Categories for DailyPost

Jun 2

2022

OTB paying for an army of lawyers, lobbyists

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Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. continues to spend big bucks – large amounts of public money, that is – on attorneys and lobbyists.  Documents obtained by Investigative Post through a Freedom of Information request show OTB paid $333,684 to four Buffalo-based law firms between May 18, 2021, and April 1 of this year.  The legal fees are in addition to the $16,500 per month OTB pays to Albany lobbyists currently under contract.  What the lobbyists are doing for the money can be gleaned from documents on file with a state regulatory commission. But the bills submitted by two of OTB’s[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 1

2022

Defense attorneys to DA: Zip it

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Last week the three court-appointed defense attorneys for the accused Tops shooter asked the judge trying the case to impose a gag order on Erie County District Attorney John Flynn. The defense wants Buffalo City Court Judge Craig Hannah to instruct the DA to refrain from speaking publicly about the case until the trial. Their fear, according to a Buffalo News report: Flynn or his staff might reveal details of the case or make other statements that risked tainting the prospective jury pool “in such a way that it will be impossible for [the accused] to get a fair trial.” [...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 31

2022

Buffalo superintendent’s mixed track record

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Tonja Williams has some things going for her as she seeks the permanent appointment as superintendent of Buffalo public schools. They start with her people skills. Williams, who has been interim superintendent since Kriner Cash resigned in March, is a good listener and a realist in telling people what she can deliver. She’s familiar with the city and district, having lived in the Buffalo area her whole life and worked in city schools for 32 years.  “She seems to listen to all sides of an issue and doesn’t seem to get drawn into any personal conflict, any ulterior agendas that[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 31

2022

Gains by the right in school board elections

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Michael Wooten interviewed Layne Dowdall on her recent story about candidates elected to local school boards who were endorsed by right wing organizations. In the interview, which aired on Tuesday on WGRZ’s Town Hall, Dowdall reported that the candidates pledged to oppose the teaching of Critical Race Theory, sex education and Covid vaccine and mask mandates. Twenty-two of these candidates won election in western and central New York, half of them in Erie and Niagara counties. Two of them won seats on the Williamsville School Board, the second largest district in the region.

Posted 3 years ago

May 30

2022

Monday Morning Read (Tuesday edition)

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This week’s post includes stories of interest from Sunday and Monday, to cover the  holiday weekend. You can receive the entire WeeklyPost newsletter, which also includes a summary of our best reporting from the previous week, by subscribing here. The Buffalo News tackled the subject of racism in Western New York. A very good companion piece to the story we published a couple of weeks ago. The New York Times profiled the pain of the killings on one Buffalo family. Margaret Sullivan laments that the toll that media fragmentation means we’ll probably never see a lawless president brought to heel[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 26

2022

City Hall’s paper thin fair housing report

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Last week Buffalo’s Fair Housing Office filed its first activity report with the Common Council since April 2019.  The new report is five pages long. Given its lack of content, it probably could have been shorter.  It was just the third report the office has filed in the 16 years since the city adopted its fair housing ordinance, which created the office and requires it to report annually on its efforts to protect renters from discrimination. Buffalo’s law is a local affirmation of the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices that contributed to racial segregation.  Segregation is[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 25

2022

Heaney talks segregation on ‘Pressroom

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Jim Heaney discusses his story last week on segregation in Western New York with David Lombardo on The Capitol Pressroom. Heaney recounted how Erie and Niagara counties are the sixth-most segregated metropolitan region in the nation and Buffalo the 17th most-segregated city, in which 85 percent of Blacks live east of Main Street.   In case you missed it, here’s our other reporting related to the supermarket massacre that left 10 people dead. The rise of the radical right in Western New York. Right wing coalition elects 22 school board candidates in WNY. East Side residents are hopeful, yet skeptical,[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 24

2022

East Side residents “exhausted” by inequities

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Boarded-up buildings. Vacant lots. Gun violence. Lack of economic investment and jobs. A single grocery store where residents can buy quality food at affordable prices.  These are issues East Side residents have dealt with for years.  In the wake of the mass shooting that claimed 10 lives at the community’s lone supermarket — the Tops store on Jefferson Avenue — residents who spoke with Investigative Post last week said they’re hopeful some good can come from the tragedy. Hopeful, but not optimistic. Several residents said they’ve heard the rhetoric about real change coming to the East Side before. They’re still[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post