Niagara County, N.Y. (WBEN) With so much focus on Erie County's decision making policies during the pandemic, we looked north to see how a neighboring county is dealing with restrictions, mandates and policies.
Unlike Erie County, Niagara County is no longer operating under a state of emergency. Legislature chair Rebecca Wydysh does not have emergency powers.
On WBEN Tuesday morning, she was asked if not having those powers has limited her in any way of doing what was needed during this pandemic?
"Absolutely not," she said. "We did away with our state of emergency last Summer at the same time that the state ended theirs. We haven't seen any difference," she added.
Niagara County is somewhat different from Erie County, in that it does not have a County Executive. "We are a body of consensus," said Wydysh. "We have 15 legislators, and as chairman I'm considered the chief elected official for the county. But when it comes to policy making I have no more voting power than the 14 other legislators."
The state of emergency and the additional powers Wydysh held, were very necessary in the early stages of the pandemic, she said, when things were so uncertain. "We were seeing executive orders come down from the state on a daily basis. And we had to react to them very, very quickly." Wydysh also held daily, or weekly Covid briefings.
Now, she says, it's a different time. "We have never had a situation where I needed to act on my own so quickly that we couldn't get the legislature together to vote as a group."
Asked whether a state of emergency is necessary to open up federal disaster funds for a municipality, Wydysh said Niagara County kept the emergency, as long as the state did, for that reason.
"We wanted to make sure that we were eligible for any funding that came along and to be able to get shipments of PPE that were coming in from the state and federal government. "We've been in close consultation with the emergency services director and we don't think there is any reason to have that in place any longer," she said.
Niagara County is not currently under any local mandates. It is abiding by the mask mandate, enacted by the state.
