Sweetheart deals in demolition?

A May 9th story in the Buffalo News:

The first of three parts

Buffalo spent $73 million over the past 12 years to knock down some 5,800 vacant houses and other dilapidated buildings on city streets.

That’s roughly the price of hiring 100 more cops or teachers for 10 years, or to redevelop the Statler Hotel. It’s more demolitions than there are houses in the Village of Lancaster.

All that demolition removed hazardous eyesores but also left many city streets with vast areas of vacant lots.

And with the cost of city demolition tripling during those years, it also put millions of dollars into the pockets of a handful of demolition contractors, some with shady pasts.

Consider:

• Albert J. Steele Jr., a former thief and prison escape artist, is now the city’s premier demolition man. Steele’s company made $11 million knocking down houses, almost all during the administration of Mayor Byron Brown.
• Geiter Done has received almost $6 million from Buffalo since 2006 to demolish city properties. It is owned by Michael P. Honer. He ran another company, Huron Recovery, that was forced into bankruptcy in 2006, leaving a string of bad debts, including some $30,000 to the Erie County Industrial Development Agency and about $30,000 more to the Buffalo Economic Renaissance Corp., records show.
• Amir’s Vision, which did a good chunk of demolition work for the Masiello administration — $2.25 million in six years — and $500,000 in work for the Brown administration in 2006, was subsequently banned from bidding on public contracts until 2013. The state says the company falsely and illegally claimed to be paying prevailing wages. But a company now operating at the same Buffalo address is called C&R Housing and did $1.35 million in work for the Brown administration through 2011.

The state is investigating whether the two companies are essentially the same.

But it’s not just who is doing the demolitions that is raising questions. There’s also the skyrocketing costs.

The Buffalo News obtained (….read the rest of the story here)