Categories for DailyPost

Aug 3

2023

No more free golf for Chautauqua IDA

The Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency has agreed to make changes to the way it operates after a scathing state review in May found “inappropriate and questionable” spending at the economic development outfit. Those changes, however, come with some consternation from the IDA. While it told state officials it would curtail some of its spending and review some of its policies, it vigorously defended other practices the state Authorities Budget Office critiqued, arguing the agency can’t force it to change. The IDA, for example, will no longer reimburse an executive for a country club membership where he played golf with[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 2

2023

An oasis near a book desert

Published by I'Jaz Ja'ciel

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of an occasional series we’re calling “East Side Stories.” We examine issues that affect the residents of the East Side, told through the lens of people working to address the problem. Companion stories will air on Channel 2. Today, we focus on literacy and a Jefferson Avenue bookstore serving the community. In a small storefront on Jefferson Avenue, Sharon and Kenneth Holley have turned their love of books into a neighborhood literary center. Zawadi Books is the only general interest bookstore on the city’s East Side. There you’ll find find both rare and[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 1

2023

GOP lawmakers fight with public dollars to control OTB

Published by Mark Scheer

It’s going to cost taxpayers in rural Western New York counties big bucks to support a legal challenge against state-imposed changes to the management structure at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. A June 20 legal services agreement obtained by the Niagara Gazette indicates that at least three counties — Niagara, Orleans and Genesee — agreed to pay $5,000 apiece, for a total of $15,000, to cover a retainer fee for Lippes Mathias, the Buffalo law firm hired to oversee the OTB litigation. Under the agreement, the firm’s lead attorney — former state Attorney General and U.S. Attorney Dennis Vacco —[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jul 31

2023

City earning millions on unspent federal relief funds

Published by Geoff Kelly

Mayor Byron Brown’s slow rollout of federal Covid relief funds has infuriated social welfare organizations and Common Council members, who have been waiting two years for the money to start flowing into the community. But the delay has a silver lining, if only for the mayor’s bean-counters: millions of dollars in unexpected interest income. For the budget year that ended June 30, the Brown administration had forecast $100,000 in interest income. The city’s actual interest earnings, as of July 1: $13.8 million. Delano Dowell, the city’s finance commissioner, confirmed that the windfall is primarily the result of more than $215[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jul 30

2023

Feds sanction local defense contractor — again

Published by J. Dale Shoemaker

A Western New York-based military contractor was rebuked by federal agencies three times between 1996 and 2021 for improper accounting practices and mishandling defense contracts, according to records obtained by Investigative Post. The investigations and audit into the Calspan University at Buffalo Research Center — or CUBRC — have resulted in more than $500,000 in penalties against the nonprofit organization. The most recent investigation, which ended in December 2021, was initiated after a tipster alleged CUBRC was committing fraud. Federal investigators ultimately did not charge the organization with crimes, but fined it $129,000 for violating federal contracting rules. A spokesperson[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jul 30

2023

Monday Morning Read

Published by Jim Heaney

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll receive Jim Heaney’s recommended reading (below) and a summary of Investigative Post’s reporting of the previous week in your inbox Sunday mornings. It’s free. Such a deal. The USA Today network took a look at government’s response to the Christmas Blizzard and found plenty of blame to go around. “Put simply, emergency management breakdowns cost lives,” the story concluded. A state senator wants his local district attorney to investigate a company who he says lied in an effort to secure IDA subsidies. And no, we’re not talking about the recent shenanigans in Lockport, although maybe we should. Relatively[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jul 27

2023

Mayor, Council cut deal to bail out Braymiller

Published by J. Dale Shoemaker

The Buffalo Common Council on Thursday voted to approve a package of funding for small businesses across the city, a pot of money Mayor Byron Brown’s administration conjured out of pandemic relief aid to make a $563,000 forgivable loan to a downtown grocery store more palatable to lawmakers. Under the plan, Council members will each have $389,000 earmarked for small business grants in their districts, with an additional $2 million in loan funding also available. That $5.5 million package passed Thursday alongside a plan that reallocates $59.9 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act funding from various proposed community programs[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jul 26

2023

Our library system is hurting

Published by Garrett Looker

Nakia Luper, a mother of three, has watched as the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood deteriorated around her. Stores closings. The Central Terminal crumbling. And, in 2005, her neighborhood library shutting down. “The kids used to go and have fun,” Luper said. There were “different activities going on at the library all the time. And then one day it was just gone.” The closest library is now three miles away. Luper said it’s not safe for children to walk that distance through blighted neighborhoods to take out a library book. Nearly two decades after funding for the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library[...]

Posted 2 years ago