Categories for DailyPost

May 29

2024

Jail advisory board makes some progress

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Erie County Holding Center. Photo by Garrett Looker. The Erie County Corrections Specialist Advisory Board made incremental progress Tuesday, mustering a quorum, barely, after failing to draw enough members to conduct business at its three previous monthly meetings. Six members of the 11-seat board were present, exactly the number needed for a quorum. The board took two actions, approving minutes of past meetings that could not previously be voted on due to lack of members and setting a June 11 date for a special meeting to select a chair, a vice chair and a secretary, positions that have been vacant[...]

Posted 9 months ago

May 29

2024

NYC migrants may be exiting Buffalo area hotels

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State Sen. Sean Ryan. Photo provided. New York City is developing  a new program to help migrants it is housing in Buffalo-area hotels move into apartments, reports the Gothamist. The news organization said New York City hopes to work with Jewish Family Services of Western New York to assist over 500 migrants find more permanent — and less expensive — housing. The nonprofit agency would also help the migrants find jobs and to seek asylum, Gothamist reports. The arrangement is similar to one previously suggested by state Sen. Sean Ryan of Buffalo, who has been involved in talks leading to[...]

Posted 9 months ago

May 27

2024

Buffalo’s fiscal reckoning

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  Buffalo Common Council President Christopher P. Scanlon. Photo by Garrett Looker. Buffalo’s Common Council took some of the sting out of the mayor’s proposed property tax hike last week, at least for residential homeowners.  Legislators knocked Mayor Byron Brown’s 9 percent tax increase to 7.5 percent, with most of the relief directed to residential homeowners. But city dwellers shouldn’t rest easy. Taxes likely will continue to rise in the years to come. “This tax increase is nothing compared to what’s going to happen in the future,” Niagara District Council Member David Rivera said last week.   “We should have been[...]

Posted 9 months ago

May 27

2024

Americans are horribly misinformed on the economy

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll receive Jim Heaney’s recommended reading Sunday mornings in your inbox. We’re a nation that watches football, obsessives over Taylor Swift and can’t stop staring at our phone screens. Paying attention to reality, not so much. A poll released last week showed most Americans are horribly misinformed over the state of the economy, which in turn is coloring their views on national politics.  Consider: A majority say we’re in a recession; we’re not. Most say unemployment is at a record high; it’s actually near a 50-year low.  A majority say inflation is rising; it’s decreasing. Most[...]

Posted 9 months ago

May 24

2024

Buffalo back on top in race with Amherst

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Back in 2000, the value of taxable property in Amherst eclipsed that of Buffalo. It was believed to be the first time that had happened and raised questions about the city’s fiscal health. By 2015, Amherst growth was slowing as Buffalo’s picked up. In 2021, fueled in part by rising housing prices, as well as downtown and waterfront investment, Buffalo’s tax base edged ahead. The most recent figures peg the 2023 value of Buffalo’s taxable property at $15.3 billion, compared to Amherst’s $14.5 billion. We should note, however, that Amherst inches closer each year.

Posted 9 months ago

May 23

2024

Harris Beach, Hodgson Russ profiting off IDAs

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A meeting of the Erie County IDA board of directors. Photo by Garrett Looker. When New York’s industrial development agencies grant tax breaks, it’s not just local companies that benefit — two upstate law firms walk away with major paydays, too. Hodgson Russ and Harris Beach — based in Buffalo and the Rochester area, respectively — earn millions of dollars in fees each year, according to research from the watchdog groups Reinvent Albany and Good Jobs First. That report comes on the heels of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s annual IDA report, also released Wednesday. The comptroller’s report showed that for[...]

Posted 9 months ago

May 22

2024

Who’s running for Buffalo school board

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Three at-large seats on Buffalo’s school board will be on the ballot this November. Two incumbents, Larry Scott and Terrance Heard, are running for reelection. The other, Ann Rivera, won’t seek another five-year term. So far there are at least four other candidates, three of whom are working together to make the ballot: Ed Speidel, president of the District Parent Coordinating Council and a former co-chair of the district’s Special Education Parents Advisory Committee. He’s the parent of two current Buffalo Public Schools students. He recently held a meat raffle fundraiser at the South Buffalo Moose Lodge. Raziya Hill, founder[...]

Posted 9 months ago

May 21

2024

Censoring the news in New York prisons

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DOCCS banned entire issues of publications from New York magazine to Prison Legal News. | Maia Hibbett Editor’s note: This story is republished from New York Focus. Subscribe to their newsletter here. IN 2016, D’UONE MORRISON wanted to read about racial bias in New York’s prison system. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo had ordered an investigation into the topic, and Morrison, a Black man incarcerated in New York, asked a friend to mail him a news article about it. But the prison’s media review committee blocked the article, Morrison told New York Focus, citing its potential to disrupt order and threaten security.[...]

Posted 9 months ago
Investigative Post