Categories for DailyPost

Oct 20

2022

A city Buffalo can learn from

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Buffalo and Durham, North Carolina, are similar in some key ways. They both have about a quarter of a million residents. About four in 10 are Black. They also share a problem — a lack of trees in Black neighborhoods.  But Durham’s response — to develop a comprehensive tree planting plan — contrasts with Buffalo, which is cutting down as many as four trees for every tree it plants in East Side neighborhoods. The result: Durham is planting more than 1,500 trees a year, compared with about 300 in Buffalo. In fact, Durham planted more trees last year than Buffalo[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 19

2022

Federal dollars could help re-tree East Side

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The City of Buffalo spends a lot of money — $568 million this budget year.  Most of it is spent on cops and firefighters. Very little is spent on planting and maintaining trees, which play an important role in the health of city residents. In fact, the city’s population of trees is shrinking, as two trees are cut down for every one that is planted. Help could be on the way, however.  The federal government has earmarked $1.5 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act to pay for the planting and maintenance of trees in urban centers. The money will be[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 18

2022

Activists sue Buffalo over Council redistricting

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Buffalo’s Common Council members might have thought this summer’s contentious redistricting was behind it. If so, they were wrong. This afternoon 11 Buffalo voters and good-government organizations filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court, asking a judge to reject a redistricting plan adopted by the city’s Council in July and signed by Mayor Byron Brown in August. The city’s redistricting process, led by the Council, “failed to meet the basic requirements of the law,” the Article 78 complaint contends. Those failures deprived city residents of meaningful opportunities to take part in the process, according to the complaint.    The plaintiffs[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 18

2022

Bills stadium to be a paler shade of green

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The Buffalo Bills’ new $1.4 billion stadium won’t be as green or sustainable as it could be. That’s because the stadium will not seek LEED certification, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a globally used accreditation program from the U.S. Green Building Council that helps builders reduce their buildings’ impact on the environment via the energy they consume and how they operate. Of the six NFL stadiums built since 2010, three are LEED certified and a fourth follows LEED guidelines. But the new Bills stadium won’t be LEED[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 17

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading first thing Sunday via email. President Biden’s decision to pardon those convicted on federal marijuana possession charges is a big deal — to a degree. How many people will get out of federal prison as a result? Zero. How many are held with similar convictions in state prisons? 30,000.  Still, it’s a step forward to reverse the damage the war on drugs has inflicted on Black people. Bombing, raping, executing and otherwise terrorizing civilians. Russia’s savagery in Ukraine knows no limits. But it gets worse. Now the Associated Press reports the Russians[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 12

2022

NFL stadiums go green. Will Buffalo’s?

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When it rains in Seattle — which it does just about every other day — the water landing on the roof of Climate Pledge Arena is collected and used by Zambonis to make ice for the hockey team. That ice is actually smoother to skate on than municipal water used in most hockey rinks. In Atlanta, when Falcons fans buy beer or pop and recycle the can, Mercedes-Benz Stadium cashes in the aluminum and uses the money to build new houses through Habitat for Humanity. And in Minneapolis, waste generated during Vikings games is reused, recycled or composted — and[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 11

2022

Kelly discusses police contract on WBFO

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In July, Buffalo’s police union won a big victory in its three-year-old (and counting) negotiations with Mayor Byron Brown’s administration for a new contract. A state arbitration panel granted police — whose contract expired in 2019 — raises and back pay worth as much as $15 million. The city got nothing in return: none of the reforms protestors and elected officials clamored for in the summer of 2020, no new managerial rights, not even a reinstatement of a residency requirement that expired with the old contract. Geoff Kelly reported the story two weeks ago, before the Brown administration had even[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 10

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Monday Morning Read is extracted, with updates, from WeeklyPost, a free email newsletter sent Sunday mornings. Get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading by subscribing here. The deal announced last week by Kathy Hochul and Chuck Schumer to bring a huge microchip plant to Central New York represents the biggest subsidy package in state history. Micron will receive $5.8 billion — yes, billion — in grants, tax breaks and other goodies to build a massive production facility north of Syracuse. (The Genesee County IDA’s STAMP industrial park strikes out again.) The announcement includes the usual hyperbole about jobs and green operations, which Reinvent[...]

Posted 2 years ago
Investigative Post