What’s Next?

In January, organizers from Saving Black Lives held a “menthol funeral” in Washington, D.C. to push the Biden administration to ban menthol tobacco products. On today’s What’s Next?, Thomas O’Neil-White discusses the reasons behind the idea of a ban, as well as quitting tobacco solutions, with two anti-tobacco campaigners: consultant and public health advocate Stan Martin and Sarah Pearson-Collins...

On today’s Producer’s Pick episode of What’s Next?, we revisit two conversations from recent episodes. First, Thomas O’Neil-White sits down with Najja Bouldin, whose company Phoenix Innovation Group LLC, helps individuals and achieve their goals through performance coaching, speaking, consulting, and facilitating creativity. And we close with Jay Moran speaking with the director of the Department...

With Tops shooter Payton Gendron due back in court on February 2, today’s episode of What’s Next? features producer Patrick Hosken having conversations with legal experts around the issue of capital punishment. First, Megan Byrne, a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, explains what to expect from the federal case against Gendron, and discusses the implications of race in relat...

On today’s What’s Next?, we welcome guests whose work in the health care field is concentrated in Chautauqua County. First, producer Patrick Hosken speaks with Lacey Keefer Wilson, the county’s newly appointed public health director, about the most pressing health issues in her communities and her plans to tackle them in 2024. Then, Jay Moran sits down with two leaders from the Evergreen Health sy...

Today on What’s Next?, two conversations about programs based around giving children the best chance at a promising future. First, Jay Moran talks to Holly Fogle, co-founder and president of The Bridge Project, which provides new mothers with consistent, unconditional cash during the beginning of their child’s life. The program began in New York City and comes to Buffalo this year, with the first...

On today’s What’s Next?, we welcome four people involved with a landscape maintenance technician training program co-sponsored by three local organizations. Gina Burkhardt, the president and CEO of the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology, and Jeff Lebsack, the director of The Riverline, speak about the origins of the program as well as its ideals. Two workers who have completed the training joi...

On this Producer's Pick episode of What's Next?, Jay Moran talks with Dean Seneca, public health expert and CEO of Seneca Scientific Solutions, who has spent years working with and supporting Tribal communities in their efforts to improve health and combat addiction through education and research. The two discuss how understanding history and intergenerational trauma is key to grappling with moder...

Today’s on What’s Next?, we revisit past conversation for a Producer’s Pick episode. First up, Jay Moran speaks with La Shawn Davis and Deja Middlebrook, who founded the relatively new mental-health practice Walking Through Solutions, about their approach to care and the growing need to address mental health issues in the community. Then, Thomas O’Neil-White sits down with author, activist, and ma...

Today’s Producer’s Pick episode of What’s Next? features Jay Moran in conversation with the Near East and West Side Task Force executive director Francesca Mesiah and member Dior Lindsey. The three discuss the history and future of the task force, which began in 2006 to promote the well-being and self-sufficiency of racial and ethnic communities in Buffalo. And Angelea Preston joins Kissena Frazie...

Today’s What’s Next? Producer’s Pick episode revisits two conversations from past episodes. First, Jay Moran is joined by the CEO of Better Living Interest LLC, Paul Perez, and the co-founder and local board president of the Erie Niagara Board of REALTIST, Andrew Scott, who is known within the Buffalo real estate world as the “House Plug.” Then, Thomas O’Neil-White sits down with Wil Green, the di...

Today on What’s Next?, our guest is Andre Stokes, the senior director of specialty substance use disorder services at Best Self Behavioral Health. Stokes has spent years working as a substance abuse and mental health counselor, and his efforts focus on the families of those in recovery because, as he says, the effects of one member’s addiction can ripple throughout the entire household, and beyond...

Today on What’s Next?, Jay Moran has two conversations around one central topic: the Erie County Language Access Act. The bill passed by the county legislature in late 2023 aims to make vital government documents available in the top six languages used by community members in Erie County. The hope is to broaden interpretation and translation services especially as it pertains to emergency announce...

This episode of What’s Next? finds Jay Moran joined by Dr. Henry Louis Taylor, Jr., the director of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Taylor was the lead author of a new report released in late 2023 titled, “How We Change the Black East Side,” which acts as a neighborhood planning and development framework for Buffalo’s East Side communities. The repor...

On today’s What’s Next?, we’re joined by Mark Talley, author and community advocate, whose book 5:14: The Day the Devil Came to Buffalo, recounts the racist shooting attack at a Tops store on May 14, 2022 in which his mother Geraldine Talley was a victim. Prosecutors told Talley and other families of victims last week that the United States Department of Justice will seek the death penalty if the...

On today’s special episode of What’s Next?, Thomas O’Neil-White joins two community leaders ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on January 15. Faustenia Morrow is the founder of Monarch of Infinite Possibilities LLC consulting firm, and Reverend Michael D. Bell is the pastor at Durham Memorial AME Zion Church. Both discuss their efforts advancing this year’s day of service programs, whe...

On this episode of What’s Next?, we have two conversations with different takes on the opioid epidemic. Alex Simone speaks to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn about the county’s efforts to combat addiction-impacted crime trends with alternate methods like the Opioid Intervention Court, and what’s still needed in the fight. Then, Jay Moran and public health expert Dean Seneca discuss how un...

Today on What’s Next?, we bring you two conversations. First, Thomas O’Neil-White sits down with Dontaya Davis and Alia Williams, community organizers for Voice Buffalo. The two are working locally to boost the Ebony Alert system, a new initiative to prioritize missing and exploited Black youth, who are disproportionately represented in missing children reports. And Jay Moran speaks with New York...

Today’s What’s Next? features a conversation with Wayne Brown, a mental health therapist at Willow Grove Counseling, about self-care in the new year and how that relates to his approach with his clients. Brown has years of experience working with those in recovery, and he discusses with Jay Moran how he prioritizes building trust as the first step in an often long process.

Today, our guest is Buffalo’s first poet laureate, Jillian Hanesworth, who reflects on the end of her term in the role she helped establish in 2021. Hanesworth sits with Jay Moran to talk about the origin of the role and share some of her work, as well as to offer a look ahead at what her own next chapter might be.

On today’s What’s Next?, Jodi Gerhard, the senior program director at Horizon Health Services, joins Jay Moran for a conversation about her efforts in the field of mental health and addiction services and how that work can take a toll on the counselors who provide it. Gerhard has seen the challenges of the job evolve due to the opioid epidemic and other stressors. But she says being present and ap...

Today, we feature two conversations with community leaders and advocates. First, Thomas O’Neil-White sits down with Daniel Robertson, Director of the Boys and Men of Color Initiative at Say Yes, Buffalo, to discuss Daniel’s plans for his new role and the positive examples of leadership that helped him step up. And Jay Moran talks with public health expert and CEO of Seneca Scientific Solutions Dea...

Today we speak with the founder and CEO of Western New York Mobile Overdose Prevention Services, Rashone Scott Williams. The initiative is centered around harm reduction as well as reproductive health outreach, and its goal is to make the overdose reversal drug Narcan available in every neighborhood across the region. Rashone sits with Jay Moran to discuss the mission of Mobile OPS, striving to co...

Today we speak with Dina Thompson, Executive Director of the Erie County Restorative Justice Coalition; and Janelle Finn, Cheektowaga-Sloan District Assistant Superintendent. Restorative justice has yielded restorative practices, and new concepts for building healthy communities – in education, this looks like daily check-ins, peer-to-peer responses, and an overall atmosphere of equity. Both Thomp...

On today’s Producer’s Picks, we revisit two conversations. First, we hear from David Rust, Chief Executive Officer of Say Yes, Buffalo. And then we close out with artist and Buffalo native Valentino Dixon.

Today we speak with the President and CEO of the Northland Workforce Training Center Stephen Tucker. As New York State’s signature workforce initiative under the Buffalo Billion initiative, the training center focuses on closing the skills gap of the local labor pool and creating economic on-ramps to training, co-ops, internships, apprenticeships, and permanent employment for Western New Yorkers....