Tag: Byron Brown

Oct 8

2025

OTB hires Byron Brown’s brother-in-law

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Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. — headed by president and CEO Byron Brown — has hired the brother-in-law of the former mayor. Michael Lee Austin — brother of Brown’s wife, Michelle Austin Brown — began working last month as a sergeant supervising the security guards at Batavia Downs, the horse track, casino and hotel complex owned by OTB. The position pays $24.33 per hour and is eligible for overtime. Austin disclosed his relationship to Brown in his application for a state gaming license, a copy of which Investigative Post obtained via a Freedom of Information request. The hiring appears to[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Jul 24

2025

A pay raise already for Byron Brown at OTB

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On the job less than a year, Byron Brown has already secured himself a raise at the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. Brown, hired as new president and CEO last fall, won a 3 percent raise Thursday, bringing his total pay to $303,850. That’s ahead of a contractual $10,000 raise scheduled to take effect in January, which will carry Brown’s total pay to nearly $314,000. Five other corporation officials were also granted 3 percent raises by a unanimous vote of OTB’s board. The raise Thursday solidifies Brown as the highest paid OTB leader across New York. The next-highest paid OTB[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Jul 3

2025

Report: OTB’s No. 2 helped himself to freebies

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An internal review at Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp. has found a senior executive spent more than $27,000 of the agency’s money on food and drinks for himself, his friends and other guests between 2021 and 2024. The executive in question, Chief Operating Officer Scott Kiedrowski, was the right-hand man of former CEO Henry Wojtaszek, who he succeeded a decade ago as chairman of the Niagara County Republican Party. Byron Brown kept Kiedrowski on when he took over as CEO in October and gave him a $17,000 raise, bringing his pay to $190,000. Kiedrowski is also the subject of[...]

Posted 5 months ago

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 1 year 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 1 year 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 4 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
Investigative Post