ALBANY – Crystal Peoples-Stokes is the second most powerful lawmaker in the State Assembly and a longtime backer of the Buffalo Bills.
“I’m a die-hard fan,’’ Peoples-Stokes said last week, a line she uses whenever the subject of the Buffalo Bills comes up.
As talk of a new stadium swirls again, Peoples-Stokes makes it clear: She would love to see a new facility built in downtown Buffalo, her city. But she is also on board with the Pegula Sports & Entertainment plan to build a new stadium next to the Bills’ longtime home in Orchard Park.
What’s she’s not OK with is what she has been told about the negotiations: an ask by the Pegula company for a 100% taxpayer-financed stadium.
“Because the amount is so large, it seems like a non-starter,’’ Peoples-Stokes said last week in an interview.
The public will have to pay some portion of a new stadium project, she believes, because the stadium would be, like the existing one, county-owned and one she believes is a taxpayer resource with a healthy return on the investment for the state and county.
“But, it certainly should not be 100%,’’ she said.
Lawmakers don’t have a specific seat at the negotiating table, but they are likely going to have to be willing to approve – for years to come – annual state budgets that will, if the Buffalo Bills have their way, include payments of some kind for a new NFL stadium. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, in a private meeting at the executive mansion in Albany in early June, brought up a number of big projects in the Buffalo area, including the Pegula stadium proposal, though it was not a formal presentation of the team’s plan.
