‘Culture of corruption’ calls dog WROTB for 35 years

That’s been regardless of which party has been in power in Albany.

Now, as members of the mayor’s own Democratic Party call to reform of a “culture of corruption,” one Western New York Republican pointed out the blame right back at Brown.

“The ‘culture of corruption’ is actually the way that Erie County and the City of Buffalo have rigged the Western Regional OTB board,” State Sen. George M. Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, said via an emailed statement to The Buffalo News.

WROTB, in existence since 1973, oversees OTB betting sites, as well as the Batavia Downs racing and casino resort, which have pumped more than $240 million into 15 counties, including the state’s eight most western counties and the cities of Buffalo and Rochester. According to Borrello, Batavia Downs was the “only profitable entity in the entire WROTB,” which he credited to the support afforded it by the City of Batavia and Genesee County, as well as the leadership of outgoing president and CEO Henry Wojtaszek.

He slammed Brown’s appointment as political, and all but predicted doom for WROTB under his potential watch.

“A lot hangs in the balance now with this winning team being replaced with political patronage jobs,” said Borrello, who owns restaurants in Sunset Bay.

“Henry and his team ran all of the operations, including concessions, restaurant and banquet services. As someone who has been in the hospitality business for decades, I can tell you that is no easy feat. If the new leadership decides to turn those operations over to a third party, I suspect that Batavia Downs will also become a liability instead of an assets. We will see the true ‘culture of corruption’ going forward if the Western Regional OTB now starts bleeding red ink.”

Sen. Patrick Gallivan, R-Elma, congratulated Brown on the selection.

“If he chooses to accept the offer, I am hopeful he will work with the board to continue to grow revenues that benefit 15 counties and two cities in our region,” Gallivan said. “I also encourage him to continue, in concert with the WROTB Board of Directors, the effective and responsible management of the agency.”

On Thursday, in a closed-door meeting in Batavia, the 17-member WROTB board voted to select Brown, who was elected Buffalo mayor in 2005, the longest-serving Buffalo mayor and first Black person to hold the position.

If Brown accepts the position, he will succeed Wojtaszek. Last month, State Sen. Sean Ryan, D-Buffalo, and Assembly Member Monica Wallace, D-Lancaster, asked Attorney General Letitia James and Inspector General Lucy Lang to review the combined $508,000 in so-called golden parachutes given to Wojtaszek, WROTB Chief Financial Officer Jacquelyne Leach and William White, vice president of administration, contending they violated the state’s Severance Pay Limitation Act, which limits severance for at-will employees of New York public authorities to no more than three months of pay.

Ryan, considered a possible candidate to replace Brown should the mayor’s departure be finalized, Thursday said that if Brown assumes the leadership of WROTB, he should start off by rescinding the severance packages to the trio of officials.

“It is my hope that he will commit to cleaning up the culture of corruption that has defined our local OTB for many years now,” Ryan stated.

WROTB has long been dogged by allegations of patronage, inefficiency and poor management. In 1989, then-Erie County Legislator G. Steven Pigeon and then-Niagara Council Member Joel A. Giambra, the future Erie County executive, called for WROTB to be replaced by a “Great Lakes Off Track Betting Agency” consisting of Buffalo, Rochester and Erie and Niagara counties and under closer scrutiny than WROTB.

It never happened. Pigeon, a former Erie County Democratic Party chairman and one-time political kingmaker, is now a registered sex offender who admitted sexually abusing a 9-year-old girl in 2016. He also was guilty of bribing a State Supreme Court justice and making an illegal political donation to then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s 2014 re-election campaign.

John Kaehny, executive director of the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany, pulled no punches. He said it was impossible for Western New York counties, two cities and the state’s Gaming Commission to oversee and ensure accountability for an entity in WROTB that he said was “created by Albany to maintain patronage jobs, enrich horse breeders and line the pockets of politically connected vendors and business partners.”

“Western OTB is really the absolute worst of Albany dropped in the laps of Western New Yorkers,” Kaehny said, calling the corporation an “unaccountable, inherently corrupt patronage pit, fiscally irrational, opaque and ridiculously complicated and should not be part of government or controlled by government. The only meaningful reform for Western OTB is to disband it or sell it in whole or in part.”