Categories for DailyPost

Feb 15

2024

Workers protest loophole in state wage law

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  With the first glints of sun coming up over Kenmore Avenue, slowly burning off the morning’s 22-degree freeze, several dozen construction union members rallied Wednesday in protest of developer Michael Wopperer, hoping to highlight loopholes in New York’s prevailing wage law. Wopperer, the tradesmen and organizers said, had amassed some $17 million in public subsidies for his $23 million renovation of the former Wood & Brooks factory just across the road, yet will not be required to pay prevailing wage to the workers he’s employing on the project.  Wopperer told Investigative Post he’s employing some union workers on the[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 14

2024

Who’s responsible for bad cops?

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Common Council Member David Rivera, left, speaks with Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia. Photo by Bruce Rushton. Mayor Byron Brown has said that he wants the police commissioner to have more power to discipline cops, but change is beyond his purview. An arbitrator now decides discipline, although the city charter says that disciplinary authority rests with the police commissioner. Giving power to the commissioner, according to the mayor, is up to the Common Council. “I don’t control the council, and if there was anything in this document that the council felt they could implement or wanted to implement they would[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 13

2024

Community groups question Buffalo’s lead program

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  Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director of Partnership for the Public Good, speaks at a press conference Tuesday, Feb. 13 about the low number of home inspections Buffalo has completed to survey for lead. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. Nearly 40 local community organizations are questioning whether  City Hall is fully complying with a more than 3-year-old program that was designed, in part, to help combat lead poisoning in city housing. They’re giving the city a month to prove that inspectors have been fully implementing the program. Partnership for the Public Good addressed a letter to Mayor Byron Brown and Catherine[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 12

2024

Political Post: Tax hikes for snowplows

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Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. This column was adopted from Investigative Post’s weekly “Political Post” newsletter. Subscribe here and get “Political Post” in your inbox every Wednesday morning. Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told the Buffalo News editorial board two weeks ago that sending snowplows down side streets in the immediate aftermath of a snowstorm might require a tax hike. Clearing residential streets promptly is a new, boutique service, Brown claimed, never before contemplated in what he called “the standard city snow plan.” “But now, the public is saying, ‘We don’t want that. We want more than that,’” Brown told The News. [...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 12

2024

Monday Morning Read

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Imagine what it’s like to be imprisoned for years on end. Or, read this compelling essay written by an inmate and published by The Marshall Project. The inmate in question, Jy’aire Smith-Pennick, is serving a 27-year sentence for murder in Pennsylvania. The biggest challenge, he writes, is boredom. In an attempt to disrupt the monotony of prison, we try to create our own personal routines filled with exercise, enrichment programs and constant work. Some of us play cards, watch sports or participate in hobbies such as sewing. But sooner or later, these routines also become monotonous. This is the part[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 9

2024

Labor’s challenges and opportunities

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Watch our panel discussion on organized labor. Video by Garrett Looker. Regardless of who wins the presidential election in November, it will be incumbent on workers and union members to fight for better pay, schedules and working conditions. And that’s to say nothing about addressing the effects of climate change and rectifying social injustices. In other words: The labor movement is going to have to save itself. That was one of the big takeaways from Investigative Post’s panel discussion on the labor movement Wednesday night. President Joe Biden may be better for labor than Donald Trump and the Republicans, the panelists[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 8

2024

Minimal discipline for problem Buffalo cop

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In the space of 10 months, Buffalo police officer Davon Ottey cursed, wrongly arrested people, used excessive force, lied about brandishing a knife and sprayed hand sanitizer on a man who used a phone to record police, according to the New York State Attorney General’s office. Ottey’s conduct between June 2019 and April 2020 prompted five citizen complaints and was sufficient to warrant a criminal investigation, the attorney general’s office wrote in a Dec. 28 letter to Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia. For its part, the department sustained two complaints against Ottey, issuing a six-day suspension in one case and a[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 7

2024

Investigative Post sues FBI over records

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Nearly a year after first requesting the records, Investigative Post filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Federal Bureau of Investigations, arguing that the agency is unlawfully withholding thousands of pages of documents. Some of the records are related to the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. which is currently under FBI investigation. The FBI says it has the records, but wants to take more than four years to review and release them. “The information contained in the requested records will allow Investigative Post to bring transparency and accountability to OTB and its public officials in order to protect the public[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post