Categories for Co-produced with WGRZ

Jul 20

2022

Hardwick demands answers from OTB

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For the first time, one of the governments that owns the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. is demanding answers about the agency’s management practices and business dealings. Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick sent two letters this week to Henry Wojtaszek, OTB’s president and CEO. One letter posed a series of questions about the agency’s practice of providing top-shelf health insurance to board members, despite repeated warnings that doing so is impermissible. It’s a subject Investigative Post has covered extensively, in more than two dozen stories published over four years.  Hardwick’s other letter raised questions about OTB’s sale of land to[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jul 7

2022

WNY’s segregation is no accident

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In May, Investigative Post documented just how segregated Buffalo and Western New York is. We’ve now produced a story for WGRZ that dives yet deeper into the numbers and the causes and consequences of that segregation.

Posted 2 years ago

May 31

2022

Buffalo superintendent’s mixed track record

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Tonja Williams has some things going for her as she seeks the permanent appointment as superintendent of Buffalo public schools. They start with her people skills. Williams, who has been interim superintendent since Kriner Cash resigned in March, is a good listener and a realist in telling people what she can deliver. She’s familiar with the city and district, having lived in the Buffalo area her whole life and worked in city schools for 32 years.  “She seems to listen to all sides of an issue and doesn’t seem to get drawn into any personal conflict, any ulterior agendas that[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 31

2022

Gains by the right in school board elections

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Michael Wooten interviewed Layne Dowdall on her recent story about candidates elected to local school boards who were endorsed by right wing organizations. In the interview, which aired on Tuesday on WGRZ’s Town Hall, Dowdall reported that the candidates pledged to oppose the teaching of Critical Race Theory, sex education and Covid vaccine and mask mandates. Twenty-two of these candidates won election in western and central New York, half of them in Erie and Niagara counties. Two of them won seats on the Williamsville School Board, the second largest district in the region.

Posted 2 years ago

May 11

2022

Maziarz sues OTB alleging “fraud”

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Updated on Thursday, May 12, at 5:25 p.m. Former New York State Sen. George Maziarz wants a judge to order  officials from Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. to reimburse taxpayers for benefits he says they improperly obtained while using the public agency as a “slush fund, an ATM [and] a piggy bank.”  OTB leaders, meanwhile, want Maziarz to shut up. In a lawsuit filed Saturday in state Supreme Court in Erie County, Maziarz alleges that the misuse of public resources by OTB higher-ups has prevented the agency’s “massive revenues” from being “fairly distributed to the municipalities and taxpayers it serves.” [...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 27

2022

School violence not limited to McKinley

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District officials have taken steps to address violence in Buffalo schools since a February  shooting and stabbing at McKinley High School left a student hospitalized. Violence in and around schools isn’t limited to fights between students. There have been reports in the news of students attacking their teachers and administrators. Parents have been involved, too, administrators told Investigative Post, attacking school staff, including security guards.   An Investigative Post analysis of four years of 911 data found calls to Buffalo school locations have increased by nearly 20 percent since the 2018-19 school year, the last full year before the pandemic.[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 30

2022

Conflicting cost estimates to rehab stadium

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This story was updated Friday, April 1, at 12:39 p.m. Last November, a consultant working for New York State said it would cost $862 million to renovate the current home of the Buffalo Bills, Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park.  That number was often cited by team representatives and local and state officials as they advocated for what they said was a more cost-effective alternative: a new $1.4 billion stadium. “Many people believe you can renovate the stadium,” Jim Wilkinson, a spokesperson for Pegula Sports and Entertainment, told the Buffalo News in August. “That’s just not realistic.” Erie County Executive Mark[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Mar 16

2022

Bills stadium plans are an outlier

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Most modern NFL stadiums operate as year-round destinations. Their development includes shops, restaurants, bars and the like, or they are built in proximity to existing entertainment venues.  While the offerings vary, the goal is the same: provide reasons for people to visit beyond 10 football games a year.  The Bills are demanding a $1.4 billion, 62,000-seat, open-air stadium in Orchard Park. Those plans make no mention of ancillary development common at most other stadiums. What’s more, Town of Orchard Park officials told Investigative Post the team has not spoken to them about any related development. The apparent lack of ancillary[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post