Categories for DailyPost

Nov 8

2024

City Hall: No more money for Braymiller Market

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Braymiller Market in downtown Buffalo. Photo by Garrett Looker. The Buffalo Common Council is sending a new message to Braymiller Market, downtown’s struggling grocery store: If the business is going to fail, it better fail within the next year.  That way, University Common Council Member Rasheed N.C. Wyatt said, the city can recoup the $561,000 it loaned the business last year. Under the terms of the forgivable loan, the store must stay open for two years to avoid repaying the city. “If we can get our $561,000 before he closes, let’s get our $561,000 back because I think that can[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 7

2024

Harris’ underwhelming victory in New York State

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Kamala Harris won New York State on Tuesday. Or, more accurately, she won New York City, whose voters provided her margin of victory. She also won in counties with urban centers — Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany — while losing Long Island and most of rural upstate. Harris this year drew 900,000 fewer votes in New York State than Joe Biden did in 2020. Biden beat Trump that year by 23 percentage points, as did Hillary Clinton in 2016. Harris’s margin of victory was just shy of 12 percent.  Trump, meanwhile, has gained support with each appearance on the ballot[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 6

2024

Election results: A rare incumbent loss, lots of no-contests

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There are still some votes to count and results have not been certified, but most of Tuesday’s local races are pretty well resolved. A few notable results, based on election night numbers: In the region’s most expensive contest, for Erie County district attorney, Democrat Mike Keane beat deep-pocketed Republican James Gardner by nearly 20 percentage points. Keane has been acting DA since John Flynn stepped down at the end of March to join the Lippes Matthias law firm, making him a quasi-incumbent. The two candidates spent more than $1 million between them, according to the latest tally by the state[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 5

2024

Infographic: Presidential picks in Erie-Niagara

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It’s Election Day. Four years ago, when Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, Erie County voted for the Democratic candidate while Niagara County voted for the Republican. The two counties have been at odds in three of the last five elections. Here’s a look at how Erie and Niagara counties voted in presidential elections going back to 2004: Source: New York State, Erie County, and Niagara County election boards.

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 3

2024

Buffalo’s growing remote workforce

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Downtown Buffalo has been hit hard since the pandemic, with a loss of an estimated 20,000 workers. That helps to explain the rise in remote work in our region, as reported last week by Coworking Cafe. The share of people in Buffalo working from home has grown from 4.1% in 2019 to 10.7% in 2023. Our share of the remote workforce is a little below the national average of 13.8 percent. That number in neighboring Rochester is 8.8 percent. Partly as a result of fewer people commuting to work, traffic volume and congestion is down. In Buffalo, the declines were[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 1

2024

Infographic: Move your car

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Over the past year, Buffalo issued more parking summonses, by far, for not following alternate side of the street parking rules than for anything else. Using city parking summons data available through Open Buffalo, Investigative Post found 43 percent of over 142,000 summons issued in a one-year period – ending in late October – went to vehicles parked on the wrong side of the street.  The next most frequently issued tickets went to vehicles in No Parking zones. They represented 12 percent of tickets. As a comparison,  we looked at ticketing data the city released for an almost 18-year period[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Oct 31

2024

Whistleblower suit against OTB going forward

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Batavia Downs. Photo by Garrett Looker. A lawsuit filed by a former Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. executive – who claims he was fired for cooperating with state and federal investigators examining the operation – is moving forward. In a ruling issued last week, U.S. District Court Judge William Skretny dismissed several claims, narrowing the scope of a lawsuit filed in August 2021 by OTB’s former chief operating officer, Michael Nolan. But Skretny denied a request from OTB to toss what Nolan’s attorney described as the “most important” causes of action in the lawsuit. Barring an appeal, Skretny’s ruling clears[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Oct 30

2024

Buffalo readying hostel’s former home for sale

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Hostel Buffalo-Niagara in downtown Buffalo’s Theater District. Photo by Garrett Looker. Members of  the Hostel Buffalo-Niagara board are working to reclaim the lodge’s former home at 667 Main St. – though they may have some competition. The Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency last week said its real estate team has been showing the property – located in the heart of the Theatre District – to several potential buyers.  BURA officials didn’t name any interested parties beyond the hostel, which is partnering with developer Sam Savarino to create a construction plan for the property. The hostel’s board hopes that Savarino can acquire[...]

Posted 5 months ago
Investigative Post