#THREAD: I’ve been reaching out to the Mayor of North Tonawanda for days about whether these recorded incidents are ok for his top firefighters but he won’t answer me.
Could be ‘cause I chased him through City Hall 2 years ago.
Y’all wanna hear a story? https://www.wkbw.com/news/i-team/north-tonawanda-firefighter-sues-department-over-discrimination-racism-hostile-work-environment

Okay so this is a story about a story I never told. Some of y’all won’t like it because I did something bad (admittedly) which then led to me uncovering something really, really bad. I’ll take the heat & continue this story for all my bad boys & girls still reading.

It’s 2018. I was driving to Wheatfield (in my marked news car)
(not an excuse to break the law)
on my way to breaking news and had to pass through NT when I saw the lights *woop woop* behind me.

I pull over super confused. I’m told I was speeding through a school zone. I was like “Sir, I speed everywhere EXCEPT school zones and neighborhoods. Where was the school zone?”
He points to a tiny sign & a quarter length drag of road behind my car.

Oh my. I sped through a school zone.
I apologize and explain where I was headed (breaking news).
He says ok & expeditiously slaps me with two tickets: not signaling to change lanes (???) and speeding in a school zone.
I appreciated him hurrying this along so I could go tho

BUUUUUUT something about it didn’t feel right. I start looking into this school zone. I’ll skip the boring parts but I found out it was illegally installed and didn’t follow the state mandates for creating a school zone in terms of notification, length of zone, crosswalks, etc.

I was like cool, maybe if I take this to the City attorney we can have a nice chat about my charges. I walk in before my court date and lay out my findings — he lickety split got rid of both charges. The judge saw it and goes “Wow, you must’ve defended yourself really well.”

YA GURL BEAT THE CHARGES

So then I walk out happy but I’m like.... I can’t leave my soldiers behind, now. How many other people didn’t get their charges dismissed?
So I find out.
HONEY CHILE LEMME TELL YOU: In 6
months the City collected nearly $300,000 in fines from this zone.
SIX MONTHS - 300 bands!

Sidebar: I don’t know too much about North Tonawanda but I would bet my bottom dollar that City ain’t seen cash like that off fines not a nan time in its whole existence....

*Here’s the video*. I had to make an unscheduled appointment with Mayor Pappas for some answers.
This is serious stuff!
Is he going to pay these people back? No, he’s gonna dodge questions from me and try to call the police (in a public building).

I was told by NT’s lawyer that they work differently than other cities and have their own set of rules...
re: failure to publish law (as required by state) I was told “a reporter attends every meeting she could’ve done the story if she wanted”
Not how it works.

Anyhoo. I’m going one-on-one with the City Attorney for a few weeks on why his answers to why it’s not illegal don’t add up. Eventually my bosses tell me to leave it alone & turn my attention elsewhere. I did break the law after all.

Thought they had me beat.
But lemme tell you who won — drivers in North Tonawanda.
Today the school zone is PROPERLY marked
-a warning sign
-visible school zone signs
-a digital speed monitor
-**flashing lights**!!!!!

Story started w/flashing lights & ended with them ayeeee

I say all this to say: I should’ve never taken no for an answer. I didn’t trust my gut.
My investigative sense of “keep going anyway” wasn’t fully developed.
But we got results either way.

Actually, maybe I should do this story as a follow up.... lemme email my boss.