And the Buffalo Bills stadium, has it really been three whole days since we checked in on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $1 billion Bills stadium subsidy plan? It still hasn’t passed or gotten a vote or hearings or anything, because it’s going to be rolled into the overall state budget so legislators will just have to vote the whole thing up or down, meaning the only talks are behind-closed-doors haggling. (It’s not just haggling over the stadium money; Hochul is also trying to push through changes to bail reform that would leave more people in jail solely on the basis of whether they can afford to scrounge up bail money, despite data showing that reduced use of bail hasn’t led to an increase in crime.) So what are New York state legislators saying publicly about the secret deal in the works?
- Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, D-Buffalo, was asked about Seneca Nation’s TV ads charging that a lump-sum payment from Seneca casinos “gave Gov. Hochul a great opportunity to help repair our roads, build hospitals, fix our bridges and support our schools. What did she do instead? She gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to build a football stadium for the NFL” and that the stadium plan is “a serious conflict of interest for Gov. Hochul” because her husband is an executive for the Bills’ main concessionaire. Peoples-Stokes’ reply: “These are not valid arguments, but this is what happens when you are in a political arena. People will come up with things that they think will disparage you.”
- Senate Deputy Majority leader Michael Gianaris, D-Queens, on Western New York legislators’ pitch to their colleagues in a Tuesday meeting: “They felt it would be unfair if Buffalo got singled out as the one time that these kinds of projects were stopped. It’s still under discussion. There’s a lot of concern about it. I don’t think it’s the best way to do economic development or these stadium deals, but we do have a tremendous amount of deference to our members that represent that part of the state.”
- And what say you, members from that part of the state? Assemblymember Pat Burke, D-Buffalo: “It’s a lot of money and it’s certainly an issue to be spending money — that much money — for a stadium for people who are enormously wealthy as the Pegulas, but unfortunately that’s where we’re at and this was the deal that was negotiated by the governor, so I think it will get done. … I was quick to remind them of the subsidies that the New York Yankees got, the New York Mets got and the Brooklyn Nets got. So none of us have to like it, but I encouraged them to leave this a regional issue and I think most of them are doing that.”
So, to sum up: Complaints that New York state could use $1 billion on other needs are “not valid arguments,” spending $1 billion on a stadium isn’t a good plan but Buffalo-area legislators want it, and even some Buffalo-area legislators don’t think it’s a good plan but hey, the state gave away tons of public money to New York City teams, shouldn’t it give away a ton to the Bills as well, for fairness? That’s what “fairness” means, right, an equitable split of public money between downstate billionaires and upstate billionaires?
Meanwhile, a growing list of editorials and op-eds have come out against Hochul’s Bills deal, with the Oneonta Daily Star calling it “a deal even the most rosy-eyed Bills fan must find nauseating” while the Albany Times-Union writes, “The Legislature has a job to do. It must demand that the deal be stripped from the state budget.” But who cares what those papers have to say, they’re not from Buffalo, and Oneonta and Albany already got the benefit of new stadiums for teams like the Yankees and, uhhhh, you know what, let’s just vote on this thing and let taxpayers in the rest of the state blame Buffalo pols, that should work for all concerned.
The casually corrupt nature of politics is astounding.
“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more than the man with the gun.” ( Don Vito Corleone). The Bills deal makes me think how correct Puzo was when he wrote The Godfather).