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Jan 11

2022

Nearly $2 billion wasn’t enough

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State and local officials, determined to win the competition for a semiconductor plant that will employ 1,800, offered Samsung $1.89 million in subsidies to locate the factory in Genesee County, just north of Batavia. The chief competition, two sites in and around Austin, Texas, dangled large subsidy packages, as well. But at $1 billion each, they fell way short of what New York was offering. Nevertheless, Samsung opted for Taylor, Texas. Why did the company bypass Genesee County? It’s unclear, but the remote location could have been a factor. How remote? It was going to cost $200 million just to[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

Top iPost story of the year

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Readers voted Phil Gambini’s report on high levels of E. coli bacteria in local waterways at our top story of 2021. Blame it on the discharge of untreated sewage which is spewed into waterways after heavy rains.. Gambini reported: There’s a particular problem with the Black Rock Canal, popular with fishermen, the occasional swimmer and, most notably, the West Side Rowing Club and high school and college crew teams. E. coli readings consistently exceed safe limits — by up to 14 times — established by the federal government. “There are people coming in contact with water with E. coli from[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

City inspectors MIA

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The Great Northern grain elevator on the Buffalo River has been crumbling in plain sight for 28 years. Fault the building’s owner, Archer Daniels Midland. But City Hall is also complicit. Yes, the company is at fault for not maintaining the hulking structure, but it’s been aided and abetted by City Hall. The city has inspected the building only one time since ADM purchased it in 1993. That dates all the way back to the administration of Anthony Masiello. The city can’t say it wasn’t warned. ADM, seeking to make a case for demolition, alerted the city several times over[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

Tesla: Better late than never

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Tesla has finally met its job goals at its billion dollar plant in South Buffalo. The state had extended Tesla’s deadline twice. The third time was a charm, and in this case, a way of dodging a $41.2 million penalty. Tesla had until the end of the year to meet the target of 1,460 jobs; employment as of early November stood at 1,557. Let’s hold off celebrating, however. A look at Tesla’s online job postings shows a lot of positions pay modest wages. And the plant, built with nearly $1 billion in state subsidies, has produced little spin-off development, aside[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

Sued into doing the right thing

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You may have read or watched stories in the daily newspaper or local television stations about the details of studies involving the proposed construction of a new stadium for The Buffalo Bills. You can thank Investigative Post. The state released the studies after we sued Empire State Development, the state’s primary economic development agency, after it rejected our requests for copies under the Freedom of Information Law. Only when we filed the lawsuit did the state relent. Said Michael Higgins, one of our attorneys: ““These documents were always public records and Empire State Development withheld them, gambling that no one[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 10

2022

Buffalo schools struggle to catch up

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 Most students attending Buffalo public schools had fallen behind academically before the pandemic struck. Only a quarter of elementary and middle school students received proficient scores on their state standardized tests for reading, writing and math.  The learning gap got worse when instruction went remote in March 2020 and continued through most of last school year, when only one-third of students attended class regularly. Yet, the district only held back 546 of its 29,918 students for the school year that started in September. Most of them were high schoolers. Only 43 pupils in the elementary grades were held back.[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 5

2022

Samsung turned down subsidies worth $1.9B

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Think the $950 million the state doled out to build and equip a factory for Tesla in South Buffalo was a lot of money? State and local officials offered Samsung twice as much to build a semiconductor plant in rural Genesee County. The $1.9 billion subsidy package would have been the second-largest deal in state history if the company had accepted it. It ranks high nationally, as well. “It would be right in the top dozen of all time in U.S. history,” according to Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a national subsidy watchdog group.  Still, New York’s[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 2

2022

The top iPost story of 2021

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Our best story of 2021, according to an online poll of readers, documented the contamination of local waterways by a nasty strain of bacteria. The waterways, polluted with E. coli, include the Black Rock Canal, the Buffalo River and Cazenovia Creek. Sewage overflows are the source of the problem, according to a report by Phil Gambini, who covers environmental and public health issues for Investigative Post. Other top vote getters included: Geoff Kelly’s report on a rally staged by City Hall patronage employees in support of Byron Brown after the mayor lost the Democratic primary in June. Mark Scheer’s story[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post