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.

Mar 17

2012

Weekend News Cafe

Only tweaking the status quo Gov. Andrew Cuomo talked the talk – on pensions and redistricting, in particular – but pulled a St. Bonaventure and came up short at crunch time this past week. The New York Times provides a good analysis. What’s most striking: State employees can still pad their pensions by working a lot of overtime during the homestretch of their careers. Gerrymandered Senate and Assembly districts were accepted for a proposed bipartisan commission in 10 years that, The Times notes “would operate under the purview of the Legislature, unlike more independent redistricting commissions in Arizona and California.”[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 16

2012

The Maziarz money machine

George Maziarz is probably Western New York’s most powerful state legislator. The Newfane Republican represents the 62nd District, which includes all of Niagara County outside the City of Niagara Falls, Orleans County and the western portion of Monroe County. He has served in the Senate since 1995 and is currently chairman of the Energy and Telecommunications Committee and Vice President Pro Tempore. Maziarz’s stature has position him to raise a lot of campaign funds. Here’s Joe Friday’s look at Maziarz’s campaign contributions since January 1999, when the state Board of Elections began tracking donations online. Total contributions since 1999: $3,767,175[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 14

2012

NY’s political dysfunction runs deep

When it comes right down to it, state legislators only have to do a handful of things to earn their $79,500 salaries. Pass a budget. Vote on bills and appointments. And, once every 10 years, redraw election district boundaries for the U.S. House of Representatives and the state Senate and Assembly. It appears likely that lawmakers are going to let a federal judicial panel draw the lines for Congressional seats. They continue to haggle over the lines for Senate and Assembly seats. The standoff is a stark reminder that Albany is still dysfunctional at a basic level. Politics is the[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 12

2012

Government’s spin cycle

I’m not sure when the high water mark was regarding the public’s right to know about what’s being done in its name and with its tax dollars, but surely that time has passed. A lot gets written this time every year as the press “celebrates” Sunshine Week. The focus is often on government’s failure to live up to the spirit, if not the letter of the Freedom of Information Law. But the problem goes well beyond efforts to stonewall the press and public under the FOI Law. I’ve been a reporter for more than 30 years and over that time[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 9

2012

Weekend News Cafe

Weekends are not high traffic days for most news websites and Investigative Post did not update our first two weekends. But we’re going to experiment with something we call “Weekend News Cafe,” in which we’ll post interesting reads we’ve come across over the past week and a video or two that might prove of interest. This will be a work in progress, so let us know what you think in the comments section below or via our contact form. Just how much doo-doo is the newspaper industry in? The answer is “deep.” Consider two reports out this week. The “Economic[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 7

2012

A new tack for Central Terminal

One billion dollars opens the door to all sorts of possibilities. Consider the Central Terminal. Despite its scars, the Central Terminal might be the neatest space in Buffalo. The city’s proverbial diamond in the rough, even if the emphasis is on “rough.” Plans to revive the hulking structure have been kicked around for years, to no avail. Now comes a pitch from Larry Quinn, conveyed in an interview published Tuesday at investigativepost.org to restore the Central Terminal and relocate the Albright-Knox Art Gallery there. I asked Quinn how he would spend the $1 billion in cash and incentives that Gov.[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 7

2012

Commenting glitch is fixed

We’ve had only a few technical difficulties during out first two weeks of publishing. Reader comments, however, were landing helter skelter. We’ve fixed the problem and are noting an uptick in submissions. Please keep ’em coming. If you encounter any type of technical problem, please let us know via e-mail.

Posted 13 years ago

Mar 5

2012

Quinn: How to spend Cuomo’s $1B

Larry Quinn, a developer and former managing partner of the Buffalo Sabres, weighed in yesterday with his thoughts on the team, Canalside and the future of HSBC bank in downtown Buffalo. Today, Quinn fields questions posed via-e-mail from Jim Heaney of Investigative Post on what ails local economic development efforts and what he thinks of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to invest $1 billion in state incentives to revitalize the region’s economy. You’ve been very critical of economic development efforts in Western New York. What’s the problem? Too many organizations and little chiefs and not much capital. There should be one[...]

Posted 13 years ago