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Twenty state Democratic lawmakers from New York City told Gov. Kathy Hochul they oppose the $850 million public subsidy for a new Buffalo Bills stadium, calling it a “giveaway” of taxpayer dollars.
“This proposal, negotiated in secret and only announced days before the final budget is due, would represent the largest public subsidy to an NFL team in history, reportedly amounting to a total commitment of over $1 billion in public funding,” said the Friday letter sent to Hochul by Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) and signed by 19 others.
“Rather than providing deep economic investment, this proposal is a giveaway to Bills’ owner Terry Pegula, an individual who already has $5.8 billion in net worth. In contrast to the more than $1 billion demanded of public money, Pegula has reportedly committed only $350 million to the stadium (and even this has been questioned by economists).”
The legislators also complained the National Football League — an entity that is valued at $112 billion — is reported to have committed only $200 million for stadium construction through a loan.
“Buffalo is in need of significant economic revitalization that cannot be achieved through a billionaire giveaway,” the legislators said in the letter.
Co-signers of the letter include Sens. Jabari Brisport (D-Brooklyn), Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn), Alessandra Biaggi (D-Bronx), and Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx).
Assembly endorsers aside from Mamdani include Ron Kim (D-Queens), Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas (D-Queens, Emily Gallagher (D-Brooklyn), Karines Reyes and Nathalia Fernandez of The Bronx and Yuh-Line Niou (D-Manhattan).
Meanwhile, city Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who is challenging Hochul in the Democratic primary for governor, also trashed the stadium deal as too costly and said the subsidy is better spent on aiding Buffalo. The planned new stadium would be built in suburban Orchard Park, where the current stadium is located, not in Buffalo.
Williams said the state should spend a “better billion” in the City of Buffalo than “gifting multimillionaires and billionaires.”
‘A billion dollars of state investment in Buffalo could help fundamentally transform education, health care, or housing. A billion dollars aimed not at the new stadium but at the small local businesses in the surrounding blocks could revitalize a neighborhood, a
community, a city. Funding truly affordable housing creation and preservation, supporting and strengthening schools, creating youth jobs, and establishing child care supports and infrastructure could provide immediate relief and long-term investments in affordability and growth,” Williams said in an op-ed published in the Albany Times Union.
The Post previously reported criticism from sports stadium and legal experts that Hochul failed to use her leverage to negotiate a better deal for taxpayers and noted that Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula reside in Boca Raton, Fla., not New York.
Hochul, through a spokesperson, defended the Bills’ stadium deal.
“The Bills franchise is a proven economic driver, and the economic and tax impacts generated from the team will support more than 100 percent of the public share of the new stadium. This agreement secures the Bills’ long term future for decades to come while putting to work thousands of union workers in what will be the largest construction project in Western New York history,” the Hochul rep said.
Hochul announced Tuesday that the state reached a resolution with the Seneca Nation and received $564 million in funds that was owed to the state and local governments as part of a casino compact. She said much of that money will be used to finance New York’s share of the stadium deal.
But Seneca of Nation president Matthew Paget blasted Hochul and noted that her husband Bill Hochul’s firm, Delaware North, the food concessionaire at the current Bills facility, stands to benefit from a new stadium.
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