Tag: Byron Brown

Nov 22

2024

OTB cuts payments to local governments

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Pay raises and buyouts for executives are among the costs blamed for the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. reducing its payments to local governments by $2.6 million this year. In 2023, OTB leaders said Thursday, the agency sent $10.25 million to the 15 counties and two cities that own it. This year, that amount decreased to $7.6 million. OTB did not specify how much the reduced payments will cost individual local governments. Erie County will be out an estimated $200,000. Officials did not fully explain the reduction Thursday, but cited personnel, legal and development costs. The drop follows a number[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Oct 24

2024

OTB hires two Brown lieutenants from City Hall

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Byron Brown answers questions from reporters at Thursday’s OTB meeting. Photo by Garrett Looker. Steven Casey, a longtime aide to Byron Brown and a political operative whose consulting firm pleaded guilty to felony charges in 2021, was hired Thursday as the former mayor’s right-hand man at the Western Regional Off-Track Betting. The OTB board voted to hire Casey for one year as chief administrative officer and chief of staff under Brown, OTB’s new president and CEO. Casey will be paid $190,000. OTB will retain Scott Kiedrowski, OTB’s current No. 2, who is named in a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Oct 22

2021

AOC stumps for India Walton

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U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — the Bronx congresswoman universally known as AOC — outlined Friday night her reasons for supporting Democratic nominee India Walton in the race for Buffalo mayor. “She is really representative of a positive shift toward working people’s politics here in the United States,” Ocasio-Cortez told Investigative Post in an interview at the Walton campaign’s headquarters in downtown Buffalo. She added that, to advance a progressive federal agenda — climate change legislation, anti-poverty programs, investments in infrastructure — the Democratic Party needs “down-ballot elected officials in executive positions…[who] really are accountable to everyday people.”  Like Ocasio-Cortez, Walton[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 16

2013

Money behind the Buffalo mayoral candidates

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Mayoral hopefuls Bernie Tolbert and Sergio Rodriguez filed their first campaign finance disclosure reports this week. They show Tolbert, while outgunned by incumbent Byron Brown 6 to 1, nevertheless has more money to campaign on than the mayor’s opponent spent four years ago. Rodriguez, however, has struggled to raise money.

Posted 12 years ago

Jun 15

2013

Q&A: Mayoral candidate Bernie Tolbert

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Bernie Tolbert is challenging Byron Brown in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for mayor. Tolbert, 65, is a Buffalo native with an extensive background in law enforcement. He worked as an agent and supervisor with the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1980 to 2001. His assignments included special agent in charge of FBI operations in Buffalo and Philadelphia and several stints at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. He joined the National Basketball Association in 2002, first and vice president of security and later senior vice president. He retired in 2010. Earlier in his career, Tolbert worked as a teacher and[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Mar 23

2013

Q&A: Mayoral candidate Sergio Rodriguez

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Sergio Rodriguez isn’t daunted by the odds of running for mayor as a Republican in a city where Democrats hold a seven-to-one enrollment edge. Rodriguez, 32, is a native of the Dominican Republic. His family moved to the United States when he was 10 and grew up on Long Island. Rodriguez moved to Buffalo a decade ago after a five-year stint in the Marines. He earned an associates degree in business  from Medaille College, a bachelors degree in business management from D’Youville College and a masters degree in organizational leadership from Medaille. He ran unsuccessfully in 2007 to represent the[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Feb 10

2013

Q&A: Buffalo Comptroller Mark Schroeder

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Mark Schroeder serves as Buffalo’s fiscal watchdog in his job as city comptroller. He made news recently by raising concerns about City Hall’s budgeting practices, which have involved the use of reserve funds the past three years to balance the books. Schroeder, 57, spent 25 years in the private sector, working for two food companies before moving into electoral politics in 2001 as part of a political organization lead by Brian Higgins. Schroeder served three years in the Erie County Legislature before winning election in November 2003 to the New York Assembly. He represented Orchard Park, West Seneca and portions of[...]

Posted 12 years ago
Investigative Post