Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Buffalo Common Council members and New York Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes are urging the state to pass the Buffalo Parking Authority and hotel property tax bills, both included in the proposed 2025-26 budget.
Council Member Everhart explains that if the bills don't pass, the city is going to have to make cuts that will directly impact the residents.
"Those cuts are always to the communities who need it the most. We're going to be honest about that. Then it's going to hit user fees, and then it's going to hit streets and sanitation. Our streets are already terrible. Let us all be honest. We need these workers on the streets. We don't need to cut their jobs. We don't need to cut services. Organizations that support our community, all that funding is going to come back," stated Everhart.
Everhart says in order to Buffalo to recover from the past, everyone needs to start moving forward together.
"I wasn't here in the past, I was not here. I've been here for a year, but I'm at this table now, and we got to fix it. Yes, there's a lot of blame to go around. We can sit here all day, and I got a lot to say about it, but we don't have that type of time. The city is in trouble. We all need to sit at the same table and solve this problem and talk the same language," explained Everhart.
Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope says the Council would be forced to consider raising the property tax levy well beyond the proposed 8%.
"Our city budget right now is a proposal of 8% increase or property taxes. That's a lot for some people in our district as it is, that's half a percentage more than it was last year. If we don't have this parking authority included in the budget, that could be an increase to 30% on property tax. That's not acceptable to me," stated Halton-Pope. "If you don't want to do the bed tax right now, I'm not going to fight you on it. I'd like to see it done. That's that's $3.4 million. But $26 million in a parking authority, that's going to equal $30 million of people who don't have jobs anymore, if we don't think this one through."
Peoples-Stokes says neither of the bills pose any financial risk for the residents, or the state.
"All they need is approval by the state to do what they need to do to fix their budget. Now, there are a lot of reasons why people can complain about why it happened, but that's not the issue right now. The issue is now, how do we fix it? And we're not fixing it for political reasons. We're fixing it because the residents who live here and the businesses that operate within our community deserve that opportunity for somebody to fight for them," stated Peoples-Stokes.