Tag: City Hall

Sep 9

2024

Buffalo fails to collect $2.3 million in ambulance fees

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The company that provides ambulance service to the City of Buffalo hasn’t paid an annual franchise fee to the city since its contract expired in 2020. That lapse has cost the cash-strapped city nearly $2.3 million in revenue, according to city budget documents and Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski, chair of the Common Council’s Finance Committee. Nowakowski blames the company for not paying and Mayor Byron Brown’s administration for failing to collect the money and negotiate a new contract. “They are operating in our city without a contract and for free,” Nowakowski told Investigative Post. “This a failure within[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Sep 5

2024

Byron Brown is leaving City Hall. What happens now?

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Mayor in waiting: Common Council President Chris Scanlon. Photo by Garrett Looker. Byron Brown soon will step down as mayor of Buffalo after 18 years and eight months in the office.  The five-term mayor has been offered the job as president and CEO of Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp., a possibility Investigative Post first reported in February. He is expected to accept the position, pending completion of negotiations for an employment contract and obtaining a license from the state Gaming Commission. The precise date of his exit from City Hall is uncertain; later this month or October is most[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Sep 5

2024

Buffalo City Hall vandal explains himself

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Today, we’re sharing a portion of  political reporter Geoff Kelly’s weekly newsletter, PoliticalPost. To receive his free report in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up in the subscription box at the end of this article. The man arrested Sunday for breaking windows at City Hall and making threats against Mayor Byron Brown is the uncle of a woman who was killed when she fell out of a moving car on the Kensington Expressway in February. On Facebook Antonio Nunes, 40, posted links to stories about his arrest and described his actions as “a warning.” His family, he wrote, was “being disrespected by nobody being[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Sep 4

2024

Carney retiring as Buffalo’s Housing Court judge

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Judge Patrick Carney’s sign hangs outside of Housing Court. Photo by Garrett Looker. Judge Patrick Carney — Buffalo’s longest tenured Housing Court judge — will not seek reelection and plans to retire at the end of the year, Investigative Post has learned. Carney, 68, has served as a City Court Judge since 1994. He was last reelected to his third 10-year term in City Court in 2014,  and has presided over Housing Court for almost 14 years.  Eighth Judicial Administrative Judge Kevin Carter confirmed that Carney is leaving.  “Next year, I’m going to have a new Housing Court judge,” he[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 29

2024

Judges have ignored housing law for 30 years

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For the past 30 years, state court officials have ignored a law mandating independent oversight of Buffalo’s oft-criticized Housing Court. After the state Legislature in 1978 passed a law establishing an advisory council to monitor the court and recommend changes, the panel met for more than a decade. But it’s been inactive since the early to mid 1990s. Since then, at least three different administrative judges in the Buffalo-based Eighth Judicial District failed to appoint members to the advisory council.  Meanwhile, criticism of the Housing Court has grown, particularly under the current judge, Patrick Carney, who has served since 2011.[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 8

2024

City pulls back on “amusements” fee

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The Town Ballroom on Main Street. Photo by Garrett Looker. The City of Buffalo has backed off from a plan to tax music and other entertainment venues for every event for which they charge admission. Investigative Post last week broke the story about the city’s effort to collect an “amusements fee” described in an obscure and unevenly applied section of the city code. Music club owners and managers two weeks ago began receiving letters from the city’s Department of Permit & Inspection Services “reminding” them of their obligation to pay the fee — which few of them had previously heard[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Jul 31

2024

City Hall targets music clubs with costly tax

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The City of Buffalo, facing projected budget shortfalls and desperate for revenue, is turning to a little-known chapter of the city code to collect a fee from music clubs and other entertainment venues for every ticketed event they produce. The fee could add tens of thousands of dollars to the operating costs of bigger venues like Babeville, RiverWorks, Iron Works and Town Ballroom, as well as smaller clubs like Nietzsche’s and Mr. Goodbar.  Nearly all the venue owners and managers Investigative Post spoke to said they were blindsided by the fee, which they learned about last week via letters sent[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Jul 25

2024

A questionable city contract

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The Broadway Market. Photo by Garrett Looker. Buffalo’s Department of Public Works this week asked city legislators to give a contract to a security company helmed by a former city cop whose brief career was rife with complaints of misbehavior, on and off duty. Elite Protection & Investigation, with offices in Williamsville, won the contract to provide security at the Broadway Market with a bid of $267,150. Two other bidders bid about $20,000 higher. It’s a one-year contract with the option to extend the deal annually up to four times. Elite’s CEO, Mitchell R. Thomas, began his career with the[...]

Posted 6 months ago
Investigative Post