The Buffalo Billion Reconsidered
25th July 2018
You may recall my City Journal feature on Buffalo from 2015. This was written about the time New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion program – a pledge to spend $1 billion in state funds to bring back the city economically – was in the earlier stages of development.
Fast forward, and Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion chief Alain Kaloyeros and Buffalo construction magnate Louis Ciminelli were recently convicted on corruption charges. A lot of the heavy lifting journalistically that raised questions about the Buffalo Billion was done by Jim Heaney and his team at the Investigative Post.
My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.
Whenever a great new government program is announced, the first thing I do is wonder how much of the money will be stolen through cronyism, bribery, and featherbedding.
July 25th, 2018 at 09:48
Cuomo’s father, Mario, pushed for a $1 billion bond issue to do environmental remediation around the state. Much to the horror of the ruling Dems, the bond issue failed. The next day it came out that they had already spent some $30 MM BEFORE THE ELECTION and they were desperately looking for ways to cover the shortfall. So what kind of environmental remediation did they do? Well, they re-built and landscaped a golf course. So far no one has been able to find a toxic waste dump under it, but maybe they were just misinformed.
Or maybe The Swamp is wider and deeper than we’d all like to believe.