Categories for News

Sep 12

2022

Harborcenter fails to meet its jobs goal

Published by

When state and county officials agreed nearly a decade ago to give the Buffalo Sabres and the Pegula family $57 million in tax breaks for downtown’s Harborcenter, the money came with a promise. Jobs. In its application for public assistance, a subsidiary of Pegula Sports and Entertainment promised 205 full-time and 160 part-time jobs. In a subsequent press release, the Sabres upped the ante to 350 full-time positions. Those jobs were supposed to be in exchange for $37 million in tax breaks from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency and $20 million from the state to remediate the brownfield the[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 12

2022

Union complaint filed against Geico

Published by

Geico employees attempting to organize a union at the company’s Amherst office have filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. At issue are two emails the company sent to employees that organizers said amount to “union busting.” In the first email, sent Aug. 12, Mindy Seibold, the regional vice president for Buffalo, and Pete Rizzo, a company vice president, warned employees against speaking with Geico United organizers visiting them at home. Because of the pandemic, organizers previously told Investigative Post, many Geico employees are working from home, meaning that union organizers have been knocking on[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 8

2022

Belatedly, City Hall has an ethics board

Published by

 The city’s ethics board has been resurrected from the dead. Investigative Post reported last month that the ethics board hadn’t met in two and half years because the mayor and Common Council had failed to appoint enough board members to comprise a quorum. Last week, Mayor Byron Brown submitted five nominees for the ethics board to the Common Council for approval. All five were approved Tuesday without debate or discussion, bringing the ethics board to its charter-prescribed membership of seven.  Before Tuesday, it had just three members — one short of a quorum. The five newly appointed members are: John[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 7

2022

Geico workers organizing in Amherst

Published by

 Workers at Geico, one of Western New York’s largest employers, are attempting to organize a labor union, an effort that, if successful, would be the insurance company’s first-ever union. But workers told Investigative Post that Geico is attempting to stop their organizing, an effort that could bring union representation to some 2,500 employees. Two emails sent by company vice presidents last month show the company attempting to dissuade workers from signing a petition for a union election. In one email, the company officials even suggested that employees should call the police on their coworkers if they ask them to sign[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 31

2022

Buffalo cop in hot water again

Published by

Last summer, Buffalo Police Officer Richard Hy — a.k.a. the “Angry Cop,” notorious for posting satirical videos online — is accused of letting his anger get the best of him. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in state Supreme Court, Curtis Lee Dean, of Buffalo, claims Hy intentionally backed his patrol car into Dean’s motorcycle at the corner of Delaware Avenue and Edward Street in June 2021. Dean was riding with a group of motorcyclists, whom Hy decided to pursue several blocks through the city’s West Side, according to a WGRZ News report on the incident.  Some riders took off to[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 24

2022

Subsidies for South Buffalo pot farm

Published by

Updated: 1:46 p.m. A pot growing operation in South Buffalo has received two major subsidies from economic development agencies. The first, in January, came from the New York Power Authority, which approved an allocation of 2.9 megawatts of discounted hydropower. That equates to $3.5 million in savings over 10 years, based on 2021 energy prices, a NYPA spokesman told Investigative Post. The second subsidy came Wednesday from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, which approved tax breaks worth $3.1 million over 15 years.  It’s the first subsidy the IDA has awarded to a marijuana producer and the second largest tax-break[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 23

2022

Just how rich is Carl Paladino?

Published by

  Carl Paladino, who says he’ll be “a voice for the people” in Congress, waited until the Friday before election day to tell voters how rich he is. Spoiler alert: He’s very rich. Paladino’s income was at least $4.5 million last year, according to a personal financial disclosure he filed last Friday with the U.S. House Ethics Committee. The outer limit of his income was seven times greater. In addition, he listed assets worth as much as $86 million. The Republican real-estate developer was a month late in filing the disclosure statement, required of all candidates running for federal office.[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 17

2022

Police union pressing to suppress records

Published by

Buffalo’s police union is making headway in its efforts to put a lid on the release of officers’ disciplinary records. Last Friday, lawyers for the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association filed a lawsuit against the City of Buffalo, asking a judge to order the city to honor an arbitrator’s decision curtailing the public’s right to learn about allegations of police misconduct. If successful, the lawsuit would require the city to destroy all records of a misconduct complaint against an officer unless the department’s Internal Affairs Division finds the officer guilty.  That would eliminate records of almost all complaints and the investigations[...]

Posted 2 years ago
Investigative Post