If Buffalo Leaders Want To Party At A Taxpayer-funded Suite During Bills Games, It Must Be Kept Secret From The Public

In 2022, the State of New York and Eric County agreed to give the Buffalo Bills over $1 billion dollars of taxpayer money. Some have called this agreement “one of the worst stadium deals in recent memory”. It is not difficult to see why this deal is disastrous for taxpayers. The State of New York and Eric County are giving the “largest taxpayer handout for a new stadium in U.S. history” and that doesn’t even include stadium maintenance expenses or tax exemptions. This means that the deal will likely end up costing taxpayers well over $1 billion.

But after taxpayers are done paying so much for this new stadium, what exactly can the public be expected to receive in return? Well, Eric County will own 1 suite at the Bills new stadium. Officially, its use “will be up to the discretion of (the) county”. That sounds ripe for corruption.

Recently, Legislature Chairwoman April Baskin and Legislator Christopher Greene, R-Clarence, put forward a resolution asking the county to clarify “how the county intends to use the suite”. That seems like a common-sense resolution. Then why did the resolution go nowhere? Because other politicians do not want the public seeing who or how the suites get used.

Baskin revealed that she was not told why the resolution was killed, but just that Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz insisted that the resolution was a “hard no”. When Baskin put forward another resolution asking whether the Bills would report on “how many local, small businesses have been awarded construction or post-construction stadium contracts”, she was ignored. Poloncarz made sure this resolution got as little attention as possible when he blocked anyone from speaking at the upcoming meeting with the Legislature at its Finance and Management Committee.

You see, Poloncarz’s spokesman, Peter Anderson, told the Buffalo News that there is no reason for this resolution because “It is far too premature to discuss how that space will be used” and as such “there is nothing to discuss currently”.

In the past, leaders have claimed that the suite could be used to boost “potential new businesses” to the area, and yet I have never seen a singe business move to the area thanks to a suite ticket at a Bills game. As Baskins mentions in her recent interview, it seems like Poloncarz is delaying any talk of the suite so that a policy can be put together later on without input from the Legislature.

— WGRZ

The Bills have since released a statement claiming these resolutions to be “unnecessary” and “beyond the terms of the stadium agreement”. What makes the Bills response even more pathetic is that essentially every part of this agreement was done behind closed doors and includes signed Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA). The Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) was done completely out-of-view from the public and those who worked on it signed NDA’s. Talk about transparency!

The current Bills lease agreement puts more than $13 million dollars of yearly stadium expenses on taxpayers while receiving just $900,000 from the team. The new stadium agreement is not much better, so expect even more expenses to be paid for by taxpayers, rather than the billionaire owners.

The Bills have tried to hide or minimize almost every part of their stadium negotiations and/or contract. So much of what the Bills have used to get this stadium built has question marks on it. Before the stadium agreement was finalized, the Bills loved touting the stadium study put together by Empire State Development. One problem was that the team paid for a portion of the study to be made. Second, the team has asked ESD to put together stadium studies in the past and then hid from the public anything that wasn’t helpful to the team while also promoting anything that was good.

Early in the negotiations, Erie County commissioned a stadium study. The study found that renovating the current stadium would be “cost prohibitive”. Yet when the Investigative Post requested a copy of the report, the county responded by releasing the 235-page report “redacted almost in its entirety”. Or how about when the Investigative Post requested copies of two stadium studies and the county claimed it didn’t have them…only for Poloncarz to then admit that the county attorney’s office had them. Sorry about that.

— SI.com

In all honesty, maybe a resolution is not necessary for this issue. It isn’t like there is a long history around New York or Buffalo of abusing taxpayer-owned amenities at sports events. There was that time that the Governor, Assembly Speaker and majority leader used the taxpayer suite for a VIP private party room during the Dec. 17 game against the Dallas Cowboys. It is just a coincidence that the company that manages the suite, reports directly to the governor. Even though the New York Governor’s husband is a senior official at Delaware North, the company that operates the profitable concessions at the Bills’ current stadium, both the Governor and her husband pinky-swear that there are no conflict-of-interest problems. Then there was the time in 2011 when former New York Gov. David Paterson paid a fine to settle allegations of “him using his position to get New York Yankees tickets”.