Jamestown Local Development Corporation meeting (May 17, 2023)

A second round of $35,000 in downtown business grants were approved by the Jamestown Local Development Corporation board on Wednesday.

Grants Manager Tim O’Dell said the awards came from the Downtown Small Business Evolution fund.

He said Nouveau Beauty Aesthetics has been awarded $8,000 toward a $27,000 project to purchase new equipment that the businesses said will help sales increase by 20% based on the new services that will be available to customers.

Lisciandro’s Restaurant will receive $5,000 toward a $15,548 project to put in new floors and booths.

Sandees Bakery will use the $10,000 grant for the $19,760 purchase of a new meatball machine which will help with catering needs.

The Beer Snob has been granted $7,000 toward a $14,900 purchase of a three-door fridge to improve to-go purchases of beverages.

Art Cloth and Craft has received $5,000 toward the $8,000 purchase of sewing machines to use to create goods for the store in addition to use the machines for classes.

The JLDC board also approved three Fund for Downtown Programming requests.

The Reg Lenna Center for the Arts received $21,160 for three summer concert events that include a block party. The concerts receiving support include Lez Zeppelin on June 17, Vixen on July 9, and the block party with Uncle Ben’s Remedy on July 27.

Ballgame Heroes were approved up to $29,500 for a Trading Card Buffalo Bills Signing Show with Andre Reed. The event would include a VIP party on September 15 followed by a signing event on September 16. Owner Starr Ryder said the funds would be used toward Mr. Reed’s talent fee as well as to purchase merchandise that attendees could buy to have signed.

Collaborative Children’s Solutions also was approved $15,000 for a Winterfest event that will take place from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m., Saturday, December 2 ahead of the annual Christmas parade. Organizer Pat Smeraldo said he’s working out details still but the event could include an outdoor synthetic ice rink, live music, Christmas village, ice sculptures, and more.

Buffalo Bills members gather in prayer following the collapse of Safety Damar Hamlin on the field (January 2, 2023 – Photo by Buffalo Bills Twitter Account)

Buffalo Bills Safety Damar Hamlin is in critical condition in a Cincinnati hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest following a hit on the field in a game versus the Cincinnati Bengals.

A statement by the Bills on Twitter said the 24-year old Safety’s heartbeat was restored on the field and he was transferred to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for further testing and treatment. He is currently sedated and listed in critical condition.

The game has been officially postponed by the NFL.

Donations to an online toy drive fundraiser started by Hamlin in 2020 have topped $3 million since last night. Hamlin created the GoFundMe fundraiser for “The Chasing M’s Foundation” to help children in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area where he grew up.

A weekly program, hosted by Norman Rodriguez, focusing on the latest news and information on the national and regional sports scene, including the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. Broadcasting every Wednesday night at 7pm on WRFA.

WRFA’s Collin Wood takes a look at High School Sports, with recaps and previews for the 2022 High School Football Season in Chautauqua County – along with interviews featuring local coaches and also a report on the Buffalo Bills.

A weekly program, hosted by Norman Rodriguez, focusing on the latest news and information on the national and regional sports scene, including the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. Broadcasting every Wednesday night at 7pm on WRFA.

Gubernatorial primaries

Governor Kathy Hochul is trying to make history as the first female governor elected in the state with just 10 months in office under her belt. She is facing Representative Tom Suozzi and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

Hochul has positioned herself as the frontrunner in the three-way primary field, in part through a relentless campaign fundraising strategy that saw her amass more than $30 million — far outpacing any of her opponents.

The governor’s campaign has blanketed the state’s airwaves touting her record during her short time in office, which includes a gas-tax reduction through the end of the year and a series of gun-control and abortion-access measures she signed into law just this month.

But Hochul’s tenure has not been without controversy. She selected then-state Sen. Brian Benjamin, a Manhattan Democrat, to replace her as lieutenant governor despite questions over his past campaign-fundraising tactics. Within six months, Benjamin was arrested on federal bribery charges and resigned.

Hochul’s opponents have faulted her for spearheading a deal to build a new $1.4 billion football stadium for the Buffalo Bills, which came with $850 million in direct public subsidies. And they’ve latched on to her past positions on gun issues, which earned her an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association when she represented a conservative-leaning district in Congress a decade ago.

Hochul has said her views have changed on the issue of gun control, and she successfully led the effort to boost the minimum age for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21 in New York after an 18-year-old killed 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket last month.

Suozzi’s positions align with Hochul’s more often than not, so he is campaigning on his track record as a “proven executive,” having once served as a town mayor and county executive during his 30 years in politics. He has framed Hochul, who also held local office and, briefly, a seat in Congress, as unprepared or unwilling to take the necessary steps to improve the state in essential ways.

Williams, the No. 2 official in New York City, is the candidate favored by progressives, including the Working Families Party, the influential third party with a habit of backing insurgent, left-leaning candidates. This is his second race against Hochul; he came within seven percentage points of defeating her in the 2018 lieutenant governor primary.

He has criticized the governor for not doing more to focus on street-level crime in Harlem, the Bronx and other areas susceptible to gun violence.

All the public polling has shown Hochul with a comfortable lead over her two rivals, but the lieutenant governor’s race is much harder to gauge.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face the candidate that emerges from a contentious, four-way Republican primary Tuesday between Representative Lee Zeldin, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, businessman Harry Wilson, and Andrew Giuliani, a former Trump administration aide who is son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Zeldin, of Long Island, has the backing of Republican Party leaders across the state, who voted earlier this year to make him their designated candidate — a distinction that gave him an automatic spot on the primary ballot without petitioning.

Giuliani is making his first run for elected office and has made his unabashed support of Donald Trump a central part of his campaign. During a debate earlier this month, Giuliani repeated the discredited, incorrect claim that Trump rightfully won the 2020 election, going as far as claiming a “crime” had been perpetrated on the American people.

But Trump has not formally endorsed any candidate in the Republican race. Along with Giuliani, Trump counts Astorino and Zeldin — both of whom have been staunch defenders of Trump on cable news programs — as allies.

New York has more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans, with independent voters also outpacing the GOP. The state hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office since George Pataki won his third term as governor in 2002.

It is a closed-primary state, meaning only enrolled members of a party can vote in their respective primary.

Governor Kathy Hochul announces 2022-23 State Budget deal

New York State legislators and Governor Kathy Hochul have come to an agreement on a $220 billion state budget.

Hochul announced the agreement nearly a week after the budget was due. Lawmakers were expected to begin voting on bills Thursday night and finish those on Friday.

The agreement includes some changes to the state’s bail reform laws, the renewal of a popular pandemic-era rule that allows restaurants to serve alcoholic drinks to go, and a temporary halt to the state’s gasoline taxes.

The changes in bail reform include making several gun-related crimes once again eligible for bail, and to ease some of the timelines on discovery laws, which require that prosecutors provide defendants with evidence against them.

Hochul said there’s also agreement to amend Kendra’s Law, to make it easier for judges to refer mentally ill defendants to mandatory hospitalization or outpatient treatment. The agreement will also include funding for 1,000 additional psychiatric beds and mental health treatment.

The governor agreed with legislators to spend an additional $4 billion in the budget on programs, including expanded access to child care, although it stops short of the universal child care plan backed by some in the Legislature.

Hochul said home health care workers will receive a $3-an-hour wage increase as part of a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar package to raise the pay of health care workers. A plan known as Coverage for All, which would provide government-subsidized health care to undocumented workers, will be limited to those workers who are over the age of 65.

Hochul said the budget will devote 15% of total spending to the state’s rainy-day fund to be used if there’s a future economic downturn.

The budget will also include the suspension of two of the state’s taxes on gasoline, worth 16 cents a gallon, from June 1 until the end of the year. Hochul said the spending plan also includes the continuation of a middle-class tax cut and a property tax rebate.

New Yorkers ordering takeout food will once again be allowed to also order alcoholic drinks to go. The measure, which sunsets in three years, requires that all alcohol be secured in a container with a lid or cap. Full bottles of wine or liquor will not be permitted to be sold.

Liquor store owners, who opposed the measure, will get some concessions, including being allowed to open on Christmas Day.

The spending plan also creates a new state entity to oversee ethics. It will replace the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, or JCOPE, with a new commission that will continue to be appointed by the governor, Legislature and other statewide elected officials. The state’s law school deans will vet the choices.

Lawmakers were also poised to approve a deal that Hochul struck with the NFL and owners of the Buffalo Bills football team to fund at least $850 million in expenses for building a new stadium, in exchange for the team continuing to play in Buffalo for another three decades. Critics say the agreement, which could reach $1 billion when other expenses are counted, is too big a taxpayer giveaway to a well-funded league and the billionaire team owners.

Hochul defended the deal, saying some of the money will come from a gaming-related settlement with the Seneca Nation of Indians.

And voters will have a say in November on whether to approve a $4.2 billion environmental bond act that would help combat climate change.

Lawmakers are looking to add another $4 billion in additional spending to Hochul’s record $216 billion plan, but details on the final proposal remained elusive as sources speculated that negotiations could extend beyond Friday.

After blowing past last Friday’s budget deadline, Hochul and the Democratic-controlled state Legislature on Monday passed a last-minute budget “extender” to fund payroll obligations through midnight Thursday.

The delay is due to legislators hashing out details of the controversial criminal justice policy as well as “a host of non-budget issues that were thrown into the mix.”

Lawmakers in the state Senate and Assembly were on track to meet privately to discuss outstanding issues Wednesday evening.

One measure still on the table is the controversial expansion of Kendra’s Law, which permits court-ordered Assisted Outpatient Treatment, or AOT, and community supervision in cases of serious mental illness. The amended provision could include the involuntary commitment of people with mental illness following a judge’s decision.

Lawmakers are also close to a deal on rolling back the state’s controversial bail reform laws, mulling changes such as making more hate and gun crimes bail eligible.

They’re deliberating a measure that would allow judges to consider an individual’s criminal history to determine whether they could cause harm to a person or group of people.

For the Buffalo Bills new stadium, Hochul’s $1.4 billion project will be funded with taxpayers covering $600 million and residents of Erie County chipping in another $250 million. The teams’ billionaire owners, Terry and Kim Pegula, will foot $550 million of the price tag.

Measures still under consideration include:

• An extension of the pandemic-era “alcohol to-go” law
• Relief for high prices at the gas pump
• A plan to revamp the state’s ethics agency, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics
• More spending for home care workers, distressed hospitals, and SUNY and CUNY students.
• Increased funding aimed at combating discrimination against Asian-Americans

The New York Daily News reports the budget is expected to exceed Governor Kathy Hochul’s initial $216 billion ask.

Insiders said both the Assembly and the Senate were mostly in agreement on a framework for changes to the state’s bail and discovery laws, an 11th-hour request from Hochul that has stymied and slowed down talks.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie were expected to present the pubic safety proposals to rank and file lawmakers late Tuesday evening.

Criminal justice advocates, fearful that changes to bail reforms enacted in 2019 will lead to more people being imprisoned simply because they are poor, pleaded with lawmakers to reject any overhauls.

One legislative source said that moving past the public safety reforms will allow negotiations on other issues including child care funding and subsidies and a potential suspension of the state’s gas tax to advance.

While the state’s revenue bill was one of the measures expected to be prepared late Tuesday, the gasoline tax reprieve and Hochul’s plan to fast-track licenses for a trio of downstate casinos were not likely to be included. They could still appear in other budget bills later in the week, the source said.

An agreement appears to have been reached on an overhaul of the state’s beleaguered ethics panel that has so far failed to appease good government groups.

At the same time, sources confirmed that an extension of a controversial tax abatement for real estate developers that Hochul was seeking after a revamped version in her original budget proposal was rejected appears to be off the table.

The governor on Monday defended the secretive nature of budget negotiations, maintaining that everything has been “normal” despite the delays and frustration from lawmakers over the last-minute inclusion of her public safety proposals and millions in state funds for a new Buffalo Bills stadium.
Hochul also defended the deal she struck with the Bills’ billionaire owners that could cost New York up to $1.13 billion in state subsidies despite backlash from political opponents and lawmakers.

She said, “It is not majority taxpayer-funded, I want to be clear on that. The state share is 43%. So that’s not the majority, but that’s historically low for any public financing from the state.”

New York State Capitol

Governor Kathy Hochul and State Legislators have missed the deadline for an on-time state budget.

WXXI News reports the Senate and Assembly adjourned until Monday, when they say they will try again to reach an accord.

The next hard deadline for the budget to be in place is Monday afternoon. That’s when the state comptroller needs to process payroll for 62,000 employees who work at state-run hospitals, prisons and other institutional settings.

In a memo to state agencies, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli warned that if the budget is not completed by 4 p.m., it will delay the direct depositing of checks for the April 7 payday.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said she’s hopeful the budget can be in place by then.

The biggest sticking point has been whether to include revisions to bail reform in the budget and make other changes to the landmark 2019 criminal justice reform laws.

The Senate and Assembly did not include unrelated items like bail reform changes to their proposed spending plans.

And criticism continues over the deal struck Monday between Hochul and the owners of the Buffalo Bills football team. That agreement would require at least $850 million of state money. Some lawmakers and Hochul’s political opponents said it is too big a giveaway to the wealthy owners of a lucrative sports franchise.

Proposals including a gas tax holiday and allowing restaurants to serve to-go alcoholic drinks along with takeout food are still on the negotiating table.