Categories for DailyPost

Jan 15

2023

Monday Morning Read

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Want to read this yesterday? Sign up for WeeklyPost, emailed Sunday mornings. Subscribe here. Also includes a summary of Investigative Post’s reporting for the previous week. On this day celebrating, celebrating the birthday, and life, if Martin Luther King Jr., allow me to share a couple of relevant links: historians discuss little known facts about MLK, and  America’s embrace of the man wasn’t always the case. Good reporting by Jerry Zremski of The Buffalo News in detailing the role Big Dog Strategies, a local political consulting firm, played in the election of pathological liar turned Congressman George Santos. Santos, the subject[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jan 12

2023

Podcast: Reporting on Tesla’s solar factory

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When plans were announced for a solar panel manufacturing plant in South Buffalo, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo described the project as a “game changer.” Based on the promise of not only a gleaming new plant and more than 1,400 jobs, but a whole new clean energy sector that would employ thousands more. Cuomo poured nearly $1 billion of state tax dollars into building and equipping the project. Has it delivered as promised? Investigative Post’s J. Dale Shoemaker dug deep to answer that question. Officials from Tesla refused requests for interview. Bureaucrats with the state economic development agency that oversees the project[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jan 11

2023

Tesla’s solar factory in Buffalo fizzles

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When Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans in 2013 for what is now Tesla’s factory in South Buffalo, he pitched it as a cornerstone of the “clean energy revolution” and a new high-tech industrial sector for Western New York. The project would create not only more than 1,400 direct jobs, but spin-off development that would provide a supply chain employing thousands of additional workers. Cuomo proclaimed the project a “game-changer.” Fast-forward to today. Less than one-quarter of the workforce at the Tesla factory is engaged in solar-related manufacturing. That work was suspended altogether for at least six months last year.  Podcast:[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jan 9

2023

Council presses Brown on blizzard response

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Reeling from the deaths of more than 30 residents — among at least 44 fatalities across the region — Buffalo’s Common Council is asking a lot of questions about the city’s readiness and response to the Christmas blizzard. Today the Common Council will consider items filed by three of its members, all demanding information and action from Mayor Byron Brown’s administration. On Dec. 30, South District Council Member Chris Scanlon filed resolutions asking for, among other things: An inventory of vehicles and other equipment available to the city’s fire, police, and public works departments. The use of federal COVID relief[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jan 5

2023

Censured surgeon has left Children’s Hospital

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Updated Monday, Jan. 9, 1:06 p.m. Four-and-a-half  years ago, one of Western New York’s leading pediatric surgeons was censured by the New York Department of Health for negligence and professional misconduct. Today, she’s back at the operating table, licensed to perform surgery in four states. But she’s left Buffalo behind, selling her house here and setting up a new practice in Roanoke, Virginia.  In April 2018, pediatric surgeon Dr. Kathryn Bass — then director of trauma at John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital — was hit with a formal reprimand and two years of probation by the state health department after[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jan 5

2023

Putting legislative pay raises in perspective

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Updated: 11:18 a.m. State legislators were generous with themselves beyond the $32,000 a year raise they approved last month. The legislation also included loopholes that good government groups are characterizing as weak on ethics and conflicts of interest. What’s more, the raises, justified by supporters as compensation for inflation, far exceed increases in the cost of living. Reinvent Albany compared the provisions of the legislation with recommendations made in 2018 by a state compensation commission that considered pay raises for legislators, among other state elected officials. “The bottom line is that the law giving the Legislature a huge pay raise[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jan 4

2023

Podcast: Reporting on police misconduct

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The Buffalo Police Department is under fire of criticism from local activists, alleging racial and civil discrimination. Officers’ frequent use of racial slurs, including the “N-word,” and unequal, discriminating policing efforts in different neighborhoods are two of thr allegations levied in a lawsuit by Black Love Resists in the Rust. Geoff Kelly has reported on the lawsuit the Buffalo Police Department faces, including officer misconduct and potential oversight from the Department of Justice.  Kelly sat down with Garrett Looker, host of our podcast series, to talk about his reporting. Watch via YouTube or listen as a podcast.

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 31

2022

iPost readers vote evictions report top story of ’22

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Readers have selected I’Jaz Ja’ciel’s report on evictions as Investigative Post’s top story of 2022.  Her Nov. 9 story, which also aired on WGRZ, not only reported on the large number of eviction warrants issued in Erie County, primarily Buffalo, but explained why. The reasons include Buffalo’s high poverty rate and meager government assistance for low-income renters. Buffalo landlords are acting to evict tenants in greater numbers than any portion of the state aside from Brooklyn, according to data from the New York State Unified Court System.  Judges have issued more than 3,700 eviction warrants this year in Erie County,[...]

Posted 2 years ago
Investigative Post