Event will examine the Buffalo Billion

• Share on
• 
• 
• 
• 

Investigative Post’s new event season kicks off Monday with a “warts and all” presentation that assesses the Buffalo Billion program.

Jim Heaney and Charlotte Keith have broken a number of unsettling stories about the program. Enough to persuade U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara to launch a federal investigation into the awarding of contracts and for members of the city’s African-American community to demand more diversity in the hiring of construction workers at the SolarCity plant at Riverbend.

“Governor Cuomo would like everyone to believe the Buffalo Billion is, to use his words, ‘a phenomenal success,’ ” said Heaney, editor of Investigative Post. “His claims are, of course, exaggerated, and the way his administration has managed the program has raised a lot of troubling questions.”

Heaney and Keith will discuss their reporting and provide other updates on the program at a talk Monday at 7 p.m. at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, 641 Delaware Ave.

Their presentation will be followed with a speakers panel featuring James Allen, executive director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency, and Charley Fisher III, president of BUILD Buffalo. The floor will then be opened to questions from the audience.

Tickets cost $10 and can be purchased at the door or online. Admission is free to those who purchase most membership packages.

The event is sponsored by William Bernhardi Law Offices, the M&T Charitable Foundation, Talking Leaves, WGRZ and The Public.