Categories for DailyPost

Apr 25

2022

Billboard boosts Buffalo superintendent

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Buffalo schools have started campaigning for their interim superintendent, Tonja Williams, with a publicly funded billboard. The billboard recently popped up at the intersection of Michigan and Genesee streets, broadcasting Williams’ smiling face and a quote from her:  “It’s a new day for the Buffalo Public Schools. Ensuring safety & educational excellence.” It’s part of an over $72,000 annual contract the district has with Lamar Advertising to tout community schools, parent center programs and adult education programs on 11 billboards across the city — to “help promote these services and continued learning during the pandemic to residents immediately surrounding the[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 24

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Pulled from WeeklyPost, our Sunday newsletter, with additions from stories published yesterday. Want to subscribe? It’s free.  It appears police forces around Western New York have more than a few bad apples. Charlie Specht of The Buffalo News reported Sunday that more than 225 police officers have been disciplined for misconduct since 2017. That amounts to 12 percent of officers in the police departments surveyed. Given what we’ve culled from reviewing disciplinary records of Buffalo police, it’s very likely that 12 percent is an undercount. (Let’s just say Internal Affairs in Buffalo isn’t very thorough or aggressive.) Also in yesterday’s[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 21

2022

Second parking commissioner nominee withdraws

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Mayor Byron Brown is having a heck of a time replacing Kevin Helfer, who retired last month after nearly 12 years as the city’s parking commissioner and a top advisor to the mayor. So far, the mayor has taken two swings at the ball and whiffed twice. On February 25, the mayor nominated Christopher Savage, whose family is steeped in West Side politics.  Chris Savage served as chief of staff for former state Senator Marc Panepinto and held posts with the Common Council and the Brown administration. He currently serves as a management analyst for the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority. [...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 19

2022

The Roswell-Russia connection

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For more than a decade, Roswell Park Cancer Institute has been doing business with a leading Russian oligarch with long-standing ties to Vladimir Putin. The annual reports of the charitable foundation that raises money for Roswell tell part of the story: The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has been a leading individual donor to the foundation, giving in excess of $1 million in four of the past five years. But Abramovich’s charity isn’t the problem.  Rather, at issue are Roswell’s relationships with for-profit companies whose investors include Abramovich and a Russian business partner, both sanctioned since the outbreak of the war[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 18

2022

Q&A: Critiquing the state budget

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John Kaehny is executive director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany and a leading experts on state government. He and his team have been poring over the state budget, which as adopted April 6.  He offered this take in an interview last week with Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney. Heaney: Before we get into dollars and cents, let’s talk about the process the governor and state Legislature used to determine how to spend $220 billion this coming year. Is it anyway to run a railroad? Kaehny: New York needs a better name than “budget process.” The governor and legislature have[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 17

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Below is an updated version of the “What I’m Reading” section of the WeeklyPost newsletter that is emailed to subscribers each Sunday morning. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here. There’s a lot for Kathy Hochul to fix as governor, including corruption and a lack of transparency in state government. (I think she’s off to a lousy start on both fronts.) But there’s also the issue of toxic masculinity in Albany, a topic The New York Times explored in a story Sunday. An interesting read. Two Buffalo News stories caught my eye last week: The Western New York economy is not recovering from[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 13

2022

The Poloncarz exchange with stadium critic

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Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz didn’t talk about a new Buffalo Bills stadium while county and state officials were still negotiating terms of an agreement with the team.  With the $1.4 billion stadium deal now approved as part of the new state budget, Poloncarz had a lot more to say this week.  Well, he didn’t actually “say” anything. Instead, he Tweeted .  On Monday, Poloncarz defended the stadium plan that will cost state and county taxpayers at least $1.13 billion over a 30-year lease term in a series of Twitter exchanges between him and Dr. Ryan Miller, a supporter of[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 12

2022

Progressives take a pass

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When India Walton beat Mayor Byron Brown in last June’s Democratic primary, it seemed like progressive activists might be ready to wield greater influence in the party, which monopolizes city politics and governmental institutions. Brown, after all, lost the primary despite carrying the Democratic Party’s endorsement. Furthermore, Kim Beatty — a city Democrat — beat the party’s endorsed candidate in the primary for Erie County Sheriff. Change was in the air. But then Brown beat Walton in November’s general election. And Beatty lost to Republican John Garcia. And now, it seems, city progressives have chosen not to mount an effort[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post