Categories for DailyPost

Oct 10

2023

Fire clerk still not working, but getting paid

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Jill Repman was called back to her job with the Buffalo Fire Department last month after seven and a half years on paid leave that cost taxpayers nearly $600,000. She immediately went on vacation, according to city payroll records.  Repman used four days of her accumulated vacation time to extend the paid Labor Day holiday to a full week. The following Monday, she called in sick.  Then she took a couple personal days, followed by another sick day, followed by another personal day. All told, Repman — formerly known by her married name, Parisi — didn’t work a single day[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Oct 9

2023

Further decline at The Buffalo News

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The wheels continue to fall off the rickety wagon known as The Buffalo News. In fact, the decline is gaining speed. I’m told the staff has been informed by management that daily print circulation is down to about 35,000. Last time I reported, based on 2022 numbers, it was 56,000. That’s down from a peak of 310,000 in the mid ’90s. Digital subscriptions are another 35,000. (More on that later.) There are a variety of reasons for the precipitous decline in print circulation, starting with changing news consumption habits. Nearly nine in 10 Americans get their news from digital platforms;[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Oct 8

2023

Monday Morning Read

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost, our weekly email newsletter. Below is just of the half of what you’ll get in your inbox every Sunday morning. Health policies in red states are contributing to higher premature death rates among its citizens, The Washington Post reports. To help make its point, The Post compared data from three neighboring counties in New York (Chautauqua), Pennsylvania and Ohio. Reported The Post: State lawmakers gained autonomy over how to spend federal safety net dollars following Republican President Ronald Reagan’s push to empower the states in the 1980s. Those investments began to diverge sharply along red and blue lines,[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Oct 6

2023

Misconduct allegations against ‘Falls mayoral candidate

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Carlton Cain, the Republican candidate for mayor of Niagara Falls, was investigated at least twice on charges of misconduct while serving on the city’s police force before retiring in 2019. Charges that are a matter of public record include his efforts to retrieve his stolen police weapon and allegations that he removed files on him compiled by the department’s Internal Affairs unit. Cain, in an interview with Investigative Post, denied removing his Internal Affairs records. The department’s investigation of the allegation reached no conclusion.  He was docked three days pay involving the gun incident. A third matter involved a woman[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Oct 5

2023

Feds move to cite GEICO for anti-union actions

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The National Labor Relations Board has found probable cause to allegations GEICO engaged in anti-union activity in attempting to undermine an organizing effort at its regional headquarters in Amherst. Last August, two company executives said in an office-wide email to employees that they should feel free to call the police on union organizers visiting their homes. Organizers, who launched a union drive last year, said those executives later questioned employees about their support for the burgeoning union and made comments suggesting that joining the effort was “futile.” In recent weeks, however, the NLRB has found merit to charges of unfair[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Oct 3

2023

Buffalo’s stonewalling city government

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Mayor Byron Brown’s administration has long been hostile to requests for public documents from journalists.  In recent months, that hostility has grown worse. Since this summer, the mayor’s law department and several of his commissioners have broken state law time and again in their responses — or failures to respond — to document requests by Investigative Post reporters. Brown’s administration has failed to abide by the state Freedom of Information Law’s most basic requirements to respond to requests in a timely manner.  The city’s top attorney, Corporation Counsel Cavette Chambers, has refused to answer our reporters’ formal appeals when Brown’s[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Oct 2

2023

Feds shut down STAMP pipeline construction

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Following three spills of drilling fluids onto federally protected land, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ordered the Genesee County Economic Development Center to halt construction of a wastewater pipeline that will service its Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park. The shutdown, which the Fish and Wildlife Service notified the economic development agency of Friday, will continue until the spills are cleaned up and required reports and plans are completed and approved. The state  Department of Environmental Conservation issued its own violation notice last week. Both agencies have said they could levy fines. The shutdown is the latest blow[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Oct 1

2023

Monday Morning Read

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll get a complete newsletter every Sunday. Buffalo is on the Canadian border. (Duh). The way things are going, Canada is going to get slammed by climate change, Maclean’s magazine reports. By the 2070s we will be living in a fundamentally different climate than the one our country was built for. Cities across the country will begin to reach “climate departure”: a symbolic rubicon, after which a climate falls completely outside historical norms. Even the coldest year, going forward, will be hotter than the hottest in the past. What does that say about our prospects, sitting right[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post