By Denise Jewell Gee
The lease that governs Erie County’s relationship with the Buffalo Bills is nearly four inches thick and made up of 35 intertwined documents.
County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz said Tuesday he plans to hire a private attorney who can learn the agreement inside out before his administration starts serious discussions over Ralph Wilson Stadium.
“I think it’s important to have individuals with the experience that’s necessary to go in there and negotiate these very complicated contracts,” Poloncarz said. “Anybody who is going to negotiate on behalf of Erie County is going to have to take a look at this book and basically know it by heart before they enter into negotiations with the Buffalo Bills.”
Poloncarz, in one of his first actions since taking office Sunday, signed an executive order Tuesday that directed his new county attorney, Michael Siragusa, to issue a formal “request for proposals” within 60 days for special counsel to support the county in its lease negotiations over the county-owned stadium.
He would like to see a deal done well before the existing contract expires in July 2013.
“Their season ended; they have one more year on their lease,” Poloncarz said of the Bills. “I want to ensure that by the end of this year that we have a new lease in place, and to do that we have to move ahead now.”
Poloncarz hopes to have the county’s attorneys on board by the time Populous, an architectural firm hired by the Bills to study the stadium, completes its review of the facility. That study is still in progress, said Bills spokesman Scott Berchtold.
The cost of hiring outside attorneys for the county has not yet been determined, but Poloncarz said it would likely be paid through a county fund set aside for legal fees. Hourly rates and experience, he said, will be considered when the proposals are reviewed.
Whether the private attorney will serve as chief negotiator for the county in the lease talks will still need to be “hammered out,” Poloncarz said. He noted that all three entities — the county, state and the Buffalo Bills — brought on outside counsel when the lease was last negotiated in 1998.
The county at that time hired the law firm Hodgson Russ to handle negotiations.
The existing contract, a 15-year deal, included $63.2 million in state-funded stadium upgrades, plus other annual payments from Erie County. This year, the county is budgeted to pay $2.9 million for capital improvements at the stadium and $4.4 million for game-day expenses.
Berchtold said Poloncarz had an introductory meeting with Bills CEO Russ Brandon after the November election.
Poloncarz said he has also had initial discussions with the state in preparation for formal negotiations. The state economic development agency, Empire State Development Corp., is a party to the existing lease agreement.
Poloncarz, a Democrat who replaced former County Executive Chris Collins, said the county currently has positions for 13 lawyers within the County Attorney’s Office. The office, he said, once had 25.
“I simply don’t have the staff on a day-to-day basis to go in there and negotiate a document or documents like this,” Poloncarz said.
The new county executive has made his own changes to the County Attorney’s Office in recent days. Of the 13 attorney positions, six are holdovers from the Collins administration and six are new hires, including Siragusa. One position is vacant, Poloncarz said.
The directive to issue a request for proposals for outside counsel for the Bills negotiations was one of five executive orders Poloncarz signed Tuesday. The others included:
* Directing the commissioner of the Department of Social Services, the County Attorney’s Office and the County Comptroller’s Office to recommend “methods and procedures” to create a Medicaid Anti-Fraud Task Force.
The task force, he said, would focus on investigating providers of Medicaid services — from those handling transportation to pharmacists — for potential fraud.
“I think in the long run it could save millions,” Poloncarz said.
* Ordering all employees — including commissioners and deputy commissioners — to use the county’s swipe-card timekeeping system.
* Directing the director of the county’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office to review and update the county’s affirmative action manual. Poloncarz said the manual has not been updated since 1981.
* Ordering the county attorney to create a report on the county’s use of outside legal counsel in recent years, including recommendations for any changes in current representation.
Signing the executive orders was largely symbolic. The five actions are directives the county executive typically could undertake without a formal order.
“It’s important that the public knows what we’re doing here,” Poloncarz said. “These orders will be available on the website, as well, so the public understands what’s going on.”
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/erie-county/article694600.ece