Categories for Co-produced with WGRZ

Jan 4

2024

Poor attendance fuels low reading scores

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There’s a reason most younger pupils in Buffalo schools can’t read very well. They aren’t showing up for class. Only 18 percent of all students last school year had what the district considers a satisfactory attendance rate. That is, they miss school less than roughly one day a month. More than three times as many students – 61 percent – missed school at least once every other week, according to Buffalo Public Schools attendance data. The district considers that degree of absenteeism chronic or severe. Educators say absenteeism is taking a toll on the district’s youngest learners, who are struggling[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Nov 20

2023

License plate readers target minority neighborhoods

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Buffalo police have quietly installed license plate readers at 41 intersections in the city, two-thirds of them located in neighborhoods populated predominantly with people of color.  Buffalo police, in response to a Freedom of Information Law request for the department’s policies on license plate readers, wrote that they’re used for “law enforcement investigative purposes only.” While it’s unclear how the department now is using readers, police in the past used mobile readers to issue traffic tickets, at considerable profit to the city.  Unlike many other cities, neither the police nor Mayor Byron Brown, their commander in chief, have made the[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Nov 8

2023

Home ownership by Blacks in Buffalo has flatlined

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Despite a plethora of programs encouraging Blacks to purchase their own homes, the ownership rate for African-Americans in Buffalo has barely budged over the past four decades.  Where there has been growth lately, it’s come in the suburbs, according to Census data and federal mortgage loan reports. Concerns about redlining in the city persist, but Black incomes in Buffalo — pegged at about three-fifths that of whites — are largely blamed for the stagnation. “Overall, we can attribute the lower Black homeownership rate to the racial wealth gap,” said Buffalo State University associate professor Jason Knight, coordinator of the school’s[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Sep 11

2023

A high-stakes battle between WNY counties

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In an unusual move, one Western New York county has sued a neighboring county’s industrial development agency in an effort to stop a key component a major economic development project. Orleans County filed a complaint Monday in state Supreme Court against the Genesee County Economic Development Center, seeking an injunction to stop the construction of a wastewater pipeline that will service the Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park, known as STAMP. The Genesee County EDC “started construction without having all their ducks in a row and did so at their own risk,” Jennifer Persico, an attorney representing Orleans County, wrote[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Aug 7

2023

No action on Amazon’s warehouse in Niagara

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One year after winning $124 million in tax subsidies from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, Amazon has taken few steps to build its promised 1,000-employee warehouse in the Town of Niagara. On Monday, the 217 acres of land along Lockport Road where Amazon plans to build its three-million-square-foot facility remained vacant. No earth had been moved, no stakes were in the ground. No construction equipment was present. In response to the delay, the IDA is now poised to grant Amazon a six-month extension on its subsidy package. The extension — which the IDA’s board will consider Wednesday — indicates[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jul 13

2023

Company seeking subsidies circulates fake study

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A plastics manufacturer seeking tax breaks to build a plant in Lockport has put its application on hold after being called out Thursday for circulating a summary of a study that was fabricated and produced by artificial intelligence. Prior to a public hearing Thursday, the India-based firm SRI CV Plastics, seeking $312,000 in subsidies from the Lockport Industrial Development Agency, provided the agency’s board a one-page summary of a study that touted the safety of PVC pipes, one of the products the company plans to make at the plant. A University at Buffalo professor, Lourdes Vera, called out the company’s[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jul 11

2023

Risks vs. benefits of proposed Lockport plant

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An India-based plastics company is seeking to build its first U.S. plant in the Town of Lockport, despite strong objections from environmental groups who argue such a facility could harm human health and the environment. But the plant’s potential ecological impact isn’t the only issue up for debate: The firm wants tax breaks, and could further benefit from a limited environmental review. SRI CV Plastics Inc. is seeking $500,000 in subsidies, including $311,856 from the Lockport Industrial Development Agency, to build a $2.3 million, 14,000-square foot factory in the Lockport Industrial Park. The firm’s CEO, Varunkumar Velumani, said he plans[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jun 28

2023

Primary elections: Progressives strike out — again

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So much for the revolution.  Hopes ran high among Buffalo progressives after India Walton won the Democratic mayoral primary two years ago, shocking four-term incumbent Byron Brown. Walton lost to Brown’s well-funded and often vicious write-in campaign in the general election, but the coalition of progressives who supported her seemed poised to start winning smaller elections.  Our City Action Buffalo, or OCAB, played a key role in Walton’s mayoral run. The coalition of progressive activists didn’t run candidates for Democratic Party committee seats last year, opting to fight the party establishment from the outside. It endorsed incumbent Jen Mecozzi’s successful[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post