Jim Heaney

Jim Heaney is editor and executive director of Investigative Post. He was an investigative reporter with The Buffalo News from 1986 to 2011 and a reporter and editor with The Orlando Sentinel from 1980-86. His coverage over the years has focused on economic development, local and state government, politics, education, housing and transportation, and he was an early practitioner of computer-assisted reporting. Heaney has won more than 20 journalism awards and was a finalist for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

Apr 1

2024

Pegula aided and abetted by Poloncarz & Hochul

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncrz says he’s hopping mad at the Buffalo Bills for the way they’re treating season ticket holders. Says the team should be more transparent in its roll-out of personal seat licenses and that Gov. Kathy Hochul shares his concerns. Sorry, but Poloncarz and Hochul are enablers. They capitulated to Terry Pegula’s demands that the new stadium be located in Orchard Park and that taxpayers foot most of the bill. Along the way, Poloncarz took the ridiculous position that the stadium didn’t require an environmental impact statement and bargained a weak community benefits agreement with the team.[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Mar 29

2024

OTB considering hotel expansion at Batavia Downs

The board of directors for Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. agreed on Thursday to hire two companies to help explore the possible expansion of the 84-room hotel at Batavia Downs in Genesee County. Approval of the agreements came over the objection of one board director — Erie County’s representative Tim Callan, who said he still has questions about how management arrived at the two vendors chosen to do the work. “Management did not answer my questions to my satisfaction,” Callan said following Thursday’s meeting. The board, minus Callan, authorized one contract for $76,000 with Bammel Architects, an Orchard Park firm[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Mar 25

2024

Terry Pegula’s assault on Bills fan base

Terry Pegula wasn’t satisfied just picking the pockets of state and county taxpayers in demanding they pick up most of the cost of building the Bills a new stadium. He’s now playing “stick ‘em up” with his season ticket holders. We knew the Bills intended to charge fans for personal seat licenses, which gave them the “right” to buy season tickets (for an additional charge, of course). The team was hush-hush about what it intended to charge, but last week it began to inform fans holding the most expensive seats what it would cost to keep them: Up to $50,000.[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Mar 18

2024

Pepper spray and f-bombs got a Buffalo cop fired

Warning: This video contains graphic content. On March 25, 2020, Buffalo police officer Kevin Murphy pepper sprayed and arrested Lakisha Neal. Viewer discretion is advised. The Buffalo police union is asking a judge to overturn an arbitrator’s decision upholding termination of an officer who doused a woman with pepper spray and repeatedly swore at her. It’s rare litigation. Erie County Supreme Court documents dating to 2013 show no other cases of either the city or the police union asking a judge to reverse an arbitrator’s decision on whether an officer should be fired. Lakisha Neal, 42, filed an internal affairs[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Mar 4

2024

Julian Assange’s prosecution is an assault on journalism

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks fame is locked up in a British prison and fighting an effort by Joe Biden’s Justice Department to extradite him to stand charges here of violating the Espionage Act. Hearings related to his deportation were held last week in London. Assange was a hero to many for exposing leaks from Chelsea Manning and others involving U.S. military conduct in Iran and Afghanistan and U.S. diplomatic cables. Others have villainized him for releasing the emails of Hillary Clinton and files and emails of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election. Suffice to say, Assange has[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 26

2024

WBEN is no longer Buffalo’s powerhouse radio station

You could have read this yesterday in our WeeklyPost newsletter. Subscribe here. George Soros, the left-leaning billionaire and favorite bogeyman of the radical right, has bought a big chunk of debt of the bankrupt Audacy radio chain, whose local holdings include WBEN, 930 AM, and WGR, 550 AM. That positions his management fund to be Audacy’s largest shareholder when the chain emerges from bankruptcy and presumably gives him a voice in the content of its 220 stations. That prompted Alan Pergament of The Buffalo News to speculate what it portends for WBEN and its lineup of right-of-center talk show hosts.[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 19

2024

MMR: It pays to be a suburban cop

We’ve reported on the outrageous salaries being paid to the likes of Henry Wojtaszek of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. and Steven Hyde of Genesee County Economic Development Center. They make about as much or more than the governor. (What is it about highly paid bureaucrats in Genesee County, population 57,853?) Well, it turns out Wojtaszek and Hyde have plenty of company across the state. The Empire Center for Public Policy reported last week that 1,187 employees of local governments in New York were paid more than Gov. Kathy Hochul’s salary of $250,000 in 2022-23. More than 200 took home[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 12

2024

Monday Morning Read

Imagine what it’s like to be imprisoned for years on end. Or, read this compelling essay written by an inmate and published by The Marshall Project. The inmate in question, Jy’aire Smith-Pennick, is serving a 27-year sentence for murder in Pennsylvania. The biggest challenge, he writes, is boredom. In an attempt to disrupt the monotony of prison, we try to create our own personal routines filled with exercise, enrichment programs and constant work. Some of us play cards, watch sports or participate in hobbies such as sewing. But sooner or later, these routines also become monotonous. This is the part[...]

Posted 1 year ago