Artvoice: Buffalo's #1 Newsweekly
Home Blogs Web Features Calendar Listings Artvoice TV Real Estate Classifieds Contact
Artvoice Weekly Edition » Issue v10n39 (09/28/2011) » Section: Week in Review


National Fuel CEO to Chair Business Council

by Geoff Kelly
Last week, the Business Council of New York State—a statewide chamber of commerce, essentially, which claims more than 2,500 members—elected David F. Smith, chairman and CEO of National Fuel Gas Company, as its new board chairman.

Poll Finds New Yorkers Don't Trust Frackers

by Geoff Kelly
A poll conducted by the Siena College Research Institute two weeks ago found that New Yorkers are split over whether energy companies should be permitted to use high-volume, deep-well hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to retrieve natural gas in the state’s Marcellus Shale formation: 44 percent said they were in favor of the Department of Environmental Conservation’s recommendation to permit fracking in many parts of Upstate and the Southern Tier, 40 percent were opposed, and 16 percent were undecided.

Bloomberg's Promise to Grisanti

by Geoff Kelly
In the buildup to New York State’s legalization of same-sex marriage, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged his help—that is to say, his money—to any Republican state senators who would cross their leadership and vote yes.

The Big Man's Family

by Geoff Kelly
Last week, we described Antoine Garner’s entrance into Tonawanda city court to face charges of aggravated harassment, the result of a complaint filed by Leslie Brill, mother of Amanda Wienckowski, the 20-year-old woman whose naked, frozen body was found in a garbage tote near Garner’s Spring Street home in January 2010. Garner insists he knows nothing about Amanda’s death, though he allows that she came to his house the day she disappeared to buy drugs. Brill and her family and friends have maintained that Garner knows more than he admits, and for two years have fought in the courts for the opportunity to conduct their own investigation into Amanda’s death, which Erie County medical examiners declared to be the result of an accidental overdose. The family exhumed Amanda’s body and commissioned a West Coast coroner, Dr. Silvia Comparini, to perform a new autopsy, but that effort has been stymied by Erie County’s foot-dragging and stonewalling on the release of materials and information.

Illuzzi's Illusions Cost Him Again

by Geoff Kelly
We’re often of two minds when it comes to writing about the website run by e-pamphleteer Joe Illuzzi. On the one hand, sometimes his harangues demand rebuttal; on the other hand, perhaps not, since he is mostly read by the politicians who feel compelled to advertise on his site.

Requiem in the Boy's Room

by J. Tim Raymond
We all came back—well, most. The only deaths weren’t casualties but car wrecks, a hunting accident.

Scorecard: The Week's Winners and Losers

by Zachary Burns




Back to issue index