Tag: Politics

Sep 10

2023

Monday Morning Read

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost and get a leg up on Jim Heaney’s take on what’s in the news. For whatever reason, political reporters at The Buffalo News keep treating Chris Grant of Big Dog Strategies with a lot more respect than he deserves. I mean, Grant and his company employ the type of election tactics that give politics a bad name, often works for toxic candidates, including George Santos, and often spins without regard for the facts. Grant should be treated as a pariah, not a sage. Yet The News based a story Sunday in large part on his analysis that[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

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

Jun 28

2023

Primary elections: Progressives strike out — again

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So much for the revolution.  Hopes ran high among Buffalo progressives after India Walton won the Democratic mayoral primary two years ago, shocking four-term incumbent Byron Brown. Walton lost to Brown’s well-funded and often vicious write-in campaign in the general election, but the coalition of progressives who supported her seemed poised to start winning smaller elections.  Our City Action Buffalo, or OCAB, played a key role in Walton’s mayoral run. The coalition of progressive activists didn’t run candidates for Democratic Party committee seats last year, opting to fight the party establishment from the outside. It endorsed incumbent Jen Mecozzi’s successful[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Jun 21

2023

Big money in Council races

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The five contested races for Buffalo Common Council seats have attracted an astonishing amount of money, and for good reasons.  For one, the winners will determine whether Mayor Byron Brown will have a friendly majority on the Council for the last two years of his fifth term, or whether he will continue to spar with a bloc of five (and sometimes six) legislators, as he has for the past four years. Second, they will choose the successor to Darius Pridgen as Council president in January. The Council president wields a great deal of power and would become acting mayor, should[...]

Posted 3 months 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

Mar 22

2023

Not much change afoot for Common Council

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There will be a pair of new faces on Buffalo’s Common Council next year, the result of two incumbents declining to run for reelection. That’s probably as much change as Buffalonians will be permitted — or choose — to vote for. In five of the nine Council districts, the incumbents appear to face no challengers in the June Democratic primary, which generally determines the victor in this one-party town. In the two districts where incumbents face opposition, the challengers face steep odds.  The last time an incumbent lost reelection to Buffalo’s Common Council was 20 years ago. That was when[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Mar 19

2023

Monday Morning Read

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What wait until Monday? You can read WeeklyPost on Sunday morning, delivered free to your inbox. Subscribe here. ChrissieCaBoom stopped dodging the media long enough last week to talk with Charlie Specht of The Buffalo News about her off-the-wall posts on Twitter – the ones she later deleted because she’s all about, well, “accountability,” in her words. The GOP candidate for Erie County executive didn’t exactly make a convincing case, saying at one point she was simply trying to game the platform’s algorithms. Yeah, right. Chrissy Casilio-Bluhm was responding to reporting from Investigative Post and WNYMedia.net. Her endorsement by the[...]

Posted 6 months ago