Buffalo, N.Y (WBEN) - It was an eventful first legislative session for Erie County legislators on Thursday. However, one item that was supposed to be set on the agenda was tabled and that was the vote on the new Buffalo Bills stadium's mandatory state environmental quality review (SEQR).
Presented to the legislators last month, this lengthy and thorough review was supposed to be voted on by legislators to continue the process that will eventually lead to the construction of the new Buffalo Bills stadium.
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Erie County Legislative Chair April Baskin says they need a little more time with their reviewing process as the deadly Buffalo blizzard took precedent, "I think the leadership here in Buffalo and Erie County was definitely focused on recovery initiatives focused around the blizzard in the last week or so. This stadium deal is the biggest infrastructure deal locally, of our generation and so the fact that it is not necessarily always on the time frame that we set, to me, is to be expected. I want us to do this right, because we only get one chance to do it right."
Legislator Baskin says that more documents are on the way from the Buffalo Bills, "They're ready to send us more documents so that we can get closer to finalizing a deal, which I'm excited about, the opportunity to review those documents and hopefully get us to a place where we finally officially secure them as our hometown team for the next 30 years. But, it's a process and we're going through that process slowly because we want to use wisdom and we want to do it right."
The legislator also says that that all parties seem to be in sync in terms of effective communicating and negotiating, "Lines of communication are open. The attorneys that are negotiating on behalf of the state, the county and the Bills are doing their job. The county executive has been astute and on top of things, keeping lines of communication open with myself. We're on the right track here, but we cannot rush this and I don't advise anybody to try to rush it because I'm not in favor of doing that. So if we get to another two weeks, and we're still not at a place where we're ready to approve documents, that's okay."
The New York State Department of Transportation sent their thoughts and questions to the legislators recently, according to Baskin and that all the legislators is giving this review more than just a once lookover.
Going forward, there is much left to approve for legislators before construction begins, including finalizing the community benefits agreement, "The SEQR is just one part of many parts of the deal. We still have to do a land transfer, we still have the construction coordinating agreement, we still have the community benefits agreement. So we have other agreements, just like the SEQR, that we will have to review and then approve," Legislator Baskin said.