Categories for DailyPost

Jul 18

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Below is the “What I’m Reading” section of WeeklyPost, our Sunday email newsletter. You can subscribe here. Buffalo has a new school superintendent with the appointment of Tonja Williams. I’ve got to admit I was a little stunned when I heard the news.  As we reported in May, she’s never taught at the elementary or high school level. She has little experience as a principal and her tenure at Futures Academy was a failure: academic achievement at the struggling elementary school actually got worse during her time there and she was eventually removed as a result. Sources told us that[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 12

2022

iPost’s redistricting coverage in The Nation

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For the past month, Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly has been covering the showdown between Buffalo’s Common Council and a coalition of activists and good government organizations over the once-in-a-decade opportunity to redraw the city’s Council districts. First he set up the conflict, providing background on the gerrymandering of a decade ago, then reporting on the largely opaque process undertaken by the Council this year and the mobilization of those urging the Council to do a better job. Then he described the extraordinary June 28 public hearing on the Council’s plan, which kept the current gerrymandered districts largely the same. More[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 11

2022

City Hall puts off day of financial reckoning

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The COVID pandemic has been very good for the City of Buffalo’s finances. Pandemic relief funds from the federal American Rescue Plan have been a tremendous boon. You can see that money at work right now in city streets and parks. It’s going to help pay for water and sewer projects, as well as micro-loans to small businesses and the expansion of broadband internet access. It helped keep poor city residents in their homes. Most important for city government has been revenue replacement money — cash the federal government sent to make up for revenue the city claims it lost[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 10

2022

Bad governance, poor politics

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This week, Jim Heaney recaps Investigative Post’s coverage of the Common Council’s fumbling of its redistricting process and gives a shout-out to a half-dozen stories that have caught his eye. You can get Heaney’s insights in your inbox every Sunday morning by subscribing to WeeklyPost. Jimmy Griffin used to call city lawmakers the “Comical Council.” If only the current incarnation was the least bit funny. Geoff Kelly has been following the process of redistricting the Council’s nine districts, as required every decade based on new Census numbers. He first reported on the Council’s proposed district lines, gerrymandered to protect incumbents, then[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 7

2022

WNY’s segregation is no accident

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In May, Investigative Post documented just how segregated Buffalo and Western New York is. We’ve now produced a story for WGRZ that dives yet deeper into the numbers and the causes and consequences of that segregation.

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 5

2022

Council lost, activists take redistricting rudder

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​​Last week Our City Action Buffalo — an organization of good government activists — scored two quick victories in a battle with the Common Council over redistricting. First, Our City Action successfully packed a June 28 public hearing with speakers, more than 100 of them. All opposed the Council’s redistricting plan, first unveiled in May by a commission that did its work largely behind closed doors. The Council’s favored plan largely leaves intact district lines that were gerrymandered 11 years ago to benefit incumbents. The speakers were unanimous in their support for an alternative redistricting plan created by Our City[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 29

2022

City Hall transgressions cost taxpayers

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On Wednesday, the Buffalo Common Council approved $510,000 in payments to settle nine personal injury claims filed against the city. A third of those lawsuits were against Buffalo police, whose missteps frequently cost the taxpayers big: almost $12 million in one five-year period, according to an Investigative Post analysis. But cops aren’t the only city employees who mess up on the job. The biggest payout approved yesterday by the Council’s Claims Committee was $225,000 to Freddie Ingram. In November 2018, a Buffalo parking inspector, Jumanne Pitts, backed his city-owned vehicle the wrong way down a street and collided with Ingram’s[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 28

2022

Council catches hell on redistricting plan

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The first public hearing on a redistricting plan for Buffalo’s Common Council attracted just two members of the public. Only one spoke. Tuesday night’s public hearing was another story.  More than 100 people attended the 5 p.m. session — 60 or more in person, another 40 or so online, according to Delaware District Council Member Joel Feroleto, who chaired the hearing.  At least half the attendees spoke. All used the three minutes allotted to them to disparage the plan drafted by the Council’s appointed Citizens Commission on Reapportionment, first unveiled at a May 18 public hearing.  That May 18 hearing[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post