Categories for DailyPost

Jun 18

2023

Monday Morning Read

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost, our free newsletter emailed Sunday mornings and you’ll get a summary of our latest reporting and what’s below – my recommended reading to start off your week. First off, have you noticed the changed typography in the print edition of The Buffalo News? It coincides with Lee Enterprises, the paper’s chain owner, dismantling The News’ design desk and shipping the work off to one of Lee’s satellite offices. Personally, I think the revised look is a step backwards. Speaking of Lee, a former newspaper publisher and editor down in Virginia wrote a couple of posts in his[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 13

2023

A possible problem with City Hall pay raises

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Buffalo’s Common Council voted 5-to-3 Tuesday to give pay raises to themselves, the mayor, the city comptroller and the nine elected members of the city school board. A commission empaneled by the Council in April recommended the 12.63 percent raises for city elected officials and 87 percent pay raises for school board members. The increases will cost taxpayers $254,410 per year.  The new salaries are as follows: Mayor: $178,518.55 — a boost of $20,018.55. Comptroller: $134,592.85 — a boost of $15,092.85. Common Council member: $84,472.50 — a boost of $9,472.50. Board of Education member: $28,000 — a boost of $13,ooo.[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 9

2023

Tax subsidy reforms stall in Albany

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New York state lawmakers were poised to end the 2023 legislative session Friday with no action on a pair of bills that would have drastically reformed the state’s 107 industrial development agencies. Industrial development agencies, or IDAs, are public benefit corporations that have the power to grant property, sales and mortgage tax breaks to corporations who apply for those benefits, often in exchange for creating new jobs. The eight counties of Western New York have 15 IDAs at both the county and municipal levels. One bill, sponsored by Senator Sean Ryan, a Buffalo Democrat, would have barred IDAs from granting[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 7

2023

Podcast: How tax breaks deplete school budgets

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Last week, Investigative Post’s J. Dale Shoemaker reported on tax subsidies distributed by industrial development agencies — subsidies that deprive school districts of millions of dollars each year. In this latest episode of Investigative Post’s Reporter’s Notebook, host Garrett Looker sat down with Shoemaker to talk about his months-long analysis into how tax subsidies are affecting school districts. Watch via YouTube or listen as a podcast.

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 5

2023

OTB board extends embattled executives

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Editor’s note: Investigative Post and the Niagara Gazette share selected stories, including the following report from Mark Scheer, who previously worked for Investigative Post. Days before state lawmakers agreed to abolish their positions, the board of directors for Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. approved new employee contracts for several members of its management team, including CEO and President Henry Wojtaszek. Documents available on OTB’s website show the board approved contracts during its April 27 meeting after exiting an executive session where directors discussed personnel matters behind closed doors. The minutes reflect only that the board approved the employee contracts. They[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 5

2023

Feds pause permit for critical industrial park work

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Editor’s note: Investigative Post and the Niagara Gazette share selected stories, including the following report from Mark Scheer, who previously worked for Investigative Post. A federal agency has put a hold on a permit for construction of a piece of infrastructure critical to the development of a sprawling industrial park in Genesee County. An official representing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has informed the Tonawanda Seneca Nation that it intends to take another look at the potential environmental impact of a wastewater pipeline that would connect a 1,250-acre industrial park in rural Genesee County to Oak Orchard Creek and Lake Ontario.[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 4

2023

Monday Morning Read

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WeeklyPost is a free email newsletter delivered Sunday mornings. You can subscribe here. The Buffalo News published a good analysis Sunday on the dynamics that doomed Medaille University and how they threaten other private colleges, as well. I graduated from Medaille in 1977, after first attending St. Bonaventure University, and it’s weird to see your alma mater go out of business. I got a good education at Medaille; three professors stick out, Kevin Ransom, Ross Runfola and Roger Bonenfant. I also had a good adjunct you might have heard of: Irv Weinstein. He got me my first serious taste of[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 2

2023

Tickets on sale for our summer benefit concert

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Circle your calendar, buy your tickets, a popular summer concert tradition is returning after a pandemic hiatus!  Tom Toles and the Junkman’s Choir will play the Sportsmen’s Tavern the evening of Thursday, July 13, to benefit Investigative Post.   Toles, of course, is the Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist, late of The Washington Post and Buffalo News. (He presently serves on Investigative Post’s board of directors.)  “It’s exciting to restart the iPost Sportsmen’s summer concert series,” Toles said.  “It’s always a crazy fun gathering of great local musicians and a guest drummer/singer who is a joyful and unpredictable wild animal.[...]

Posted 2 years ago
Investigative Post