Articles for Geoff Kelly

Jan 15

2025

Scanlon’s approach to balancing Buffalo’s books

Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon at a recent rally in front of City Hall. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel Editor’s note: This is the second of three stories on Buffalo’s acting mayor, Chris Scanlon. Today we report on his approach to dealing with the city’s fiscal problems. Monday’s story was a political profile. Wednesday, we report on the dilemma Scanlon faces with the police and fire departments. Nothing looms larger over Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s administration than the city’s precarious finances. The current year’s budget is balanced on paper with more than $40 million in one-shot revenues, as well as millions more[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Jan 14

2025

Buffalo Mayor Chris Scanlon: A political profile

Editor’s note: This is the first of three stories on Buffalo’s acting mayor, Chris Scanlon. Today’s political profile will be followed by a story Wednesday on his intentions dealing with the city’s fiscal woes and a piece Thursday on the dilemma he faces with the police and fire departments. Chris Scanlon’s public service career — from winning the Common Council’s South District seat in 2012 to his ascension to the mayor’s office in October — is a history of political dealmaking. Little wonder. Public service and political dealmaking have been a family specialty for 50 years. Buffalo’s acting mayor is[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Dec 27

2024

Geoff Kelly’s very busy year

What did I do in 2024? For starters, I began writing a weekly newsletter called PoliticalPost, jam-packed with items about local government and politics — patronage hires, electoral maneuvers, the misbehavior of public officials, and much more. It’s free every Wednesday morning. (Though donations to support our nonprofit investigative journalism center are always appreciated.) If you don’t get it already, you should sign up for it. If you’ve been a subscriber from the get-go, you found out in January — six months before anyone else — that Byron Brown was looking to ditch Buffalo City Hall for the job he[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 24

2024

OTB accuses whistleblower of ‘public smear campaign’

Western Regional Off-Track Betting’s Batavia Downs. Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp has filed a counterclaim against a former executive turned whistleblower who maintains he was fired after he agreed to cooperate with investigations into alleged wrongdoing at the public benefit corporation. OTB’s counterclaim, filed Nov. 27, alleges that former Chief Operating Officer Michael Nolan breached his “fiduciary duty and duties of loyalty and confidentiality” to the organization while engaging in a “public smear campaign” designed to draw negative attention to WROTB and its outgoing CEO and President Henry Wojtaszek. The countersuit accuses Nolan of conspiring with his attorney, Steve Cohen,[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 23

2024

Scanlon campaign violated ethics laws

Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon. Chris Scanlon, Buffalo’s acting mayor, hasn’t yet formally declared his candidacy for a full four-year term, but already he’s stumbled over laws prohibiting incumbents from using their offices to promote their campaigns. Scanlon last Thursday held a fundraiser — checks payable to his campaign committee — at developer Doug Jemal’s Seneca One building in downtown Buffalo. Invitations to the fundraiser were mailed in envelopes that used the mayor’s second-floor office for a return address. That’s a violation of local, state and federal laws that prohibit public employees from using their offices for political purposes. Investigative Post[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 4

2024

Buffalo’s financial hole gets deeper

Ray Nosworthy, Buffalo’s new acting finance commissioner, had a rough first day on the job. His first task Tuesday morning was to tell the Common Council’s Finance Committee that, one quarter into its financial year, the city was staring at a nearly $18 million deficit. He also told lawmakers that Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon is demanding 10 percent cuts in expenditures from all city department heads in next year’s budget. Nosworthy said the “unexpected” $18 million deficit was the result of the city’s depleted savings. The Council in June adopted a spending plan that had a $40 million imbalance between[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Dec 3

2024

Buffalo’s ‘power structure is the problem’

Government policies pushed by the region’s traditional power brokers — real estate developers, bankers, law firms and other business interests — have been “a disaster for the people of Buffalo,” a new report concludes. Tax abatements and subsidies are contributing to “a deepening commercial real estate crisis” downtown, according to the report, released last month by Our City Action Buffalo, a progressive community advocacy group that is a frequent critic of the city’s elected officials. Opposition to affordable housing projects has exacerbated the city’s poverty problems, according to the report. What’s more, Buffalo is staring at a fiscal crisis engendered[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Nov 27

2024

Overtime for Buffalo’s city employees through the roof

Despite the city’s worsening finances, Buffalo’s public employees — mostly cops and firefighters — are racking up overtime pay like never before. Last fiscal year, no fewer than 26 employees earned more than $100,000 in overtime. Another 270 pocketed over $50,000 in overtime, while 400 more took home at least $20,000. The result: a $22 million hole in the city budget that wrapped up in June. Those figures come from a report issued last week by Buffalo Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams, whose staff reviewed five years of payroll records to document the burgeoning cost of overtime and its impact on the[...]

Posted 3 months ago