Tag: City Hall

Aug 15

2019

Buffalo police handcuffed by ramshackle fleet

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On any given shift, Buffalo police have just half the patrol cars they need to do the job. “I would describe [the situation] as dire,” John Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, told Investigative Post. “There aren’t enough cars for the patrol officers to patrol the streets and get to the calls.” The cause: The Brown administration has not replaced police vehicles as frequently as the police department would like and national standards advise. As a result, the police fleet is aging and in disrepair. The cars that do work are driven into the ground, while those in[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Aug 11

2019

A problematic downtown development project

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The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason. —T. S. Eliot When one Western New York developer sues another, the motive — no matter the arguments presented in court, however they may be presented in the media as a pursuit of the public good — is of course money. It has to be: To have standing to sue, a petitioner must demonstrate a financial or quality-of-life interest to the court. So, when Rocco Termini sued Ciminelli Development in mid-June to stop Ciminelli’s latest plan for 201 Ellicott Street, naturally Termini had a financial motive:[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Aug 5

2019

Comptrollers behaving badly, Part 1

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On the website of the Buffalo city comptroller, the top tab on the left — the place of pride — is occupied by the word “Transparency.” I guess that’s meant to be ironic. Click on that tab, and follow the prompts to the page titled “Financial Reports,” and you’ll soon discover what I mean. In the last week or so, Barbara Miller-Williams, the interim comptroller who is running unopposed for a full term in November, wiped that page clean of critical reports created and published by the staff of her predecessor, Mark Schroeder. Buy tickets now to iPost benefit featuring[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Jul 15

2019

Brown denies Buffalo’s fiscal woes

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 Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown refused to talk with Investigative Post about the city’s fiscal plight for a story published last week, but he couldn’t dodge WGRZ’s Dave McKinley. The mayor’s response, included in a story that aired Monday, was a mix of arguing semantics and making misleading statements about city reserves. And, as if to underscore her lack of independence from the mayor, City Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams issued a press release intended to assure the public that all is well with city finances. This wasn’t the first time she attempted to cover for Brown during her brief tenure in office.[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Jul 9

2019

Buffalo’s in shaky fiscal shape

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To hear Mayor Byron Brown tell the story, the City of Buffalo’s finances are strong and stable, and his finance team has constructed another in a series of sound, responsible budgets.  Two important bellwethers put the lie to that narrative. The first is the depletion of the city’s reserves. In the past decade, the Brown and the Common Council have used $107 million in reserves to close budget shortfalls. As a result, the city has no reserves left to plug future deficits. The lack of reserves has contributed to a second problem — poor cash flow — that resulted in[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Jun 27

2019

Lawsuit seeks to stop downtown project

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Developer Rocco Termini and several businesses that operate out of his company’s downtown properties filed a lawsuit last week against the City of Buffalo and Ciminelli Real Estate Corp., seeking to hit pause on Ciminelli’s most-recent plan to develop a city-owned surface parking lot at 201 Ellicott Street. The Ciminelli plan entails 200 apartments and condominiums, plus a grocery store and food distribution terminal run by Braymiller Market, based in Hamburg. Braymiller is also named in the lawsuit.  The 2.5-acre site is across Ellicott Street from Termini’s Hotel @ The Lafayette. The downtown public library is to its north; the[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Jun 6

2019

State accredits Buffalo police

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The Buffalo Police Department has finally been accredited by outside evaluators. The City Charter requires such accreditation, but the department had long ignored the mandate. That changed when Investigative Post reported the requirement in January 2017. Since then, police officials have been working with a division of the state Department of Criminal Justice to review practices and policies. A state panel approved the accreditation at a meeting Thursday morning. Most police departments seek the accreditation, which is good for five years. The objective is to improve the professionalism and efficiency of departments.

Posted 6 years ago
Investigative Post