Categories for News

Mar 6

2025

Mega-subsidy deal for data center

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With subsidies totaling $3.9 million per job, the Genesee County Economic Development Center gave the green light Thursday to a massive data center project to locate at its STAMP industrial park. The industrial development agency’s board of directors unanimously approved a proposal by STREAM U.S. Data Centers to construct a 900,000 square foot data center at the rural business park north of Batavia. The firm will purchase nearly 60 acres of STAMP’s more than 1,200 acre footprint and build a server farm the size of 16 football fields. The subsidy package totals $472 million, primarily sales tax exemptions on computer[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Mar 5

2025

Reforms, at last, at OTB

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OTB boss Byron Brown speaks to reporters at Batavia Downs. Photo by Garrett Looker. After years of scandal and critical audits, the governing board of the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. has agreed in principle to a slate of reforms that address some longstanding criticisms of the agency.  The course correction includes capping severance pay and travel expenses, putting more contracts out to bid, and tighter monitoring of promotional giveaways.  Also under consideration is whether OTB will purchase a suite at the new Buffalo Bills stadium. Not under consideration is termination of health insurance provided to OTB’s chairman and 23[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Mar 4

2025

An unusual housing discrimination case

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For only the third time in the past decade the City of Buffalo is using its fair housing law to sue a landlord and his property manager. The city usually prosecutes negligent property owners in City Housing Court, but for reasons officials refuse to discuss, the landlord was never taken to Housing Court despite a history of repeated code violations. The case involves a property at 323 Dewey Ave. in northeast Buffalo. The lawsuit contends mold inside the house caused health problems for tenant Zakkiyya Carter and her underaged son. The city is suing Kapil Verma, his company Vaastu Energy[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Feb 27

2025

ICE’s extensive use of solitary confinement in Batavia

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Lansine Sidibe serves a coconut to a child in Sao Paulo, Brazil, prior to his emigration to the United States. Photo via Kathleen Maynard. Like many migrants, Lansine Sidibe came to the United States in 2022 seeking asylum, first fleeing war in his home country Mali and later threats of violence in Brazil. But instead of finding a new home, Sidibe spent every single day of the last 32 months in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, much of that time at the agency’s Batavia facility. For 10 of those months, Sidibe was held in solitary confinement.  Such treatment[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

Feb 25

2025

Something else City Hall fails to do

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The light pole at Niagara and Garfield streets that fell in a windstorm in February 2019, injuring Donald Anderson. Donald Anderson in February 2019 was walking through a windstorm to his job at a Riverside tavern when a city streetlight — “badly corroded” and past its “usable life,” according to expert testimony — fell and hit him on his head. “Next thing I remember I woke up and I was covered in blood, people were all around me and I didn’t know what was going on,” Anderson testified in a deposition for a lawsuit he filed the following year. Buffalo’s[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Feb 20

2025

ICE abuse of detainees in Batavia facility

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Recent federal audits of the ICE detention facility in Batavia have documented instances of inhumane treatment of detainees by guards. The audits, conducted in 2023 and last year, found instances of excessive use of force, the shackling of detainees held in solitary confinement for the little time they were allowed out of their cells, and the use of physician assistants to perform dental work on detainees. Former detainees and their representatives paint an even darker picture of conditions inside the facility. Guards beating up detainees is not uncommon, they said. Solitary confinement is a frequent punishment, sometimes in lengthy durations[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Feb 19

2025

ICE says it will leave schools alone

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ICE officials have told local school superintendents they have no plans to raid schools in search of undocumented students. Still, Buffalo school administrators said that, while they feel somewhat reassured by the intentions laid out by local ICE officials, they are still taking extra precautions to protect students’ rights and safety. “There are still people that could act on their own to intimidate and make students and families feel uncomfortable. So although it’s some reassurance, I think we still need to remain vigilant,” said Board of Education Member Lawrence Scott. Buffalo Public Schools since December have proclaimed their commitment to[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Feb 18

2025

In legal hot water again

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Erie County is suing a member of a now largely inactive local right-wing militant organization for “deceptive and illegal business practices.” The lawsuit, filed last week by the Erie County Attorney, accuses Wayne Michalak and his company, WNY Backyard Enclosures, of bilking property owners out of “thousands of dollars in advance payment from consumers for home improvement services which he did not provide and/or complete.” The county attorney wants the courts to ban Michalak and his company “permanently” from the home improvement business or, as an alternative, require him to post a $100,000 performance bond before entering into any future[...]

Posted 1 month ago
Investigative Post