BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and City of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown appear to be at odds over the city's response to last weekend's blizzard.
During a winter storm update Wednesday morning, Poloncarz was asked about coordination issues between the county and the city as they respond to the blizzard.
According to Poloncarz, the city has generally not been on elected officials' calls each morning, and "there is a reason why the state and the county have come in and taken over operations. I know the mayor is not going to be happy to hear it, but, we took over an entire segment, one-third of the City of Buffalo because we know that we could get in there and clean it very quickly."
Poloncarz continued on to say that he has had discussions with his staff and New York State on what it would take for the county to take over all snow-cleaning operations in the future.
"Because I think it's apparent that it's time for it to happen or at least a discussion on the future. The mayor is not going to be happy to hear about it, but storm after storm, after storm, after storm, the city unfortunately is the last one to be opened and that shouldn't be the case. It's embarrassing," said Poloncarz.
Later in the press conference, in response to another question, Poloncarz responded: "I just don't want to see this anymore, I'm sick of it, I'm a city resident myself. I live in the City of Buffalo and it pains me to see the other 25 towns and two small cities opened in times when the city isn't."
As the county's update ended, the city held a winter storm update of its own, and reporters brought questions on the remarks by the county executive to Mayor Brown.
"I did not hear the county executive's news briefing. I can say this, people have been working around the clock since the beginning of this storm, some people handle that pressure a lot differently. Some keep working, some keep trying to help the residents of our community, and some break down and lash out. So, don't really know what the county executive is talking about, I do know that the storm conditions in the City of Buffalo were the most adverse in all of Erie County, in all of Western New York," the mayor responded.
In response to the city not being present at elected officials' calls, the mayor said "the city has been in the emergency operations center. We have had police personnel. We have had fire personnel in the emergency operations center. We have coordinated conversations with the county... So we have been involved in briefings, we have been involved in conversations."
Brown continued on to say that the weight of the responsibility for the city falls on city officials, "so I don't know where those comments are coming from. Again, this has been stressful. People have been working around the clock, people have been working without sleep, and I'm just going to chalk it up to someone feeling that pressure and crumbling a little bit under it," said Brown.
Later in the press conference, in response to another question, Brown responded: "Again, I did not hear the county executive's briefing. I've talked to him many times during this storm. He's called me, I've called him. He has never once directly, county executive to mayor, said any of these things to me. So, to say that during a news briefing is a little strange, it's a little odd, I don't know where that comes from."