“Governor Cuomo made a commitment to the people of the City of Niagara Falls guaranteeing the advancement of the casino revenue owed to the City, and directed his administration to send a letter confirming this commitment, which has been provided to council.

Councilman Ken Tompkins is grandstanding in a gubernatorial election year for his Republican party bosses.

If he is serious about not using casino revenue in the 2019 budget, then he should present the administration with a list of layoffs and necessary tax increase to compensate for the loss of those revenues. While the administration shares the council’s objectives of reducing the use of casino revenues in the general fund over time, to try to do so in a single budget cycle would have catastrophic results.

Councilman Tompkins owes it to our brave first responders and tireless public works employees to look them in the eye and explain that he would prefer to play partisan politics with their livelihoods rather than do his job.”