Categories for DailyPost

Jun 14

2022

No action on stadium benefits agreement

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In January, good-government activists and elected officials said there should be no public subsidies for a new Buffalo Bills stadium without a community benefits agreement. A memorandum of understanding outlining the deal, involving $1.13 billion in subsidies, was announced in March, with no CBA in place. The Erie County Legislature approved the MOU in May, two weeks after it approved a down payment of $100 million towards the county’s $250 million share of construction costs. Still no CBA, though the agreement calls for one to be negotiated. It’s now the middle of June, and there is still no CBA. No[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 12

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter, an excerpt from which you’ll find below. Reinvent Albany has a good rundown of the good and bad of the session’s final flurry.  Among the bad: a $10 billion allocation, negotiated in the dark, to provide huge subsidies to the semiconductor industry. There’s good analysis here and here. New York Focus has more, on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s slush funds and lack of transparency. The state Legislature passed a two-year moratorium on cryptomining. Will Hochul sign or veto the measure? The industry has given big to her campaign and that of her running mate. So,[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 10

2022

Woman sues over cop’s c-word insult

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 A year after he left the force, former Buffalo Police Lieutenant Michael DeLong keeps costing taxpayers money. DeLong retired last March, after nearly 21 years as a cop, at least 36 internal affairs investigations, five suspensions for misconduct and six disciplinary conferences with superiors. In his first year as a civilian, he collected $65,761 in pension payments, plus health insurance, as he will until he dies.  But DeLong’s retirement benefits are just the first items on the bill.  Add to that the price of three civil lawsuits — one recently settled, two pending — for which the city bears[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 9

2022

OTB reform bills stall in state Legislature

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After state auditors criticized the handling of public funds and resources at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp., a pair of Democratic state lawmakers sponsored legislation in hopes of changing the way the public benefit corporation operates.  The reform measures — sponsored by state Assemblywoman Monica Wallace, D-Lancaster, and state Sen. Tim Kennedy, D-Buffalo — were not approved by the state Legislature before the end of this year’s session that concluded Saturday. Kennedy’s bills passed the Senate, but not the Assembly. Wallace’s bill never got out of committee in the Assembly. Wallace said she plans to submit a revised version of[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 8

2022

Barton retires as principal following settlement

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Crystal Barton has retired from Buffalo schools, less than a month after the Board of Education approved a settlement ending their long and costly efforts to fire the veteran administrator.  Barton was on administrative leave for nearly five years before the settlement was approved on April 4, permitting her to return to her job as principal. As part of the deal, Barton was granted $200,000 for overtime and other compensation she might have earned if not suspended, in addition to nearly $645,000 in salary she was paid while on suspension.  Her retirement on April 22 was quietly approved at a[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 8

2022

Paladino does it again

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Carl Paladino is running for Congress, and his opponents, Democrat and Republican alike, are rushing to remind voters of the real estate developer’s history of making racist remarks and sharing pornographic emails with friends. They need not delve so deeply into the past. Just last Wednesday, Paladino shared a Facebook post suggesting mass shootings such as those in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, might be “false flag” operations, orchestrated by government agencies like the FBI and CIA, using “hypnosis training,” as justification “to revoke the 2nd amendment and take away our guns.” Paladino initially told Buffalo News political reporter Bob McCarthy[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 7

2022

Only 2 of 6 school board seats contested

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Only two of six district seats will be contested in this year’s elections for the Buffalo Board of Education. And they aren’t the two left open by exiting members Louis Petrucci and Hope Jay, the current Park and North district representatives. The deadline to file nominating petitions with the Erie County Board of Elections was May 31; the deadline to accept a spot on the ballot was last Friday. Ten nominees filed and all of them accepted their nominations.  Theresa Drillings-Schuta, former principal of South Park High School who retired in 2020, is running unopposed in the Park District.  Cindi[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jun 7

2022

Heaney to lecture at Chautauqua

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Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney is teaching a three-day class on the media next month at the Chautauqua Institution. Here’s the synopsis for Heaney’s class, entitled The Media In Crisis: Causes and Consequences: Journalism is in crisis, and with it, democracy. We’ll examine the economic, social, political and technological forces that have undermined mainstream media outlets at both the local and national level, and explain the ramifications on civil society. We’ll also examine the rise of nonprofit news outlets and their growing reach and influence. Heaney is the founder, editor and executive director of Investigative Post, a nonprofit investigative reporting[...]

Posted 2 years ago
Investigative Post