Categories for News

Apr 16

2025

Wojtaszek back on the public payroll

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Wojtaszek at one of his final Western OTB meetings. Photo by Garrett Looker. Months after leaving his six-figure job as president and CEO of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp., Henry Wojtaszek has landed a new position as a “relicensing attorney” for the Town of Lewiston.  Town board members agreed during a work session on Monday to hire Wojtaszek at a rate of $300 per hour to assist in an upcoming review of part of a 50-year federal relicensing agreement that provided the town with an allocation of low-cost power from the New York Power Authority.  Wojtaszek’s hiring came at the[...]

Posted 11 hours ago

Apr 10

2025

Notorious Buffalo slumlord Charles Dobucki arrested

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2 St. Louis Place, owned by Dobucki. Photo courtesy of WKBW. Buffalo Police this morning arrested one of the city’s most infamous and elusive landlords, whose blighted properties have been the subject of community complaints, Housing Court cases and most recently a partial demolition order for a long-vacant Allentown building. Charles Dobucki was taken into custody at a Delaware Avenue auto shop in North Buffalo, according to Mike Read, spokesman for Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon. Dobucki was subject to three arrest warrants stemming from his failure to appear in Buffalo Housing Court or respond to citations and fines for code[...]

Posted 6 days ago

Apr 10

2025

The good and bad in Scanlon’s budget

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Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon in City Hall. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s first budget proposal is balanced with $30 million that may not materialize, absent cooperation from lawmakers in Albany. His $622 million spending plan also depends on upticks in the cost, enforcement and collection of city fees and fines that often have fallen short of expectations. Its viability also swings on a dramatic reduction in overtime costs, which in recent years have gone nowhere but up.  In short, Scanlon’s budget shares many characteristics with those of Byron Brown, his predecessor: some rosy revenue assumptions, a one-shot[...]

Posted 6 days ago

Apr 9

2025

Buffalo landlord settles housing discrimination lawsuit

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The Mayflower, owned by Buffalo Management Group. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel A local real estate and property management company has settled a federal lawsuit accusing its employees and president of violating fair housing laws. Housing Opportunities Made Equal last November brought litigation against Buffalo Management Group after an investigation concluded that its president, Myron Robbins, established a company-wide policy that employees were not to rent apartments in the Medical Corridor to tenants with children. Discrimination based on familial status is a violation of state and federal fair housing laws. HOME and Buffalo Management Group last week reached a resolution that[...]

Posted 1 week ago

Apr 8

2025

Tesla spends taxpayer ‘slush fund’ on new cafeteria

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When Tesla employees show up to work nowadays in South Buffalo, a cafeteria serving breakfast, lunch and dinner — along with snacks and coffee — awaits. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch: Tesla employees must pay for the meals, which include salads, pasta, pizza and sandwiches. The other catch? New York State taxpayers have footed the bill for the eatery, which cost $1.6 million to build. Records obtained by Investigative Post show the electric vehicle maker continues to spend taxpayer dollars each year on the factory, which the state spent $959 million to build and equip. The[...]

Posted 1 week ago

Apr 3

2025

Lawmakers demand answers on border detentions

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Federal, state and local lawmakers across Western New York are denouncing a Trump administration practice of detaining individuals and families in cells at the U.S.-Canada border for as long as two weeks. The region’s federal lawmakers are demanding answers on the new practice. “Our office is looking into these disturbing allegations,” a spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Schumer said in a statement to Investigative Post, noting his office is also seeking answers on ICE’s recent arrest of a mother and children in Sackets Harbor. “There is no excuse for the cruel or inhumane treatment of children & families. [U.S. Customs and[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Apr 1

2025

Feds locking up families, children at Canadian border

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Pedestrian entrance to Rainbow Bridge Customs station. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. In a departure from past practice, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is detaining people — including families with young children — at official ports of entry along the New York-Canada border for as much as two weeks at a time. In multiple instances since mid-February, families with young children have been detained in cells at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. An Investigative Post reporter personally confirmed one of those family detentions. In that case, the family was held for two weeks.  Jennifer Connor, a Buffalo advocate for[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Apr 1

2025

Judge rules radioactive waste lawsuit “untimely”

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Metal plate bearing the name “Titanium Alloy Manufacturing Co.” Photo from court records. A federal magistrate has recommended dismissal of a wrongful death claim filed last year by a Lewiston man who blamed his wife’s death on radioactive waste buried on the couple’s property. U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Roemer ruled Philip Palmeri filed his lawsuit long after the two-year statute of limitations had expired, as measured from the date in 2018 when his wife, Tracey Palmeri, was first diagnosed with breast cancer. In a footnote to his ruling, Roemer acknowledged this was not “a fair result” for the plaintiff.  Palmeri[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago
Investigative Post