Jan 21
2021
The cost of winning elections
Posted 4 years ago
Jan 21
2021
Jan 17
2021
For the fourth time in 14 months, Niagara County has hired a politically connected Republican who had previously been accused of misconduct. The latest GOP loyalist to be added to the payroll is Robert W. Welch, who resigned last summer as director of constituent relations for Republican state Sen. Rob Ortt after he was accused of using a racial slur during an encounter with a group of teenagers near his home. Welch, a North Tonawanda resident, has been hired as a contract administrator at an annual salary of $62,991. The job has been vacant for three years and was not[...]
Jan 6
2021
Dec 27
2020
Donald Trump’s presidency is about to be past tense. What should our post-Trump politics look like? Joe Biden hopes it’s a time of healing. Conciliation is in his blood and I won’t blame him for trying. But good luck with that. More than 70 million Americans voted for Trump and I question if there’s more than a sliver that can be persuaded. Most of the Republican base is some combination of gullible, bigoted, woefully misinformed or hardcore one-issue voters, starting with abortion. (I almost feel sorry for traditional conservatives; relatively few of their values have been reflected in Trump’s policies.)[...]
Dec 19
2020
Since 2005, Mayor Byron Brown has raised and spent more than $5 million to win and hold the mayor’s office. He spent $1.4 million to fend off Bernie Tolbert, his Democratic primary challenger in 2013. Four years later, he spent another $1 million in his primary race against then Comptroller Mark Schroeder. As of July, however, when his campaign committee last filed a disclosure report, Brown had just $115,568 in the bank. That may sound like a lot of money — and for most Buffalonians it is — but for the four-term mayor of a medium-sized city, it is a[...]
Nov 30
2020
Nov 30
2020
Ken Kruly and Geoff Kelly discuss the self-funding practices of local judicial candidates. They also talk about the latest in the Mark Grisanti saga: an investigation by the state Commission on Judicial Ethics into Grisanti’s handling of a 2018 case argued by attorneys who owed him money.
Nov 23
2020
Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a column that published in the current issue of Buffalo Spree. It wasn’t long after Byron Brown was re-elected to a fourth term that talk started circulating around City Hall of a “Drive for Five.” As in, a fifth term. Talk quieted down, at least until the mayor held a fundraiser Oct. 5 at 500 Pearl Street, owned by none other than Carl Paladino’s Ellicott Development. Tickets started at $600, and a table of 10 cost $10,000 and came with a half-hour of schmooze time with Brown. Does the fundraiser signal the[...]