Readers select iPost’s top story of last year

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Investigative Post’s best story of 2019, as voted on by readers, reported on City Hall’s push to generate revenue at the expense of motorists.

The story by Marsha McLeod, which published Feb. 27, documented how Buffalo police stepped up enforcement of traffic laws and city lawmakers imposed additional fees and fines. Revenues jumped from $500,000 to $2.8 million.

McLeod wrote: “The city’s strategy is costing drivers a lot of money, and, in some cases, their driver’s license. Black and Latino drivers, whose neighborhoods have been targeted for traffic enforcement, appear to be hit the hardest, both in fines and loss of licenses.”

McLeod worked for Investigative Post as a reporting fellow from September 2018 to June of last year after graduating from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is now a fellow at the Globe and Mail in Toronto.

The story garnered 38 percent of the 136 votes cast by readers. Other top vote getters included stories by Geoff Kelly on City Hall’s fiscal problems, Charlotte Keith on a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital sanctioned by the state Health Department, and Jim Heaney on financial shenanigans at the Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp. (The Children’s Hospital story generated more web traffic than any piece in Investigative Post’s nearly eight year history.)

Readers a year ago voted a story by Daniela Porat on the drowning death of Buffalo police diver Craig Lehner as the top story of 2018.