State of the County Address
April 30, 2025
As Prepared for Delivery
Good evening and thank you all for joining us at SUNY Erie as I provide my report to the community on the state of Erie County. Before discussing that, I would like to thank a few individuals for participating in tonight’s event.
Thank you to Rabbi Alex Lazurus-Klein of Temple Shir Shalom for providing today’s invocation.
Thank you to SUNY Erie student Brandon Duffy for leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance and I wish you the best during your studies.
Thank you also to everyone in attendance here or those watching on Spectrum Cable News, WNY Media, or the Erie County YouTube channel.
Also, thanks to our interpreters Karen Gamino and Vanessa Wiscaum for joining us today and providing American Sign Language for today’s address.
Finally, thank you to SUNY Erie President Dr. Adiam Tsegai for your gracious introduction and your work in turning our community college around.
The college-county partnership between SUNY Erie and Erie County is the strongest it has been in years. It wasn’t long ago I warned in a State of the County address that if difficult actions were not taken, the college's future would be in doubt.
Since I made that statement, Medaille College has closed, but I am glad to say SUNY Erie is now on the road to a brighter future.
For example, previously, SUNY Erie was not just one college located at three campuses but was treated as if it were three separate colleges, each campus a separate institution unto itself. I bet you didn’t know that.
This antiquated 1960s era-thinking hampered innovation and threatened its bottom line by requiring work that could be done by one person or department to be done in triplicate.
I am proud to say that, because of the hard work of Dr. Tsegai, the Board of Trustees, the members of the faculty federation and administrators union, SUNY Erie is now treated by the state and internally as one college with multiple locations. This truly is huge.
Because SUNY Erie has righted its ship, Erie County is willing to make significant investments in our county’s community college to make it WNY’s best.
As you may have seen when you entered today, SUNY Erie’s old sports fields are being rebuilt into a modern multi-use complex for football, soccer, lacrosse, and softball. This 7.5 million dollar project is just the first phase of a multi-phase plan for the site, with more to be announced in the coming years.
In addition to these new sports facilities, we are working closely with the college as it embraces a bold new vision and location for southern Erie County.
Once again, what worked for the 1980s is an antiquated set of unnecessary buildings today. That is why, as of the end of this academic year, SUNY Erie will be moving its programs from the old campus in Hamburg to a beautiful new location in Orchard Park.
New classrooms, labs, offices, and study spaces designed for the modern educational experience will greet our students this fall. This will make the new SUNY Erie location the destination choice for students in southern Erie County.
I’m sure you are wondering what will happen to the old location. We intend to sell the land to the highest bidder and invest the sale proceeds back into the college to continue building the new SUNY Erie.
These actions, combined with the recent opening of SUNY Erie’s new auto-tech center at Northland on Buffalo’s eastside and continued reinvestment at its location downtown and here in Amherst, ensure the college's future is bright. What others could not do—create a modern SUNY Erie—we are, and the community will benefit from it for decades.
Once again, thank you to my partners from SUNY Erie who worked very hard to make it happen.
In recent State of the County addresses, I have outlined an agenda for making substantive changes to some longtime “common practices” in Erie County. Shaking up the status quo isn’t always easy and often meets with resistance, as we found with SUNY Erie, but just saying “that’s the way things have always been done” isn’t enough when things can be done more efficiently, more economically, and with better results for our community.
Just because an issue is difficult doesn’t mean it should be ignored or left for someone else to fix.
In our constitutional government, everyone has certain guaranteed rights, including criminal defendants. Upholding those rights requires competent counsel for each criminal defendant, no matter their ability to pay for a criminal defense attorney.
Providing that representation is not cheap – last year, my Budget office estimated county taxpayers spent over 17 million dollars, and these costs are increasing.
At last year’s State of the County, I challenged our legal community to examine how we provide these services. I formed a task force of some of the brightest practitioners in our community to examine our system of indigent defense, which has existed for generations but has never been truly evaluated.
I thank Judge Susan Eagan and former District Attorney John Flynn for heading that task force. Based on the Task Force’s analysis, we will try something different.
We will restructure how we provide these services by moving towards an institutional provider and away from our current model that relies on private attorneys. Over the next few years, the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo will expand its jurisdiction to include all felony charges in the City of Buffalo, except for homicides, and include all criminal defendants in Cheektowaga.
I am happy to announce the New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services will assist us in the transition and, very importantly, pay for the cost.
As this transition occurs, we will evaluate it and reevaluate it. We will ensure that criminal defendants, regardless of income level, receive competent legal representation, but in the most efficient way possible.
Additionally, the Task Force will begin to review how indigent parties are represented in Family Court, a completely different type of system than traditional criminal courts.
Thank you to Judge Eagan, former DA Flynn, and all the Task Force members for their great work. I appreciate it.
Now sometimes things beyond your control hold up our ability to make substantive changes as you expected, but you still persevere onward. One such project has been the expansion of the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, a facility owned by the people of Erie County.
In 2019, I joined then Gardens President Dave Swartz to announce the county would invest millions in a project to greatly expand the facility, primarily to increase event space, thereby making the not-for-profit organization that runs the Gardens more economically independent.
What we could not foresee was within the next year the COVID pandemic would strike, and following the pandemic’s end, prices for construction would greatly increase, so much so the original plans had to be scrapped.
The project floundered until the Gardens hired Mark Mortenson to get it back on budget and schedule. Unfortunately, we were all shocked when Mark passed much too early, leaving a huge hole to fill, and putting the project in jeopardy again.
I am proud to say the county has committed an additional 2 million dollars to the project, increasing our financial commitment to $7 million to see it to the finish and construction will start this year!
Thank you to new Gardens President Erin Grajek and her team, as well as our team from the Department of Public Works for seeing this project through, and I want to publicly honor the work of Mark Mortenson, who contributed so much to our community at the Museum of Science, Richardson Complex, and finally at the Botanical Gardens. We miss you Mark and we will always remember your service to our community. Thank you.
Very soon, construction will commence, and the 125-year-old Gardens will become new again, thereby honoring its wonderful historic past and ensuring a strong future for another century.
HISTORY TRANSITION
Speaking of history, one of the most important ways we honor our past is by understanding how it has shaped our present and will guide our future. That is precisely the mission of the Erie County Historical Commission. Over the past year, the Commission has worked to highlight our region’s profound impact on our nation’s history, from presenting Constitution Day programming, commemorating the upcoming 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal–an engineering marvel that helped shape American commerce–to preparing for the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding.
Additionally, the Commission is focusing on increasing civics education in our schools. It is quite clear that many of our fellow citizens had little to no civics education because they lack a basic understanding of our system of government, both at the national and local levels. That is why the Erie County Historical Commission has partnered with the New York Public History Trust to bring Kids Voting USA back to New York State, beginning with Erie County.
Kids Voting USA is a nonpartisan, grassroots-driven voter education program committed to creating lifelong voting habits in children, increasing family communication about engaged citizenship, and encouraging greater adult voter turnout.
I am pleased to announce that this June primary election will feature a designated kids voting location during early voting at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, and we look to expand it afterwards.
I thank the members of the Historical Commission who are here today. As a token of appreciation for everyone’s attendance today, I hope you will accept our small gift of a pocket-sized version of the Constitution of the United States and a Historical Commission bookmark.
I ask you to frequently reflect upon those who came before us to create the Constitution, amend it, and ensure that the United States of America continues to be a shining beacon of democratic hope to all others worldwide.
I’ll return to this theme later in my address, but when it comes to children, we are not just helping them become more civic-minded; we are addressing their mental health needs.
Our Erie Path mental health app is an unqualified success. More than 336,000 users of all ages across the county have accessed it since it was launched in 2023. We know many of those users are parents seeking information on the mental health resources available for their children.
In the next few months, we will improve the app by offering distinct versions for Apple and Android devices and updating it for a better user interface. But that’s not all we are doing to improve youth mental health. We will also expand on the very successful Erie County SMART collaborative.
SMART is a pre-K through 12th-grade professional learning community organized by Erie One BOCES to prioritize student mental health and social-emotional learning. It is comprised of Erie County School Districts, educators, community agencies, and representatives from Erie County. SMART serves as a vital link between valuable mental health resources and students.
With more than 200 active members and nearly 500 participating online, we will engage more partners and assist more children this year.
I thank Deputy County Executive Lisa Chimera, who is leading these efforts, and our educational community partners. The work of the SMART Collaborative is improving children’s lives, which we can all be proud of.
As an elected official in a representative government, I work for the people, regardless of whether they are taxpayers at that point in their lives. We must never forget that. We work for the people and should hear from our “bosses” about the government and services they want.
That is why I am holding town hall meetings across the county and today announcing Envision Erie – our new resident survey initiative. This is your chance to help shape the county’s future. We want your input!
This survey will provide a platform for our residents to voice their needs and priorities, ensuring that county policies and initiatives reflect the community's concerns.
It will focus on key issues such as housing affordability, healthcare, infrastructure, education, public transportation, and youth services, just to name a few.
To ensure broad input, we will work with community leaders to offer the survey online, on social media, and in paper form at local community centers.
Once completed, the results will be analyzed and published in a report that will guide a resident-driven action plan, making our county government more responsive, effective, and aligned with the needs of our community. More will be announced about this soon.
When we hear from our constituents, they often comment on the excellent condition of our incredible Erie County parks system. We’ve invested tens of millions of dollars in our parks, and we have more news to report.
As we recently announced, Erie County has agreed to take ownership of the site of the former Westwood Country Club, also known as Amherst Central Park, from the Town of Amherst. The transfer will take place in two phases:
Phase One - 2025: Transfer of all park property from Town of Amherst to Erie County except the southeastern corner, which is slated for recreational development, and after transfer, the Erie County Department of Parks will assume maintenance of that acreage and retain a contractor to restore nine holes of the former golf course, including 7 of the original “Willowdale Golf Club” holes, the forerunner to Westwood, and which just happened to be designed by Willie Park, Jr., the 1887 and 1889 Open Championship winner and designer of famous courses worldwide. The end goal will be the restoration of a 9-hole golf course for public use, and the rest of the property will be turned into a passive park with walking trails, interpretive signage, and wildlife viewing areas.
During Phase Two, the Town of Amherst will construct recreation amenities in the southeastern corner of the property, including an accessible playground, restroom, and parking lot using the grant funding from New York State.
Once that work is complete, ownership of that portion of the park will be transferred to Erie County, and we intend to rename it Willowdale Park, in honor of its original name.
Watch this video from our Parks Commissioner, Troy Schinzel, to learn more about the park….
Willowdale Park will join the 10,000+ acres of public park and forest land maintained by our Parks Department and fill a geographic gap in its collection.
I thank Parks Commissioner Troy Schinzel and his team for making this a reality, and Amherst Supervisor Brian Kulpa for his foresight and great work in beginning this project. This year is Brian’s final year as supervisor, and I thank him for his service to the community as supervisor and as Williamsville Mayor. I ask you to stand so we may all thank you. Thank you, Brian!
As I have said in many addresses before, Erie County will address issues facing our community that the private sector will not, especially when protecting all residents' health.
The Erie County Ambulance Service began in September of 2023 to do just that and has changed the health outcomes of our rural residents by responding to over 2,000 calls and counting. Erie County now provides critical safety net coverage to support volunteer fire companies and other primary services in rural towns where ambulance response times were close to 30 minutes... if an ambulance came.
When it comes to saving our constituents’ lives in a medical emergency, every minute counts, and it is imperative that help arrive as quickly as possible. That is why we created the ambulance service, which has been an unqualified success. Don’t believe me?
Watch this video from Colden Supervisor Jim DePasquale to see how important this service is.
And Erie County is not the only government to have taken on this service, which is as essential as Police and Fire. The Town of Tonawanda will be launching its own primary ambulance service this year. I am happy to announce that Erie County will provide backup coverage to the town, just like we currently do in our southern rural towns.
Thank you to all who made the ambulance service the success it is!
Another way we can improve health outcomes is by creating a Heartsafe community. My 2024 State of the County put Erie County on a path to secure Citizen CPR’s Heartsafe Community designation. We have since applied for it, but I am even prouder of the work Erie County has completed with numerous community partners, such as the Buffalo Bills, Dr. Bisson of UBMD, the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, and our own Health Department staff.
They have trained over 110,000 residents in CPR, distributed over 150 AEDs, and so much more. While we are close to receiving the Heartsafe designation, with or without the designation, these actions alone will improve the chances of survival during a sudden cardiac event.
To keep this momentum going, I have asked the Legislature to designate $50,000 to distribute more AEDs in communities without them.
Training individuals in CPR and the use of AEDs saves lives. Let me tell you the story of one person who used his training to make a difference and save a life.
Louis Szukala is one of our trusted building guards in the Rath Building. All building guards are trained in CPR. This past year, Louis put his CPR training to the test when a client at the Clerk’s DMV Office downtown had a cardiac event. Louis immediately recognized the problem and performed CPR until an ambulance could arrive, thereby saving the person’s life.
I ask Louis to stand so we can acknowledge and thank him for applying CPR and saving our neighbor’s life. Thank you!
Protecting and promoting the public’s health is a key component of the social determinants of health—the guiding force behind our Livewell Erie efforts—as is ensuring safe and quality housing. Erie County continues to advance our $20M affordable housing initiative.
Last year, I announced our investment of $6.5M of American Rescue Plan assistance for affordable, multi-unit projects, which leveraged $340 million of private sector dollars, to develop 750 affordable housing units across Erie County. This year, we have just broken ground on 47 new, affordable, single-family homes in the City of Buffalo and 5 in the Town of Cheektowaga to fill in holes in neighborhoods to strengthen them and rebuild neighborhoods demolished by previous poor policy.
This is only our first phase of this initiative, as we will recycle proceeds from the sale of these homes to build more affordable houses in Erie County. As a result of these efforts, more than 800 units of new, affordable housing will be built in our community, in addition to the nearly 900 units being constructed at other developments across our county, like the important Perry Homes, North Aud Block and other projects, all helping to alleviate the housing shortage, and creating new neighborhoods where there were none.
I want to thank our partners in this endeavor: Mayor Chris Scanlon of the City of Buffalo, Supervisor Brian Nowak of the Town of Cheektowaga, Legislature Chair Tim Meyers, and the members of the Land Bank for their efforts to move this important initiative forward.
Now you can’t talk about housing without talking about those without a home. Every region of the United States is dealing with issues related to homelessness.
On average, Erie County houses more than 400 people every night in either shelters or hotels. These are not immigrants. These are our own citizens, and we have a legal and moral responsibility to house them.
It is very expensive to house our citizens in hotels and shelters. Last year, Erie County paid $11 million, 4.5 of which was our local share. Some of this occurs in summer when our “Code Blue” program shuts down as the temperature warms.
That is why this year we are investing $700,000 of last year’s surplus to keep our “Code Blue” shelter open 365 days a year. This will ensure we can safely house those without a home and do it more economically.
I thank our Commissioner Karen Rybicki and her Department of Social Services team for their work on this initiative and our shelter partner Sylvia’s Place for their important work helping some of our most vulnerable citizens.
Another important aspect of addressing housing insecurity is the growing cost of rental properties nationwide and in Western New York. Unfortunately, too many people risk losing their homes because they can’t afford an increase in their rent.
That is why Senator Sean Ryan fought to get his rental arrears program passed to prevent those with incomes from being evicted. Erie County received more than $2,000,000 to help families across the community, and currently, we have helped 141 families avoid eviction, and we will be able to help more families through the year.
Thank you to Senator Ryan for fighting for this program and Governor Hochul for ensuring it was part of the budget.
Now we can’t talk about keeping someone in their home without discussing the biggest home construction project in the county’s history: the new home for the Buffalo Bills. Construction continues rapidly at the corner of Abbott Road and Southwestern Boulevard in Orchard Park, and the number of materials and labor involved shows what a significant project this is for Erie County.
More than 20,000 pieces of steel, 223,000 bolts, and thousands upon thousands of tons of concrete have already been installed.
Let our Commissioner of Public Works, Bill Geary, explain more…
Moreover, on average, 1,000 workers are on the site EACH DAY, with it expected to increase to 1,500 by August; the vast majority of whom are WNYers because I demanded and got a project labor agreement, as well as strong prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements for the project.
If you have been on-site, you realize how big this stadium is, not just in size but in its economic impact on the community. I thank my partners in Erie County government, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, our local state delegation, Terry and Kim Pegula and the entire Bills family, and our local building trades for their investment in the community and for ensuring the Bills call Erie County home for the next 30 years. Thank you!
My administration has always prioritized protecting Lake Erie. No project demonstrates our strong and lasting commitment to stewardship for our natural resources more than the Southtowns Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility expansion project.
The Southtowns Treatment Facility went online in 1980 to serve numerous areas south of Buffalo. After over four decades of use, this critical facility requires upgrades. No one wants to think about what happens when a sewage treatment facility doesn’t work right, but when it fails you-know-what hits the fan, and that is unacceptable.
Expanding the Southtowns Treatment Facility is a generational project for our community. The first phase of construction was awarded in late 2023, and construction has now been ongoing for approximately 15 months. This $55 million investment transforms the site by installing a new effluent pumping station, a new chlorine contact tank, various hydraulic improvements, a new electrical substation, a new plant-wide generator, and more. It is expected that most of the first phase of construction will be completed by the end of this year.
Design of Phase 2 of the expansion project was completed in February and is presently under regulatory review. With cost estimates for Phase 2 above $125 million, enormous new facilities will be built. We aim to bid Phase 2 of the Southtowns expansion project later this year, with construction expected to be complete in late 2029.
Investing in the Southtowns Treatment Facility is incredibly important because it will enhance Lake Erie's protection, further safeguard public health, and offer key support for the local community and economy's future needs. I thank Environment and Planning Commissioner Dan Castle and Deputy Commissioner Joe Fiegl for their leadership and the Sewer District Boards of Managers and the Legislature for supporting this important project.
Last year was busy for our Erie Net initiative as we continued the groundwork for this transformative fiber project. 2025 promises to be a building year that makes this community-changing initiative a reality.
Earlier this month, we began installing fiber-optic cable in the Town of Boston, and soon, we will be installing similar high-speed broadband cables across the entire county.
ERIENET also started collaborating with NITTEC, GBNRTC, NYSDOT, and Tonawanda to partner with grant applications to secure funding to build a regional smart traffic signal network, allowing emergency services vehicles and bus transit to prioritize traffic signals. ERIENET’s fiber municipal network will be a large asset for the project.
ErieNet will be a key tool as we continue to build our economy. This economy continues to grow and diversify, but it took a gut punch this past year when Sumitomo Rubber announced closing its Tonawanda facility and laying off its 1,500 employees.
That callous decision to close was made in a Japanese boardroom without regard for the local impact and could have substantially reduced our economy.
That’s why I announced the creation of a special Sumitomo Task Force to assist the workers in finding new employment, upskill them, if necessary, for today's advanced manufacturing jobs, and determine a long-term use of the site that benefits our region.
I thank my fellow Task Force members, including Tonawanda Supervisor Joe Emminger, our partners from Governor Hochul’s Office, the Steelworkers, and our region’s economic development team, for their good work to address the community’s needs.
Because of the work of many, including what we’ve accomplished during the last decade, our economy is diversified and has been able to handle the blow. In fact, the county’s unemployment rate decreased in the months following the announcement, as many employees could find employment elsewhere. There are 4,300 more jobs as of March 2025 compared to March 2024, even after Sumitomo closed.
Our work regarding the Sumitomo closure is not done. We need to find a permanent, economically productive use for the site and not let it rot, as occurred in the 1980s when Bethlehem Steel closed. We also need to ensure that every worker who lost their job is re-employed. And we will.
Speaking of the former Bethlehem Steel site, the County, through our industrial land development corporation, recently awarded a contract to a New Jersey developer to begin the 2nd phase of the Renaissance Commerce Park’s development. This developer - JG Petrucci - has reimagined a former Bethlehem Steel site in Pennsylvania and is ecstatic about this opportunity in Erie County.
More than $100 million of private sector dollars was invested during the first phase of the Commerce Park’s redevelopment and I am very confident a similar investment will occur during the next second phase, resulting in even more new jobs.
At the Agribusiness Park in Evans, we have finalized our master plan, created a new logo and marketing materials, demolished the old airplane hangars on the site, begun construction on the first new road on the property, and already have multiple business interests who are excited about investing at it.
This is all part of our efforts to grow our economy, and it is working.
Our county’s unemployment rate stands at a low 4.2%, and more jobs are coming because multiple projects bringing hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment from the private sector were announced during the past year.
Deckorators, a Michigan-based composite decking company, is investing $77 million to build a new manufacturing and warehouse facility in Lackawanna. The project will bring at least 50 new, good-paying jobs to the region.
West Seneca-based Rosina Food Products will invest another $30 million to expand its manufacturing facility by a third. This will allow it to relocate out-of-state work to Erie County, create 53 new jobs on top of nearly 200 it currently has, and increase its meatball and ravioli production by 20 million pounds annually. Mama Mia, that's a lot of tasty meatballs!
Upstate Niagara Dairy Cooperative will invest $150 million to build a 250,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in West Seneca, thereby creating 130 new jobs on top of its current 240. The facility will support all of its dairy products, including mine and your favorite chip dip for Bills’ games: Bison French Onion Dip.
Agile Cold Storage of Georgia will invest $46 million to construct a 110,000-square-foot facility in West Seneca, meeting the needs of our food production industry and creating 55 new jobs.
In those four projects alone, nearly $400 million of new private sector investment and 288 new jobs are coming to Erie County, and I know more is coming.
The state of our county is strong. We currently have the highest credit rating, AA, and the lowest tax rate in modern history. Our unemployment is low, and companies are moving here to capitalize on our resources, especially our strong workforce and abundant clean water supply. We have more work to do to ensure everyone can capitalize on the new Buffalo, but there is no doubt we have changed our community for the better.
Unfortunately, one very dark cloud could set this all back. I cannot stand before you tonight and ignore the elephant in the room, which is the actions being taken by our president, Elon Musk, and others to reshape our democratic republic, as well as the president’s unjustified attack on Canadian sovereignty and harmful implementation of tariffs.
As we all know, we sit on an international border. Our two great regions of western New York and southern Ontario are socially and economically interdependent in almost every way possible.
For more than 200 years, we have all benefited from this relationship, one based on friendship, trust, and mutual respect.
In less than 90 days, President Trump did more to damage that relationship than anything that has occurred since the War of 1812 by stabbing our Canadian neighbors in the back in his ridiculous call to make Canada our 51st state.
This has led, justifiably so, to Canadians looking elsewhere for vacations, day trips, or investments in our country. Traffic from Canada to the US is down substantially at our local border crossings. It is hurting our regional economies, and I could not stand by and let centuries of goodwill come crashing down because of our president’s actions.
That is why I joined seven other officials, four from Ontario and three from western New York, to form the Niagara 8 and advocate for an end to this harmful trade war and restore the friendly relationship that has always existed between our two great peoples.
As we know, this is not a battle between nations and people. It’s a problem with our president, and we will not sit idly by and let his actions harm our friendship and economies.
I thank my fellow Niagara 8 members for their advocacy and their friendship. We are better and stronger when we are united in our efforts. I ask those that are here today to stand so we may all thank you for your efforts: Niagara Region Chair Jim Bradley, Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop, Niagara Falls, Ontario Mayor Jim Diodati, Niagara-on-the-Lake Mayor Gary Zalepa, Buffalo Mayor Chris Scanlon, Niagara County Chair Rebecca Wydysh, and Niagara Falls, New York Mayor Robert Restaino. Thank you.
George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” History is clear regarding tariffs and trade wars: no one wins in a trade war.
The imposition of tariffs and attack on Canadian sovereignty are just one part of a growing attack on our democratic form of government. It includes the president’s brazen attempt to increase the executive’s power by cutting Congressionally authorized programs.
As the former comptroller who created the whistleblower hotline, I fully support cutting waste, fraud, and abuse from government. However, that is not what the president, Elon Musk, and DOGE are doing. Fiscal responsibility cannot be achieved by dismantling the programs that have created most Americans' economic security and upward mobility.
Yes, the American people voted for change, but did not vote for gutting Medicaid, the health care plan for thirty percent of our county’s citizens.
They did not vote for implementing tariffs against our best friend in Canada, which are hurting our region’s economy.
They did not vote for agents of the government accosting and picking up legal residents, against their will, and shipping them overseas.
They did not vote to dismantle the Department of Education and Head Start, both of which will hurt our children.
They did not vote for attacks on science and cuts to cancer research centers, like UB and Roswell Park, which inevitably will hurt us all.
They did not vote for any of this just to pay for tax cuts for Elon Musk and billionaires.
And they certainly did not vote for the removal of the names of the Tuskegee Airmen, Jackie Robinson, Harriet Tubman, and many others from our government’s account of our nation’s history; nor attacks on the Smithsonian Institution, all under the pretense of ending a “divisive, race-based ideology.”
Which begs the questions, if they did that to end divisive race-based ideology, what else are they going after?
Is the incredibly important and powerful National Museum of African American History and Culture divisive?
Is the Museum’s display of shackles worn by an enslaved person divisive?
Is a reminder in the Smithsonian Museums that many of our founders were also slave owners divisive?
If all these examples fall under the banner of “divisive race-based ideology,” what is acceptable?
Just as important, who gets to determine what is divisive and acceptable?
The museums of the Smithsonian Institution tell the story of America, including all the horrible parts of slavery, the Jim Crow system of racial segregation and discrimination, and modern-day racism.
What is occurring is nothing more than a blatant attempt to rewrite history, to whitewash the past to describe an America that never existed. It is another example of actions taken in autocratic states, not in a democracy.
In a constitutional republic, we can and should have different opinions and debate on the issues. Yet, we should never try to destroy competing viewpoints just because we don’t like or accept them.
As our late, great US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
I cannot stand by and do nothing when the core principles of our republic are at stake. When our democracy is at risk, none of us can remain silent.
That is one reason I directed our county attorney to sue the Trump Administration over its plan to end a grant to help our senior population because we served a diverse population and set of organizations. A lawsuit that resulted in the administration backing down and a small win for our community’s efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I will never refrain from calling out undemocratic, un-American actions, and I will file additional suits, if necessary, to protect our way of life.
Every generation faces a critical test. This is ours. I ask you to join me in standing up to these attacks on our republic because democracy is not a spectator sport.
This is not a political battle over democratic and republican ideals. It is a battle of fundamentally small “D” democratic ideals of preserving equality, justice, protecting individual liberties, and ensuring the rule of law against those who would destroy them.
History reminds us when we stand back and hope others will speak out against unjust actions taken towards minority groups and marginalized peoples, eventually they will come for you, and there will be no one left to speak for you.
We have worked hard to ensure that Erie County serves all its residents, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and everyone in between. With your help, I have faith that we will continue to pursue the promise of democracy and freedom together for the betterment of our county and country.
Please don’t stand on the sidelines and hope things turn out well. Your fellow citizens and your country need you.
Thank you and may God grant us the wisdom and strength to do what is right.