New York state Assemblyman Joseph M. Giglio is complaining about the lack of progress in negotiations between Governor Kathy Hochul and the Seneca Nation on a new 20-year gaming compact, which is hoped will be in place when the current compact expires December 9.
The two sides had announced an agreement in principle in June, but the leaders of the Assembly refused to schedule a required vote to authorize Hochul to sign the compact, after Rochester-area politicians and officials complained that the new compact included a Rochester casino to be built by the Senecas.
The state Senate had approved the compact negotiated by the Senecas and state officials before the flap arose about a Seneca-owned casino.
In a statement issued September 21, Seneca Nation President Rickey Armstrong Sr. said, “Securing a fair compact is our highest priority, and I look forward to having more direct dialogue with the state. We have less than 90 days before our compact expires. The economic impacts and benefits of our negotiations are monumental, not just for the Seneca people, but for our thousands of employees, business partners, and all of Western New York. Time is of the essence.”
The Seneca Nation currently pays 25 percent of the revenue from slot machines to New York state, which returns a portion of those funds to Western New York municipalities impacted by the casinos — in Salamanca, Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
“I haven’t heard anything at all,” Giglio said in a telephone interview with the Olean Times Herald. “That’s what makes me a little nervous. They are running against the clock. I can’t say for sure that nothing is going on, but they are running out of time.”
