Categories for DailyPost

Jan 14

2022

Board of Elections fail transparency test

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When a good government group decided to test whether county election boards comply with the state’s open government laws, the first hurdle was getting someone – anyone – at those boards to answer an email or a phone call. It wasn’t easy. Last summer the New York Coalition for Open Government — a group that tracks government agencies’ compliance with freedom of information and open meetings laws — emailed 17 county election boards across the state to ask how often commissioners held meetings, whether those meetings were publicized, and whether meeting agendas and meetings were posted online. In many cases[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 13

2022

Kennedy proposes OTB reforms

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A series of legislative proposals announced Thursday by State Sen. Tim Kennedy are an effort to correct what he called “perverse dysfunction” at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. Kennedy proposes three bills in response to an audit by the Office of the State Comptroller, he said. The audit criticized OTB leadership for a bevy of issues, including managers and board members improperly taking tickets to luxury suites at sporting and music events at Highmark Stadium and Keybank Center.  “There has been perverse dysfunction happening at the OTB and it needs to be addressed,” Kennedy told Investigative Post. The government-run, Western[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

Buffalo schools failing the test

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So what does a school district do when many of its underachieving students miss a year’s worth of instruction due to the pandemic? If you’re Buffalo schools, you promote almost all of them to the next grade. In doing so, the district pledged programming to help students catch up. But halfway through the school year, that effort is hamstrung, mostly by problems related to the pandemic. As parent leader Sam Radford told us: “Our children who are already the furthest behind … they’re falling further behind.”

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

Nearly $2 billion wasn’t enough

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State and local officials, determined to win the competition for a semiconductor plant that will employ 1,800, offered Samsung $1.89 million in subsidies to locate the factory in Genesee County, just north of Batavia. The chief competition, two sites in and around Austin, Texas, dangled large subsidy packages, as well. But at $1 billion each, they fell way short of what New York was offering. Nevertheless, Samsung opted for Taylor, Texas. Why did the company bypass Genesee County? It’s unclear, but the remote location could have been a factor. How remote? It was going to cost $200 million just to[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

Top iPost story of the year

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Readers voted Phil Gambini’s report on high levels of E. coli bacteria in local waterways at our top story of 2021. Blame it on the discharge of untreated sewage which is spewed into waterways after heavy rains.. Gambini reported: There’s a particular problem with the Black Rock Canal, popular with fishermen, the occasional swimmer and, most notably, the West Side Rowing Club and high school and college crew teams. E. coli readings consistently exceed safe limits — by up to 14 times — established by the federal government. “There are people coming in contact with water with E. coli from[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

City inspectors MIA

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The Great Northern grain elevator on the Buffalo River has been crumbling in plain sight for 28 years. Fault the building’s owner, Archer Daniels Midland. But City Hall is also complicit. Yes, the company is at fault for not maintaining the hulking structure, but it’s been aided and abetted by City Hall. The city has inspected the building only one time since ADM purchased it in 1993. That dates all the way back to the administration of Anthony Masiello. The city can’t say it wasn’t warned. ADM, seeking to make a case for demolition, alerted the city several times over[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

Tesla: Better late than never

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Tesla has finally met its job goals at its billion dollar plant in South Buffalo. The state had extended Tesla’s deadline twice. The third time was a charm, and in this case, a way of dodging a $41.2 million penalty. Tesla had until the end of the year to meet the target of 1,460 jobs; employment as of early November stood at 1,557. Let’s hold off celebrating, however. A look at Tesla’s online job postings shows a lot of positions pay modest wages. And the plant, built with nearly $1 billion in state subsidies, has produced little spin-off development, aside[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 11

2022

Sued into doing the right thing

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You may have read or watched stories in the daily newspaper or local television stations about the details of studies involving the proposed construction of a new stadium for The Buffalo Bills. You can thank Investigative Post. The state released the studies after we sued Empire State Development, the state’s primary economic development agency, after it rejected our requests for copies under the Freedom of Information Law. Only when we filed the lawsuit did the state relent. Said Michael Higgins, one of our attorneys: ““These documents were always public records and Empire State Development withheld them, gambling that no one[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post