Monday Morning Read

Each Sunday, Jim Heaney summarizes the reporting of Investigative Post from the previous week and recommends other stories to read – along with his commentary. The email newsletter is free. Subscribe here.


When officials announced a couple of weeks ago the framework of a community benefits agreement for the new Bills stadium, I asked Geoff Kelly to analyze the deal. He poked around, found nothing had been committed to a public document, and said it was premature to draw any conclusions.

That didn’t stop Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz from praising the CBA and for The Buffalo News editorial board from parroting his claim, declaring it’s “the strongest in NFL history.” The claim is apparently based on a cursory look at a CBA for a planned stadium in Nashville to house the Tennessee Titans.

There’s a much larger body of CBAs to consider, some 350 nationally, and Geoff Kelly last year assessed those involving not only NFL stadiums, but other major league venues.

Poloncarz  – and The News – are making a big deal out of a commitment from the Bills to spend $3 million a year for 30 years on programs to benefit the community. That’s nearly $100 million, not a bad number. 

But consider what that $3 million is going to buy, say 20 years from now, when inflation is taken into consideration. Assuming an inflation rate of 2.5 percent, the Bills would have to up their annual donation to about $5.4 million to keep pace with inflation. 

Put another way, the projected average annual salary of a Bills player next season is $4.7 million. Three million dollars is a lot less than that, it’s about what they’re scheduled to pay Isaiah McKenzie or Gabe Davis next season if they keep them around.

We’ll do a serious-minded analysis of the CBA once it’s committed to paper and we have an opportunity to interview more than just the county executive. It’s called reporting, not stenography.

India Walton is running for Common Council seat representing the Masten District. The seat is currently held by Ulysees Wingo, perhaps the mayor’s biggest flunky on the Council. Walton carried the district when she ran for mayor.

Kudos to Mark Sommer of The Buffalo News for his coverage of the shenanigans of Joseph P. Dispenza, president of Forest Lawn Cemetery, who resigned last week. Mark’s original reporting revealed the role Dispenza played in decertifying the union that represented groundskeepers and the hiring of a company owned by the relatives of another Forest Lawn honcho.

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An analysis from the Albany Times Union found wealthy donors are sinking more money into candidates for state office than smaller ones. In 2022, the 200 largest donors contributed nearly $16 million to candidates. Those giving $250 or less – and there were a lot of them, some 206,000 – donated a collective $13.5 million.

Jimmy Vielkind’s weekly newsletter is worth subscribing to if you’re interested in state government. This week, he sizes up the coming battle over the state budget.

Margaret Sullivan had another spot-on column in The Guardian last week, this one on media coverage of President Biden’s possession of classified documents after he left office as vice president.

Ralph Nader is starting a newspaper.

The Koch network has turned on Donald Trump.

Why are gas prices so high? Profiteering by big oil. Exxon posted record profits last year of $59 billion. Meanwhile, The Guardian reported that fossil fuel companies profited by doing business with the murderous dictators in Myanmar.

You think it was cold here the end of last week? How about a windchill of minus 108 degrees?

The post Monday Morning Read appeared first on Investigative Post.

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Latest GOP town hall devolves into ‘shouts, groans and mockery’ as voters flout ‘rules’



Self-described moderate Republican Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) had his hands full during a Sunday night town hall in his suburban Hudson Valley swing district, according to reporting inThe New York Times and a variety of videos posted to social media.

Local police expected more than 1,200 constituents to jam the high school auditorium where Lawler was speaking in Rockland County, but first they had to follow Lawler's rules as posted outside the venue: participants were required to provide proof of residency for New York's 17th district; were warned against shouting, screaming, or yelling; and were forbidden from making "audio or video recordings."

But the rowdy constituents ignored those last two directives, as evidenced by cell phone video posted to X.

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In one video, a constituent asked, "What are you doing to stand in opposition to this administration, and what specifically are you doing that warrants the label 'moderate'"?

The question drew whoops and applause from the audience. When Lawler began to answer, saying, "Again, my record speaks for itself. I've been rated the fourth most bipartisan for a reason," the audience laughed and groaned.

In another clip, constituents chanted, "blah, blah, blah" as Lawler tried to justify President Donald Trump's tariffs that have caused the upending of the stock markets.

The article described "shouts, groans and mockery."

Times reporter Nicholas Fandos wrote that, "The congressman got a rare round of applause when he defended the use of vaccines and criticized Mr. Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has cast doubt on the efficacy of vaccination."

But overall, the town hall was both "combative and catty" and looked less like "the kind of respectful town-hall conversation Americans venerate than a shouting match where both sides accuse the other of acting in bad faith," Fandos wrote.

He added that, "For much of the night, acrimony carried the room. Attendees provoked confrontations with fellow attendees, with Mr. Lawler’s staff members and with the police. No one was satisfied, including supporters of the congressman who mostly watched in silence."

Read The New York Times article here,