Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Thursday saw a special informational meeting held in legislative chambers of the Erie County Legislature, as local lawmakers were seeking more information regarding the status of asylum seekers currently housed in Erie County.
Among the several questions discussed on Thursday among legislators included any county dollars being spent on migrants and services for those seeking asylum, law enforcement services responding to calls regarding migrants, the vaccination of migrant children attending schools in Erie County and more.
"Back in May, our caucus, the Minority Caucus, put a resolution in the Legislature to declare a state of emergency on this same issue. If we had done that back then, we could have had these meetings and this probably would have gone away. But we couldn't get it passed, the other side of the aisle decided that wasn't appropriate, and they went along with the County Executive [Mark Poloncarz]," said Legislature Minority Leader John Mills following Thursday's meeting. "That's why we're here today: To get more information on what should not have happened had we been prepared back in May with a resolution."
While some lawmakers and other officials still do not consider this matter a crisis in Erie County, those in the Republican Caucus of the Legislature have not felt any differently since the day migrants began arriving to the region.
"It's too many facets from health, inoculations of children going to our schools, to public safety. That's the biggest thing that's going on here is public safety. They were brought in, they were not vetted properly with our local officials - our Sheriff's [Office], our local police organizations," Mills said. "Some of the things that people really are concerned about in Erie County is getting the kids to soccer practice, getting the roads plowed, roadwork done, and public safety, and we took away public safety by bringing migrants in the way they came into our county. That's inappropriate, and it's outrageous."
While plenty of questions and topics were addressed by county administration, service representatives serving the migrants, as well as Erie County law enforcement, there were still come parties that did not attend Thursday meeting that lawmakers were hoping would be on-hand. That is why Mills is hoping there will be another similar informational meeting next week Thursday in the hopes those other people will provide more answers.
"We didn't get all the participants here, including DocGo. And the DA wasn't here, we had questions for the DA. And the school systems, there were questions there that weren't answered. And Chief of Police Gould from Cheektowaga, he had the biggest input for public safety, and he was not here either, and said he wasn't invited. So it's a mess, and my constituents that I represent are really concerned about this issue," Mills said.
"Today's four months to the day since I held the press conference outside to try and be proactive, and deal with this crisis that's come across the country. What's here is not a surprise," added Erie County Legislator Jim Malczewski. "The disappointing part about today is the major players were not here: DocGo, the District Attorney, and County Executive. Those are three major players in this that could have put a stop to this, and we wouldn't be standing here today if they would have acted four months ago when I called it out."
The biggest takeaway from Thursday's informational meeting from Legislature Majority Leader Tim Meyers is there's no county dollars currently being spent on the asylum seekers, for the exception of two incarcerated individuals in the Erie County Holding Center.
According to Erie County Sheriff John Garcia, it has cost the county around $50,000 to house both incarcerated migrants since their arrests in August, and those numbers continue to mount. However, Meyers is looking to help take a step in the direction to help get the county that money back from the federal level.
"I'm introducing a resolution, they're going to have the opportunity to encourage the federal government to pick up that bill," said Meyers after Thursday's meeting. "I've said all along it should not be state dollar spent, should not be local dollars. The federal government opened the border, they should be picking up the tab."
When it comes to the current state of the migrant issue in Erie County, Meyers believes the talk of a crisis is generated based off the upcoming election season. While he does acknowledge there are problems after an unforeseen expectation for what this situation would bring to the county, he believes there has been plenty of learning from everyone on the fly and the situation has improved.
However, one of Meyers' biggest criticisms of this issue has been a lack of communication between New York City, local hotels and local law enforcement when the migrants were coming to Erie County.
"We heard about this, that the Sheriff's department was not notified, the Cheektowaga Police were not notified. We may not like that, we may not like that answer, but what can we do about that? The fact remains the court deems there was free commerce between New York City and these hotels. I guess the dialogue has to be with New York City and see if they're willing to give us any kind of heads up or anything like that, but it was not our decision. We did not do that. We did not facilitate these people," Meyers said.
When it comes to a potential informational meeting next Thursday, Meyers seemed in support of calling another meeting to order, and is hopeful to hear from others, including representatives from DocGo. However, he's not too encouraged about anyone from DocGo being in attendance.
"I don't think they'll make it, but we'd love to see them," he said. "I personally reached out to the Maryvale School Superintendent, we reached out to the School Superintendents Association hoping they would be here. We'll ask them again, that's all we can do. I don't know if we have subpoena powers, but if we do, we may have to go that route."
More from Thursday's informational meeting of the Erie County Legislature is available in the player below: