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Sep 23

2021

Comptroller audits fault OTB

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 Officials at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. improperly helped themselves to tickets for sporting events and concerts, and CEO Henry Wojtaszek failed to account for personal use of his agency-assigned car, according to a pair of audits published Thursday by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The audits, which confirm reporting by Investigative Post over the last three years, criticize officials at the state-created public authority for deficient oversight.  “The Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation needs to clean up its operations,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement accompanying the release of the audits.  “Revenues from the OTB are supposed to[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 22

2021

Brown’s tepid support of Buffalo schools

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Editor’s note: This is a second in a series of stories assessing the state of the city, 15 years after Bryon Brown took office. Our first story dealt with City Hall’s enforcement of its fair housing laws. Today; Buffalo public schools. Buffalo schools were plagued by poor attendance and low student achievement when Byron Brown took office 15 years ago. Not much has changed since then. The mayor is not directly responsible for the school district. That falls on the nine members of its elected Board of Education and the superintendent they supervise. But many big-city mayors have used the[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 20

2021

A platform for mayor

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Editor’s note: A version of this column appears in the current issue of Buffalo Spree. Buffalo voters face a stark choice in November: Byron Brown or India Walton? A lot will be said between now and election day and some of it may actually involve proposals to improve the city. To prime the pump for an issues-focused campaign, allow me to offer an eight-point plan for revitalizing Buffalo. The candidates are free to borrow generously. Here goes: Poverty: Buffalo remains one of the poorest cities of its size in the nation. About one-third of residents, and close to half its[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 13

2021

Fair housing complaints bypass City Hall

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Editor’s note: This is a first in a series of stories on the state of the city. Our in-depth reports on key issues will continue through late October. Today’s story assesses City Hall’s track record of enforcing its fair housing law. For years housing advocates in Buffalo were frustrated by the city’s failure to enforce its fair housing law.  Now, with better options in county and state laws, those advocates are sidestepping the city entirely. Representatives from the nonprofit Housing Opportunities Made Equal said they saw some effort from the city shortly after Investigative Post reported in 2018 on the[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 10

2021

Another competitor for Samsung plant

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A small city in central Texas is making big moves in the race to secure a $17 billion Samsung microchip plant that Western New York officials are hoping to lure to an industrial park in rural Genesee County.  Multiple news outlets in Texas have reported that officials in Taylor – a city of 18,000 in central Texas – have approved a development agreement for the Samsung project and taken steps to clear the way for the company to buy land for a 6-million-square-foot chip fabrication facility there.   The Austin American-Statesman reported last Thursday that the Taylor City Council approved tax[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 2

2021

Campaign Notes

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Welcome to Campaign Notes, an election blog we update daily with news and intelligence on upcoming elections, including the mayoral race. Geoff Kelly, our government and politics reporter, writes most of the entries, with contributions from other Investigative Post reporters. Email Geoff with tips. Thursday, Nov. 4, 11:50 a.m. Heaney assesses election with with Susan Arbetter How to explain Byron Brown’s landslide victory over India Walton? Susan Arbetter, host of Capital Tonight, put that question to Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney and here’s what he had to say: Investigative Post, in a previous story, identified four key strategies successful write-in candidates[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 2

2021

Buffalo schools open with laptop shortage

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Some 31,000 Buffalo students are preparing to go back to school next week, but the district’s IT department isn’t quite ready for them. Fewer than half of the 15,000 laptops the district issued to students last year have been returned to the district to be serviced and made compatible with system updates. As a result, only a fraction of students will be fully equipped to jump into the school year. The rest may have to wait until October for functional devices. At the end of the school year the district asked families to return student devices like iPads, laptops and[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 1

2021

More danger lurking in the water

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A concrete pier juts hundreds of feet into the Niagara River from the northern tip of Unity Island. It’s isolated, quiet and where Antawyn Parker likes to fish. He makes dinner with his catch about once a month, Parker told Investigative Post. But unbeknownst to him the fish are contaminated with a toxin recently linked to a slate of disorders and illnesses, including cancer and immune system concerns. According to a study by the state Department of Health, Western New Yorkers who eat local fish have “substantially elevated” levels of the toxin PFOS in their bodies. Some of the readings[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post