We firmly believe that elected officials should serve, and not rule. We are strongly opposed to County Executive Mark Poloncarz’s continued reliance on New York State Executive Law, Section 24-1, to extend Erie County’s state of emergency every 30 days. Utilizing this provision in state law to declare, without the consent of the Legislative Branch, a state of emergency has allowed County Executive Mark Poloncarz to suspend local laws, ordinances, regulations and promulgate his own. The same provision of law requires that the emergency declaration shall not exceed 30 days, but it also grants the County Executive the ability to promulgate orders related to the emergency for 5 day periods. He can and has extended both for nearly two years.

We believe the 30 day limit the law places on the length of the extension, and the 5 day limit on promulgating orders, was intended to restrict the usage of this provision as a temporary measure to control or manage a temporary situation or emergency. County Executive Poloncarz has utilized this provision to extend this temporary emergency disaster declaration, along with the special powers it grants him, since March 15, 2020.

To clarify, the Erie County Legislature has never granted this authority to County Executive Mark Poloncarz. He has declared it himself every 30 and 5 days for almost two years. Also, the power to revoke the emergency powers rests with both houses of the New York State Legislature, not the Erie County Legislature. New York State Executive Law Section 24-8 provides that “the legislature may terminate by concurrent resolution, such emergency orders at any time.” The word concurrent dictates that both houses, the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly, would have to pass a measure terminating his authority.

Today, we introduced a resolution into the Erie County Legislature that would call on the Western New York Delegation to the New York State Senate and Assembly to introduce and pass a resolution that revokes the emergency order declared by County Executive Poloncarz, which would return the authority he has seized back to the people’s elected representatives in the Erie County Legislature. It is our belief that the presence of COVID19 in our community is no longer temporary and no longer constitutes an emergency.  It is a reality that we must live and deal with. We believe that many of the restrictions put in place to manage COVID19 hurt small businesses and families we are elected to serve. We believe that all measures to manage COVID19 in our community should be proposed by qualified public health officials and that the merits of their suggestions should be afforded a proper debate in the Erie County Legislature. Ratification of any restriction or proposal should require a majority vote of the Erie County Legislature. The framers of the Constitution never intended for any situation to render the people’s branch obsolete for almost two years, and our colleagues in the Democratic Caucus should join us in opposing the tyranny it has caused.

A PDF of the statement and resolution has been attached. Every emergency order declaration the County Executive has filed since March 2020 can be found here in a PDF. The file totals 1244 pages of emergency orders.