Categories for News

Apr 22

2024

State finds fault in Erie County jail death

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The Erie County Holding Center. Photo by Garrett Looker. The New York Commission of Correction has faulted medical care in the Erie County Holding Center and ordered the county Legislature to review the 2021 death of an inmate whose cancer went undiagnosed.  James Ellis, 58 and locked up for a parole violation, may have died no matter what, the commission found in a March 27 report. But someone should have called a doctor before he was found unresponsive and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Nov. 30, 2021. Ellis lost 15 pounds while incarcerated for nine[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Apr 12

2024

Challengers target party committee seats

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Stefan Mychajliw is running for a GOP committee seat in Elma. June’s primary elections look to be pretty subdued in Erie County, at least at the top of the ballot, where candidates vie for the more familiar offices — primarily state legislature seats this year.  Instead the action this year is down ballot, deep in the trenches, where battles are brewing among Democrats and Republicans seeking party committee seats.  Committee members — two representing each election district for two-year terms — choose their party’s leadership, from the chair to the treasurer. They also have a say in their party’s endorsement[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Apr 10

2024

Tesla using Chinese solar panels on Buffalo plant

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  The Tesla factory in South Buffalo, built to manufacture solar panels, today uses solar panels on its roof made by a competitor in China. That’s a fact state officials have reluctantly confirmed in response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by Investigative Post. Officials initially refused, claiming the identity of the manufacturer was a “trade secret,” but relented after an appeal filed under the FOI Law. Tesla has covered about one-third of the factory’s roof with panels manufactured by LONGi Green Energy Technology, a Chinese firm and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar modules. It plans[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Apr 9

2024

County inmate dies from water intoxication

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Jennifer Hager holds a photo of her brother, William Hager, as a child. Photo by Garrett Looker. William Hager drank himself to death in the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden. With water. He was a homeless schizophrenic accused of breaking into a store and had been locked up for four months, according to his family. Relatives say jailers should have kept closer watch. “They knew he had mental health concerns, and nobody was monitoring him,” said Jennifer Hager, an older sister. “Drinking enough water to poison himself – nobody noticed that?” Two state oversight bodies are responsible for determining[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Apr 5

2024

New York’s Guardianship System Is Broken. Will Lawmakers Pay for a Modest Fix?

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images. Courtesy of ProPublica. As New York lawmakers hammer out a more than $200 billion budget this week, they may include $5 million to improve the state’s troubled guardianship system, which oversees the physical and financial welfare of tens of thousands of New Yorkers who the courts have said cannot care for themselves. The modest allotment, which was advanced by the state Senate, would continue to fund a statewide hotline that launched last June and has advised hundreds of people considering guardianship for their relatives or friends. And it would give new[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Apr 4

2024

After Scolding by Regulator, National Fuel Renews Campaign Against Gas Transition

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Regulators concluded that National Fuel had in fact committed some customer funds to lobbying — a practice that is illegal — but that it did so by accident and quickly corrected the errors when notified by the department. Photo courtesy of New York Focus. After New York Focus revealed last year that National Fuel customers’ gas bills may have been funding a lobbying campaign against banning gas, the state utility regulator launched an investigation into the company, which supplies gas to roughly 500,000 households in western New York. In February, the Department of Public Service, or DPS, published its findings. Regulators[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Apr 2

2024

Clover Management settles with ex-employee

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Michael Joseph, a major Democratic donor whose development firm specializes in senior housing complexes, has settled a lawsuit brought by a former employee who accused the company of racially discriminatory business practices. An order dismissing the case was filed in federal court on April 1. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed. The plaintiff, Peter Rizzo, claimed in his lawsuit that the Clover Group refused to consider areas with significant Black populations for its senior housing projects. Rizzo recorded Clover Group executives using coded language to describe their reluctance to build in Black neighborhoods, referring to Black people[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Apr 2

2024

Roundup of Buffalo Bills stadium coverage

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Image courtesy of WGRZ. Now seems like a good time to review our reporting on the Bills’ new $1.7 billion stadium, slated to open in 2026. Most of the following stories were reported by J. Dale Shoemaker and Mark Scheer.  Taxpayer subsidies: Subsidies will top $1 billion between construction and maintenance and go well beyond what New York State typically spends on stadiums and arenas or what taxpayers spend in most other states. The lease will not provide Erie County taxpayers with any relief for maintenance and other ongoing stadium costs.  Economic impact: Stadiums typically generate little new economic activity,[...]

Posted 11 months ago
Investigative Post