NY Gov. Hochul is all for open records, unless they’re about Bills stadium spending

Let’s take a look at a couple of news items of the recent past. First, here’s freshly promoted New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, explaining how she would end the policy of stonewalling on public records requests that marked the tenure of her predecessor, Gov. Gropey:

Hochul promised to make transparency a “hallmark” of her administration, teasing an “expedited process to fulfill all FOIL requests as fast as possible and post the completed request publicly online.” She also promised to require state agencies to produce reports outlining their compliance with New York’s transparency laws.

And here’s the Buffalo Bills‘ Twitter, describing how team execs had opened talks with state officials for a new stadium based on a study by sports consultants CAA Icon and sports architects Populous of what the stadium needs and whether renovations to their existing stadium could fill the bill:

pic.twitter.com/D0LLhiTVdq

— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) May 25, 2021

I’m sure you already now where this is headed, so let’s head straight to the punchline:

The New York Coalition for Open Government is calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to release the Buffalo Bills stadium study…

“This is all speculation because the study hasn’t been released,” [Coalition president Paul] Wolf said. “But what’s been reported is that the study took a look at several stadium locations, the cost-benefit of renovating versus building new, and that study has been shared with Erie County officials, where the Bills stadium is located, and state officials. And there are currently negotiations going on behind closed doors regarding the feasibility of a new stadium and the cost of a new stadium.”

The public is being kept in the dark as to what the study contains, Wolf said, but the study is the foundation for money that will be sought from the public.

“Our organization is calling on Gov. Hochul,” Wolf said. “She has publicly stated that her administration is going to be a hallmark of transparency, a new era of transparency. In that regard she should release the stadium study that has been completed.”

FOIL requests to state agencies, as you may recall from my own attempts at getting public documents on the New York Islanders and Queensboro F.C. venue projects, can take anywhere from months to forever, despite a law stating that public agencies are supposed to cough up documents without 20 days unless they have a good excuse. In the case of the Bills study, the news site the Investigative Post made a FOIL request to the state Empire State Development agency, which had been presented it by the team, and was outright denied on the grounds releasing it would “impair present or imminent contract awards” — which appears to be another way of saying, “we don’t want to let the public in on our negotiations to give public money to the billionaire owners of an NFL team, that might cramp our style.”

“It’s my position as an attorney who is very familiar with the freedom for information law that that reason is a misapplication of the law,” said Wolf (who very much is, NYCOG has long been the go-to place for FOIL advice) of ESD’s refusal to release the study. “Hochul’s office did not immediately return multiple calls for comment,” notes the Livingston County News. I think there just might be another FOIL request in my future…