Buffalo Lawmaker Wants to Squeeze Senecas

A councilman with guts. LoCurto knows the deal with the Senecas is a bad one for the city.

The dispute over gaming rights between the state and the Seneca Nation is causing pain in Niagara Falls but the financial impact in Buffalo is much less severe. Nonetheless, there are some rumblings in Buffalo about the casino as construction is under way on a new facility in the Queen City.

The Seneca Nation has been withholding slot revenue payments to the state since 2009 in the dispute, and as a result the state has not forwarded any casino cash to the host municipalities of Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and Salamanca since the exclusivity battle began, a dispute now in arbitration.

By the numbers, Niagara Falls is taking the biggest hit in lost revenue, down close to $60 million in slot payments since 2009, and there is plenty of talk about the negative impact on local taxpaying business of the Seneca tax free gambling-hotel-restaurant complex of downtown property.

In Buffalo, the city is down between $7 million and $10 million in casino revenue, a much less impact on its budget than Niagara Falls. Nonetheless, Councilman Michael LoCurto says the Seneca Gaming Corporation has not delivered on jobs it promised, on marketing of the casino as a tourist destination, and on infrastructure improvements costing between $5 million and $7 million it promised within six months of opening in 2007.

“Enough is enough,” LoCurto told the Reporter. “It has been six years and they haven’t done anything. They didn’t market the city, they didn’t market outside the region….It is just slot machines and they are sucking up money that otherwise would be spent at [local] businesses in general.

“We’ve invited them to the council but they don’t come.”

LoCurto filed a resolution calling on the City Law Department to “initiate steps to rescind the contract, to reclaim the City land that was transferred, to cease providing water and sewer services to the site, and to be made whole for damages and costs that the City has sustained and for the unjust enrichment Senecas obtained.”

Sound familiar? Only a few weeks ago, a desperate Niagara Falls mayor, Paul Dyster, threatened to cut off fire protection to the casino because of the failure of the Seneca Nation to deliver on its financial commitment to the city.

In Buffalo, there is less consternation by elected officials and neither Council President Rich Fontana nor Mayor Byron Brown seem likely to give any push to LoCurto’s resolution, meaning it probably is destined for committee assignment.

“The matter [gaming dispute] should be taken care of by the parties,” Fontana told the Reporter. “The Senecas should adhere to their agreement but these are just [gambling] opponents talking up now,” he said, a reference to the LoCurto resolution.
Fontana said the casino is not all-consuming and is not the competition to local businesses posed by the sprawling tax free complex in Niagara Falls.

“If you’re anti-casino, why are you complaining about a casino that is too small?,” he said.

The council leader said there should be talks between the Senecas and the city but shutting off utilities is not the way to go: “We don’t do that to people for not paying,”

The Senecas have broken ground on a new casino at Perry Street and Michigan Avenue which will be scaled down from the original plan but, by their description, a “state of the art” facility. Mayor Brown says he wants to see the development be successful, creating jobs for people in Buffalo. Opponents have continued to voice their displeasure, saying the new facility will attract mostly local visitors and create fewer jobs.

The city received $650,000 from the Senecas for Fulton Street property.