Articles for Geoff Kelly

Apr 19

2022

The Roswell-Russia connection

For more than a decade, Roswell Park Cancer Institute has been doing business with a leading Russian oligarch with long-standing ties to Vladimir Putin. The annual reports of the charitable foundation that raises money for Roswell tell part of the story: The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has been a leading individual donor to the foundation, giving in excess of $1 million in four of the past five years. But Abramovich’s charity isn’t the problem. Rather, at issue are Roswell’s relationships with for-profit companies whose investors include Abramovich and a Russian business partner, both sanctioned since the outbreak of the war[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 12

2022

Progressives take a pass

When India Walton beat Mayor Byron Brown in last June’s Democratic primary, it seemed like progressive activists might be ready to wield greater influence in the party, which monopolizes city politics and governmental institutions. Brown, after all, lost the primary despite carrying the Democratic Party’s endorsement. Furthermore, Kim Beatty — a city Democrat — beat the party’s endorsed candidate in the primary for Erie County Sheriff. Change was in the air. But then Brown beat Walton in November’s general election. And Beatty lost to Republican John Garcia. And now, it seems, city progressives have chosen not to mount an effort[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 5

2022

Allegations of ICE mistreatment of detainees

A coalition of advocates for immigrants’ rights claims that “egregious conditions” and “unsafe release practices” at the federal detention center in Batavia have caused detainees “serious injury and even death.” Those claims are leveled in a Freedom of Information request filed Wednesday with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the agency that runs the Batavia facility, formally known as the Buffalo Service Processing Center. In the FOIA request, the coalition cites current and former detainees’ accounts of beatings, medical neglect and other abuses. In addition to conditions inside the detention center, the coalition takes issue with ICE’s practice of[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 29

2022

State lawmakers object to Bills stadium deal

New York state Assemblyman Ron Kim did not hold back on Tuesday when asked for his thoughts on the plan to commit $1.13 billion in public funds to help the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills build a new $1.4 billion stadium in Orchard Park. Tempering enthusiasm expressed on Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul and other advocates for the project, the Bronx Democrat described the Bills stadium proposal as “one giant scam” that he predicts will be a “horrible” deal for New York State. “The process of how we got here speaks volume of where we are in the state[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 23

2022

Ex-con councilman turned pot lobbyist

A decade ago, former Ellicott District Common Council Member Brian C. Davis pled guilty to stealing $48,237 in anti-poverty funds from the city. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and ordered to pay restitution. Davis served his time. But he hasn’t finished paying back what he stole, according to a March 2021 court filing. Happily, at least for the taxpayers he still owes, Davis has a new gig that might help him settle the bill: as a lobbyist for a proposed South Buffalo marijuana farm run by the southern California-based son of a politically wired[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 22

2022

Lucrative no-bid deal for Brown donor

For the last three years, Buffalo’s comptroller has been asking Mayor Byron Brown’s administration to justify a $1 million, no-bid contract awarded to developer William Huntress. Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams’s office has twice audited the current lease for the city’s records storage facility, given to Huntress’s Acquest Development in 2018. Both times, according to the comptroller, the Brown administration has failed to document its decision to forgo legally required competitive bidding procedures. “Documentation of the transaction should be sufficient to assure compliance with the applicable laws and policies, which require the best value is chosen,” the comptroller reported in its first[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 15

2022

Brown cited for election law violations

Last August, Peter Rizzo sent the state elections board a detailed analysis alleging Mayor Byron Brown had violated a number of campaign finance laws. First, Rizzo wrote, the mayor’s campaign failed to identify the individual owners of limited liability corporations, as required by state law. Rizzo identified “more than 100 campaign contributions from limited liability companies during the current election cycle” which were improperly documented. Second, Rizzo said, the mayor’s campaign accepted more money from several individuals and corporations than the law allowed. These over-contributions were in some cases obfuscated by other filing failures and violations, Rizzo wrote. His complaint[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 14

2022

A step backwards on police accountability

Last summer, the state Legislature peeled away exemptions to the state’s Freedom of Information Law that made it difficult for the public to obtain video recorded on officers’ body cameras and related evidence. Awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature now — during “Sunshine Week” — is a bill making “technical corrections” to that measure. In fact, transparency advocates say, the bill on Hochul’s desk will eviscerate it. “This is a disaster for holding police accountable and for New York State’s Freedom of Information Law,” lawyer-journalist James S. Henry of Sag Harbor, one of the backers of the 2021 police accountability law,[...]

Posted 3 years ago