ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (WIVB) – A new complaint filed with a state ethics panel accuses Governor Kathy Hochul and leaders in the Assembly of abusing their power when attending a Bills home game last season.
Governor Kathy Hochul was joined by Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and the Speaker of the Assembly Carl Heastie.
That complaint has been filed with the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government.
The Governor posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that she was in attendance at the game along side the majority leader and the speaker when the Bills played the Dallas Cowboys in December.
The three were in the state’s “I Love New York” suite, which is through Empire State Development. But a former state lobbying regulator says the elected officials abused their power.
“That box is not there for politicians to use at their whim and to bring their friends and lobbyists that they happened to be lifelong friends with to games,” said David Grandeau, the former executive director of New York State’s Commission on Lobbying.
Grandeau filed the ethics complaint. He believes the elected officials attending the game in the suite with the lobbyists is a violation of Public Officer’s Law on both actual and apparent conflicts of interest. One of the lobbyists who attended is a former aide of Speaker Heastie.
Those lobbyists are Kathleen Achibar-Boyd, Patrick Jenkins and Rebecca Lamorte.
“It just showed a glaring lack of respect for the taxpayers,” Grandeau said.
The “I Love New York” suite is used, in part, to promote economic development and tourism. For the game against the Cowboys, a state spokesperson says the assembly requested to use the suite which the state granted as a courtesy. Speaker Heastie is a Cowboys fan.
Suite guidelines, established in 2015, say state officials and employees are charged for a ticket. In this case, the state says the Bills determined the value of a ticket to be $177 and that the governor, speaker and majority leader wrote checks to the charity of their choice, with the governor giving $531 to FeedMore Western New York.
“If indeed this was official state business that they were there for then, there’s no need to make a charitable contribution,” Grandeau said, “The governor doesn’t make a charitable contribution when she uses the state helicopter to fly from Albany to do a press conference.”
State rules also say there’s nothing prohibiting elected officials from being with lobbyists in the suite.
“The governor of the State of New York is sitting there, she sees the speaker’s brought a lobbyist, several lobbyists to the game, she sees whether the speaker is using the box for its intended purpose either charitable or business development, why didn’t she say something? See something, say something,” Grandeau said.
The Governor’s Office says she met with the Amherst Chamber of Commerce and local officials to discuss infrastructure and the economy.
“Maybe you need to be in the game watching your home team crush the Cowboys to really understand how to get business development done,” Grandeau said, “I don’t blame the elected officials, they don’t know any better, they can’t help themselves, I blame the ethics agency that’s supposed to be the cop on the beat.”
The last enforcement action the ethics board took was nearly two years ago.
Of the 11 home games the Bills had last season including regular season and playoffs, Governor Hochul used the “I Love NY” suite four times, with Bill Hochul, her husband being the governor’s guest. They attended games against the Raiders, Giants, Cowboys and the Wild Card Game against the Steelers. News 4 also reached out to the majority leader and the speaker but did not hear back.
A spokesperson for the state says in the new stadium the state won’t have a private suite, even though it will own the stadium, but Erie County will have a private suite.
Jeff Preval is an award-winning anchor and reporter who joined the News 4 team in December 2021. See more of his work here.