Categories for DailyPost

Oct 23

2024

Brown’s OTB contract could rise to $315,000 in 2027

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Outgoing OTB CEO Henry Wojtaszek, left, recently appointed CEO Byron Brown, center, and attorney Rajat Shah. Photo by Mark Scheer. Former Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has the chance to boost his annual salary of $295,000 by another $20,000 within two years as the new CEO and president of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. At the start of Wednesday’s OTB board of directors meeting — the first attended by Brown since he resigned as mayor to head the public gambling agency — Brown released a copy of his employment contract. The three-year contract will, as has been previously reported, pay Brown[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 22

2024

City loan has not stabilized Braymiller Market

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Story updated 10:34 a.m. Oct. 24. A year after the City of Buffalo threw Braymiller Market a half-million dollar lifeline, the downtown grocery store continues to struggle financially. For a third year in a row, records show that owner Stuart Green is months behind on his city tax payments.  That failure to pay $8,119 in taxes, half the annual bill, prompted the Erie County Industrial Development Agency to warn him Sept. 10 and again last week that the property tax abatement it granted him in 2019 could be revoked. On Wednesday, IDA leaders said they were prepared to begin the[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 22

2024

Poloncarz blasts Brown for hiring Steve Casey at OTB

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The elected official with the greatest sway over Western Regional Off-Track Betting is “incredibly disappointed” that former Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has brought a controversial former deputy with him to his new post as head of the troubled public gambling corporation. “Former Mayor Brown committed to the Board of Directors that he would move Western Region OTB towards transparency and accountability,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said in a statement to Investigative Post. Hiring Steven M. Casey — “an incredibly toxic force in Buffalo City Hall for decades,” according to Poloncarz — “moves Western Region OTB in the complete opposite[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 20

2024

Brown brings long-time aide Steve Casey to OTB

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Steven Casey, left, and Byron Brown, right. File photo by WKBW. Steven M. Casey — Byron Brown’s former deputy mayor and top political advisor — is following his old boss to a job at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. A source close to OTB leadership confirmed Casey, 58, is now working for the publicly owned gambling corporation and is on-site at Batavia Downs. The state comptroller’s office confirmed Casey began working part-time for OTB in September. OTB did not report a job title to the comptroller but projected his annual part-time wages would total $49,920. Casey — whose company pleaded[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 17

2024

Mayoral hopeful enlists advisor with checkered past

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Six years ago Kevin O’Brien’s career as a sought-after Democratic political strategist appeared to be over, consumed by a sexual harassment scandal that cost him his job as a top aide to then New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Today O’Brien, 42, is in Buffalo. He’s advising Garnell Whitfield, the former fire commissioner who is expected to announce his candidacy for Buffalo mayor sometime after next month’s general election. “He’s nationally experienced,” Whitfield told Investigative Post. “He’s not from here. He’s not part of the status quo here. He brings fresh eyes to the problems of this city.” Garnell[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 16

2024

KeyBank approving more mortgages for Black borrowers

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Story was updated Oct. 18 to reflect the current relationship between KeyBank and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. After years of criticism over its lending record to Black homebuyers, KeyBank is reporting a sharp increase in the number of mortgages granted to African-American applicants in the Erie-Niagara region. The latest data obtained through the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act shows that in 2023 KeyBank made 48 loans in the two counties, compared to 12 the year before. “All the progress that we have made over time is the result of just being able to listen to the community,” said Chiwuike[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 15

2024

Brown resigns: Addition by subtraction

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I wrote a column in December 2022 that posed the question: Is Byron Brown the worst mayor in America? It was prompted by his mishandling of the Christmas blizzard that year. But, as I noted then, it was but the latest example of his ineptitude. Things have only gotten worse since, in particular city finances. Brown, with the cooperation of an ever-compliant Common Council, first burned through $109 million in reserves the mayor inherited from the city’s state-imposed financial control board. Of late, he has used $150 million — and counting — in federal pandemic aid to cover city operating[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Oct 15

2024

Infographic: To buy or to rent? Either costs more

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The median value of a home in Erie County reached $241,900 in 2023; in Niagara County, $189,700, according to Census Bureau estimates. (Median defined as point at which half are above, half below.) Year-to-year Census Bureau estimates for the largest municipalities show median housing values up almost 50% from 2019 to 2023 in Amherst and Buffalo, more than 60% in Cheektowaga and almost 40% in Town of Tonawanda. The Amherst median — $336,000 — is almost twice that of Buffalo, at $174,200. Rent also rises Median monthly rent hit $1,067 in Erie County, with its four largest municipalities — Buffalo,[...]

Posted 4 months ago
Investigative Post