Categories for Co-produced with WGRZ

Feb 10

2016

Landfill with Love Canal legacy still poses danger

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Varsha Kraus and her family fled their neighborhood in Love Canal in 1981 only to learn two years ago that its toxic waste had been dug up and buried in a landfill behind their subdivision in North Tonawanda. After insisting for 25 years that the closed landfill posed no significant health threat, state officials changed their minds in December and declared it a Superfund site. But warning signs were evident all along: rusted chemical drums, battery casings stacked waist high and children getting burns from splashes of orange pond water. The Love Canal waste – enough to fill 80 dump[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Feb 9

2016

Unlike mayor, Council poised to act on lead

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Three Buffalo Common Council members, responding to an Investigative Post story that aired Monday on WGRZ, said Tuesday they are willing to collaborate with Erie County health officials to address the city’s serious lead problem. Council President Darius Pridgen is among those who vowed action. Passing legislation and certifying city inspectors to detect hazards inside homes were mentioned as possible steps. The response of Council members contrasts with Mayor Mayor Brown, who said Monday he was satisfied with leaving the task of lead detection to the county. Although the mayor expressed a willingness last summer to discuss how the city[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Feb 8

2016

Mayor backtracks on lead pledge

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You don’t have to go as far as Flint, Michigan, to find a serious lead poisoning problem. There’s one right here in Buffalo, one that City Hall continues to downplay. New data obtained by Investigative Post shows there’s an increase, for the first time in four years, in the number of children in Erie County who tested positive for lead in their blood. In 2015, Erie County reported 295 children who tested positive for lead in their blood. That’s a 14 percent increase from the prior year. The real problem is in Buffalo, however, where 273 children – 93 percent[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Feb 8

2016

WNY job growth continues to lag

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The Buffalo and Western New York economy is humming, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a bevy of local and state politicians. But the numbers tell a different story. Job growth in the Buffalo market grew by an annual average of 0.8 percent between 2010 and last year, half the national average of 1.6 percent. Local job growth last year of 1.1 percent was significantly less than the national average of 1.9 percent of the statewide average of 1.7 percent. Steve Brown and I discuss on this week’s edition of Outrages & Insights.

Posted 9 years ago

Jan 31

2016

Latest Urban League developments

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The transgressions of the Buffalo Urban League – submitting inflated bills to Erie County, failing to train employees, retaliating against whistleblowers – is an issue that Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and fellow Democrats on the County Legislature are wishing would go away. But it’s not. A critical audit issued in December by County Comptroller Stefan Mychajli was the topic of a hearing Thursday in which Republicans and Democrats clashed. Later in the day, Investigative Post reported the Acting District Attorney Michael Flaherty is reviewing the audit to determine if there are grounds to launch a criminal investigation. Jim Heaney[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Jan 29

2016

DA reviewing Urban League misdeeds

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There were two noteworthy developments Thursday regarding findings by Investigative Post and the Erie County Comptroller about inappropriate actions taken by the Buffalo Urban League, including the submission of inflated bills and retaliation against whistleblowers. A highly placed county source told Investigative Post that the staff of Acting Erie County District Attorney Michael Flaherty  has been meeting with the comptroller’s office to review its audit findings. The source said no decision has been made as to whether to launch a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, the Erie County Legislature held a public hearing on the comptroller’s audit. Democratic legislators, joined by County[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Jan 10

2016

Considering Mark Poloncarz

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I’ve been on the airwaves the past week discussing Mark Poloncarz – his demeanor, his job performance, his supposed mandate. I appeared Sunday with Steve Brown on Outrages & Insights, my weekly video blog on WGRZ. I was interviewed last week at greater length by Susan Arbetter for a segment of The Capitol Pressroom that broadcasts on 20 public radio stations across upstate, including WBFO. I used to hold Poloncarz in relatively high regard, but have soured on him over the past year. Yes, he is smart (although thin skinned, and sometimes downright prickly). And he can be more forthcoming than your[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Dec 23

2015

Was dead mother failed by social services?

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The story of the four-year-old boy who spent days alone with his mother’s dead body, surviving on milk and maple syrup, has prompted a public outpouring of sympathy and the donation of gifts that piled up at police headquarters. Former employees of the Buffalo Urban League say there’s another side to the story. The boy’s mother, Shaleena Hamilton, had been receiving preventive services under the $1 million contract recently audited by the county comptroller, according to six current and former Urban League caseworkers. The audit, released two weeks ago, found extensive problems in the agency’s handling of the contract, including overbilling, a[...]

Posted 9 years ago
Investigative Post