Articles for Mark Scheer

Nov 23

2021

Surprise winner of Samsung plant

At the beginning of the year, it looked like Austin, Texas, was the frontrunner to land a $17 billion Samsung microchip plant that Western New York officials were hoping to lure to rural Genesee County. In recent months, a new leader emerged – the City of Taylor, just outside Austin – that agreed to a slew of city, county and school district incentives that would reportedly reduce Samsung’s tax burden by 90 percent during the first 10 years of the plant’s operation. “I thought this was Austin’s to lose,” said Nate Jensen, a professor at the University of Texas-Austin who[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Nov 23

2021

Report: Samsung building plant in Texas

The tech giant Samsung has apparently decided where it’s going to build a new $17 billion microchip plant in the United States and a report from the Wall Street Journal suggests the project won’t be landing at a large industrial site in rural Genesee County. The Wall Street Journal reported early Tuesday that the company will build its plant in Taylor, Texas. While representatives from Samsung have not confirmed the decision, the Journal reported that the decision on the selection of Taylor will be discussed at 5 p.m. today when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is scheduled to make an “economic[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Nov 16

2021

A record subsidy for Bills stadium?

There’s never been a stadium built for a National Football League team that cost taxpayers the $1 billion being bandied about for a new home for the Buffalo Bills. Only one stadium, built to lure the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas, even comes close, at $750 million. Three other stadiums built over the past decade involved taxpayer subsidies between $114 million and $498 million. Another stadium, built in Los Angeles for the Rams and Chargers, was constructed entirely with $5 billion in private funds. How the Bills and local and state governments split the cost of a new[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 17

2021

Tribe reaches settlement on project

The Tonawanda Seneca Nation has ended its legal bid to stop the construction of a new hydrogen fuel facility at a large industrial park in rural Genesee County. The Nation announced Friday that it has reached a settlement with the Genesee County Economic Development Center and Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel firm that is planning to build a $264 million plant at the 1,250-acre Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park, located just east of the Nation’s territory in the Town of Alabama. The plant would be built with subsidies worth $4 million per job. Under the settlement, Tonawanda Seneca leaders[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 14

2021

Report: Conditions worsen for Blacks in Buffalo

In 1990, researchers at the University at Buffalo took a comprehensive look at what it was like to be Black and living in Buffalo. They found large numbers of African Americans were out of work, living in poverty, lacked a college degree and were renters rather than homeowners. The report predicted that the “downward trend” for the city’s Black population would continue unless an action plan was put in place to halt the decline. The “portrait of Black Buffalo remains unchanged” more than 30 years later, a follow-up study released this week has found. The report concluded that Black Buffalonians[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 12

2021

Buffalo remains an impoverished city

Buffalo ranked as the nation’s second-poorest city when Byron Brown took office in 2006. The following year, the mayor declared that his administration was working hard to “bring people into the mainstream of Buffalo’s economy” while “taking steps” to reverse the “alarming numbers.” Fifteen years later, the numbers haven’t changed. Buffalo’s poverty rate in 2006 was 29.9 percent. In 2019, the last year for which figures are available, it stood at 28.8 percent. Put another way: Buffalo is no longer the nation’s second poorest city. It’s now the third poorest. Even more disconcerting: Buffalo’s childhood poverty rate stands at 43.4[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 8

2021

Plug Power lawsuit dismissed

A judge has rejected the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s legal challenge to the findings of an environmental review of the planned construction of a $264 million hydrogen fuel plant in rural Genesee County. In a Sept. 28 ruling, Genesee County Judge Charles Zambito determined that the nation failed to add the plant’s developer, Plug Power, as a “necessary party” in a lawsuit that sought to prevent the company from building its new plant near “sacred” hunting grounds on the nation’s territory in the Town of Alabama. “The Nation is considering next steps in light of this decision,” said Gussie Lord, an[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 10

2021

Another competitor for Samsung plant

A small city in central Texas is making big moves in the race to secure a $17 billion Samsung microchip plant that Western New York officials are hoping to lure to an industrial park in rural Genesee County. Multiple news outlets in Texas have reported that officials in Taylor – a city of 18,000 in central Texas – have approved a development agreement for the Samsung project and taken steps to clear the way for the company to buy land for a 6-million-square-foot chip fabrication facility there. The Austin American-Statesman reported last Thursday that the Taylor City Council approved tax[...]

Posted 3 years ago