Categories for DailyPost

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 weeks 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 weeks ago

Oct 13

2024

WNY pols carrying Trump’s water

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Erie County Sheriff John Garcia is regurgitating Donald Trump’s talking points on immigrants, essentially saying too many of them are lawless. Credit to Sandy Tan of The Buffalo News, who reported: “An overwhelming body of research indicates that immigrants, including immigrants who enter the country illegally, commit violent crimes at a much lower rate than the rest of the American population.” Perhaps the sheriff should focus his efforts on keeping prisoners in his jails alive. As we reported last month, the rate of deaths is higher under Garcia than his predecessor, Tim Howard, whose management of the jails was roundly[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Oct 10

2024

Ryan leads the mayoral money race

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State Sen. Sean Ryan is seeking reelection this fall, but he’s certainly raising and spending money like a guy who’s running for mayor of Buffalo next year. Ryan raised $110,000 over the last three months, according to his campaign committee’s most recent filing with the state elections board. Campaign finance disclosures for candidates on the ballot in November were due last Friday. The reports cover the period from July 11 to Sept. 30.  Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown announced two weeks ago he’d accepted a new job as president and CEO of Western Regional Off-Track Betting. Brown indicated he’d step down[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Oct 9

2024

A literal power struggle at STAMP

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Gov. Kathy Hochul, center, flings dirt into the air at Plug Power’s groundbreaking. Photo via governor’s office. The financial strife of Plug Power is causing headaches for a Western New York industrial park, leading economic development officials in Genesee County to seek state assistance and even court data centers in an effort to “save the day.” As it’s run dangerously low on cash, Plug Power has stopped construction of its hydrogen production plant at Genesee County’s Science Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park, located halfway between Buffalo and Rochester. The company’s building has been paused since January. That has meant construction[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Oct 8

2024

More upheaval at The Buffalo News

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This has been a tough week for The Buffalo News with word that Editor Sheila Rayam has been ousted and former Publisher Warren Colville has died. Margaret Kenny Giancola, the paper’s managing editor, succeeds Rayam. The News story announcing her appointment by Lee Enterprises, the paper’s chain owner, didn’t explain the move. I’m told Lee hasn’t explained its decision to the newsroom staff, either.  Rayam’s departure comes in the wake of Lee’s decision to eliminate 10 of the newsroom’s approximately 55 positions. That suggests her departure is in part a cost-cutting move.  Insiders tell me Rayam, the paper’s first Black[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Oct 8

2024

Buffalo cops rarely disciplined

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The officers “pulled up in a black Taurus” and started “beating and whipping people,” according to one of several witnesses to a May 2011 altercation between Buffalo cops and a crowd of people outside an East Ferry corner store. The cops used homophobic slurs, were “beating the shit out of people” and “kicking this boy in the face,” another witness said. A third witness said “a white male who works for housing” — later identified as Buffalo Police Officer Michael Acquino — “took his [phone] and deleted personal pictures and a video that he had recorded of the officers beating[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Oct 6

2024

They’re not knocking down their Frank Lloyd Wright

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We knocked down our Frank Lloyd Wright office building nearly three-quarters of a century ago. Oklahoma still has one, although it’s not doing well, lacking an anchor tenant and up for sale after several failed revitalization efforts.  An architect, writing in 1949, has this to say about the demolition of our Wright masterpiece:  The Larkin Building set a precedent for many an office building we admire today and should be regarded not as an outmoded utilitarian structure but as a monument, if not to Mr. Wright’s creative imagination, to the inventiveness of American design. The destruction of all but one pillar[...]

Posted 1 month ago
Investigative Post