Categories for DailyPost

Sep 14

2022

New York’s Oath Keepers

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New York has more law enforcement officers who are members of Oath Keepers than any other state in the country. That’s according to a study released last week by the Anti-Defamation League, whose analysts examined a list of 38,000 purported members of the militant far-right group, looking for elected officials, law enforcement and military personnel among its ranks. The list was first published last September by the nonprofit journalist collective Distributed Denial of Secrets, along with Oath Keepers emails and other data obtained by hackers.  By cross-referencing the names on the list with public databases, ADL confirmed the identities of[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 13

2022

The tentative return to Tops

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Rose Wysocki’s family pleaded with her to transfer from the Tops Supermarket on Jefferson Avenue after she was trapped in the store during the May 14 shooting. She considered the move until she ran into a customer. “She had hugged me and was very happy to see that I was OK, and said, ‘I can’t wait for you to come back. I can’t get cleaned greens like at your store,’ and that was what helped me make my decision — to know that my community needed me and wanted me to come back,” Wysocki said. It was then she knew[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 12

2022

Union complaint filed against Geico

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Geico employees attempting to organize a union at the company’s Amherst office have filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. At issue are two emails the company sent to employees that organizers said amount to “union busting.” In the first email, sent Aug. 12, Mindy Seibold, the regional vice president for Buffalo, and Pete Rizzo, a company vice president, warned employees against speaking with Geico United organizers visiting them at home. Because of the pandemic, organizers previously told Investigative Post, many Geico employees are working from home, meaning that union organizers have been knocking on[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 8

2022

Belatedly, City Hall has an ethics board

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 The city’s ethics board has been resurrected from the dead. Investigative Post reported last month that the ethics board hadn’t met in two and half years because the mayor and Common Council had failed to appoint enough board members to comprise a quorum. Last week, Mayor Byron Brown submitted five nominees for the ethics board to the Common Council for approval. All five were approved Tuesday without debate or discussion, bringing the ethics board to its charter-prescribed membership of seven.  Before Tuesday, it had just three members — one short of a quorum. The five newly appointed members are: John[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 7

2022

Geico workers organizing in Amherst

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 Workers at Geico, one of Western New York’s largest employers, are attempting to organize a labor union, an effort that, if successful, would be the insurance company’s first-ever union. But workers told Investigative Post that Geico is attempting to stop their organizing, an effort that could bring union representation to some 2,500 employees. Two emails sent by company vice presidents last month show the company attempting to dissuade workers from signing a petition for a union election. In one email, the company officials even suggested that employees should call the police on their coworkers if they ask them to sign[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 6

2022

Podcast: Reporting the Amazon story

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On Tuesday, Investigative Post reported on the huge subsidy package Amazon is receiving to build a warehouse in Niagara County. Amazon will receive $124 million in tax breaks from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, plus state tax credits of at least $2 million. In exchange, Amazon will employ 1,000 people, most earning $15 an hour. Reporter Dale Shoemaker sat down with Garrett Looker, host of our podcast series, to discuss the reporting. You can watch the interview via our YouTube channel or listen to it as a podcast. Our intent is to publish a podcast a week. Coming up[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 4

2022

Monday Morning Read

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We’ve launched a redesigned website. It builds off the strength of our previous website — easy navigation and a clean, uncluttered design — and adds more visuals and features that point readers to our best work. Our upgrade was informed by market research performed in partnership with the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. They surveyed recipients of WeeklyPost, who said, among other things, that they wanted more graphics, photos and video clips embedded into stories, and guides to direct them to stories by topic. I find the websites of most news outlets to be cluttered messes. We[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 31

2022

Buffalo cop in hot water again

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Last summer, Buffalo Police Officer Richard Hy — a.k.a. the “Angry Cop,” notorious for posting satirical videos online — is accused of letting his anger get the best of him. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in state Supreme Court, Curtis Lee Dean, of Buffalo, claims Hy intentionally backed his patrol car into Dean’s motorcycle at the corner of Delaware Avenue and Edward Street in June 2021. Dean was riding with a group of motorcyclists, whom Hy decided to pursue several blocks through the city’s West Side, according to a WGRZ News report on the incident.  Some riders took off to[...]

Posted 2 years ago
Investigative Post