on campaign donations: Accept services from political consultants as loans, then never pay them back.  New York Focus highlights an example from Rochester, but Byron Brown’s 2021 mayoral campaign pulled the same trick. Brown for Buffalo listed more than $38,000 owed to the Atlanta law firm that represented the campaign in court as an “outstanding loan or[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Sep 6

2023

Political domino theories

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This past summer, speculation has run amok regarding exit strategies for longtime elected officials:  Will SUNY Buffalo State hire Mayor Byron Brown, or perhaps Congressman Brian Higgins, as its next president?  How about Erie Community College? That financially beleaguered institution, too, is seeking new leadership, having run through three presidents — one of them carrying the prefix “interim” for two years — since former Congressman Jack Quinn left the post in 2017. Or perhaps Higgins, who began his 10th term in January, will land instead as the head of Shea’s Performing Arts Center, which lost its president last fall, amid[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Mar 30

2023

Podcast: Buffalo’s Common Council candidates

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One thing is certain: Buffalo’s Common Council will soon change. Two members of the current Council — Council President Darius G. Pridgen of the Ellicott District and Masten District’s Ulysees O. Wingo — will not seek re-election. Several candidates are looking to fill those seats, gathering signatures to earn a spot in the June Democratic primary election. There are other candidates looking to challenge Council incumbents, as well. Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly took a closer look at the candidates and how Buffalo’s Common Council may change. Kelly sat down with Garrett Looker, host of Reporter’s Notebook, to dive into who[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Oct 5

2021

Big donors to Brown and Walton

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Byron Brown’s usual cast of campaign donors are digging deep to support his write-in campaign for mayor, showering the four-term incumbent with $851,000 since he lost the Democratic primary on June 22 to India Walton. Brown’s donors include developers and other companies who do business with the city and patronage employees who depend on the mayor for a paycheck. A number of noteworthy Republicans have also donated significant sums. In many cases, support for Brown is a family affair.  For example, four Nanulas — Anthony, Paul, Philip, and Steven — chipped in $25,000 between them. Anthony Nanula is a former[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jul 28

2021

Mychajliw’s faulty campaign filing

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On Monday, Erie County’s lame-duck comptroller, Stefan Mychajliw, finally submitted a July campaign finance disclosure filing to the New York State Board of Elections. There are some problems, as there often are with Mychajliw’s campaign finances. First, this filing — one of two required annually of all candidates for elected office — arrived 11 days late. Second, the filing was for the campaign committee he used to run for comptroller, when in fact he is running for supervisor of the Town of Hamburg. That’s against the law: You can’t collect money for one office and use the money to run[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 25

2021

Rallying to save their patronage jobs

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Wondering whether Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is giving serious consideration to mounting a write-in campaign to keep his job in November? The answer might have been in plain sight Thursday night at Sahlen Field, where Brown threw out the first pitch before the Toronto Blue Jays went on to drop the Baltimore Orioles, 9-0. Outside the park, a crowd of Byron Brown supporters gathered in front of the main entrance to make a pitch of their own. They wore T-shirts bearing Brown’s name and carried signs reading “Keep Byron Brown.” This was no extemporaneous, grassroots expression of support for the[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 23

2021

Walton’s campaign outworked Brown

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The night before the Buffalo mayoral primary, India Walton’s campaign made nearly 19,000 calls to Democratic voters in the city, reminding them to vote and making the case for Walton over four-term incumbent Byron Brown. The campaign sent almost 100,000 text messages, too, while more than 150 Walton supporters stationed themselves at polling sites across the city on election day. The campaign fielded enough people, a campaign spokesperson said, to make a last-minute pitch to half the people who showed up to vote Tuesday as they walked in, and to take their temperature on the race as they left their[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 20

2021

Wealthy last-minute donors to Brown campaign

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Updated: 1:42 p.m. Maybe the race for mayor of Buffalo is tighter than most believed it would be.  Or perhaps the last-minute flurry of campaign activity by Mayor Byron Brown — who has been running a stealth campaign for the past five months — was forthcoming regardless of whatever internal polls told the four-term incumbent. Whichever the case, the Brown campaign has come alive in the last week. And big donors have poured money into the re-election effort, helping to underwrite a blitz of TV advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts as the countdown to election day approaches zero. Tuesday’s Democratic primary[...]

Posted 2 years ago