BUFFALO (WBEN) - On Tuesday afternoon, Congressman Tom Reed held his second press conference this month regarding the state of the I-90 that goes through Seneca Nation. The press conference took place just minutes before Reed walked into the US attorney's office to hand-deliver a letter addressed to Attorney General William Barr, requesting that the Department of Justice open an investigation into Governor Cuomo's office about the ordeal.
Right now: @TomReedCongress has written a letter to AG William Barr asking the DOJ to investigate the @NYGovCuomo administration for “misuse of federal funds, (and) the abuse of power” in regard to the poor condition of the I-90 that runs through Seneca Nation. @NewsRadio930 pic.twitter.com/Xcx9AfsVqG
— Brendan Keany (@BrendanKeany)
August 27, 2019 "We are asking the Department of Justice to investigate this potential misuse of dollars that have been rightfully allocated to this interstate at the federal level, (which) have not been deployed to fix this road," said Reed. "Potentially, an abuse of power by the governor in regards to not taking care of the traveling public because he is involved in some type of political leveraging scheme in regards to the Seneca Nation gaming revenue dispute issue."
Last week, Cuomo said that New York State hasn't come in to fix the road because they need to play everything extremely carefully with the Senecas as the dispute continues.
"On I-90, which is part of this disagreement, we've said to them years ago that, 'We would come in; we would fix I-90, and we will do it tomorrow - the road is in disrepair - we will do it,'" said Cuomo. "They are being, I believe, holding I-90 and the repair of I-90 as part of the larger dispute, which is the revenue that's on the table, which, as I've said, is tens of millions of dollars...I don't want to give them a reason to say New York breached the agreement by coming on to I-90 when they had no right to come on to I-90. That could actually jeopardize our position on the revenues, and if you talk to the local governments that need the revenues desperately, what they would say to you is don't give the Senecas an excuse where New York is in violation, and give them that excuse not to pay that money that they owe the local governments."
To which Seneca Nation President Ricky Armstrong responded:
“The Compact arbitration and the New York State Thruway should be two separate issues, but the Governor’s comments make it very clear that he is holding one issue hostage to the other. The only reason that the State repeatedly turns a blind eye to its obligation to repair the deteriorating condition of the portion of Thruway crossing our Cattaraugus Territory is pure, simple political retribution. He’s playing politics with the safety of the traveling public. There are processes related to the Compact that cannot be ignored, as much as the State may want to ignore them.”
Reed agrees with Armstrong on this front, and he also wants to know where the federally allocated resources for the road, which Reed says should be $10-plus million.
