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Bills anxious for stadium funding

The Buffalo Bills are frustrated, and it has nothing to do with recent headline-grabbing events involving the Bills-in-Toronto series or the controversial Terrell Owens signing.
The Bills are fed up with the ongoing Erie County financial flap that has stalled more than a year and a half’s worth of county-funded stadium improvements at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
At issue are about $2.9 million in improvements the county is obligated to fund each year under its lease with the Bills.
It’s early spring, the traditional launch of the construction season, but no huge repair crews are poised to descend on the stadium, less than five months before the Bills host two preseason games in August.
None of this year’s $2.9 million in improvements has gone past the wish-list stage. And the Bills still are waiting for almost $2 million worth of capital improvements — that were supposed to be done last year.
The Bills insist they’re frustrated, not angry. They’ve talked with all the parties involved, and they’re not mad at any one person. They’re just fed up with the situation.
An ongoing dispute between the county and its state-appointed control board has stalled the selling of about $89 million worth of bonds for capital-improvement projects across the county.
“We’ve talked with the control board,” Bills Treasurer Jeffrey C. Littmann said. “We’ve talked with the comptroller. We’ve talked with the county executive. They’re all supportive. They all understand. This is not a Bills issue. This is a county issue, and we’re caught up in it.”
As Littmann pointed out in two phone interviews while he was in California for National Football League meetings, the Bills are hardly alone waiting for capital improvement projects.
Also being held hostage on this list, county officials say, are road and bridge work throughout the county, replacing the Erie County Holding Center roof, roof repairs at the county correctional facility in Alden and capital improvements at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center, the Botanical Gardens and all three Erie Community College campuses.
“There have been a lot of independent third parties that have been impacted by this,” County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz said.

By Gene Warner, Staff Reporter
Courtesy The Buffalo News