Statements

Holding Utilities Accountable: Fighting Rising Energy Costs in Erie County

Updated July 2026: this statement has been corrected. When it was first published, it described the NYSEG increase as taking effect in May 2026 and attributed several profit figures to National Grid. Regulators granted only small temporary rates, and those profit figures belong to NYSEG. Both are corrected below.

Updated August 2026: corrected again. The original opening called NYSEG “the utility serving much of our region.” For District 11 that was wrong: our electric service is split roughly in half between National Grid and NYSEG, and nearly every home here gets its gas from a third company, National Fuel. The opening and the coalition proposal below now reflect that.

We Know What the Tax Breaks Cost. You Should Be Able to See What They Bought.

Updated September 2026: this statement has been corrected. When it was first published, it said the county’s recapture policy goes unused and that no record exists of the jobs each deal promised. Both were wrong. The county’s development agency adopted a recapture policy in 2014 and has used it, and the state publishes the jobs each project promised and the jobs it reports. The title and text now reflect that.

Statement on the Death of Nurul Shah Alam

The death of Nurul Shah Alam is devastating.

Yes, there should be a full and transparent investigation. But if all we demand is an investigation, we will miss the deeper failure.

This was not a single bad decision by a single person.

It was a chain of “not my responsibility.”

A nearly blind man who spoke no English was arrested because he could not comply with commands he could not see or understand. He spent a year in jail. He was handed from one agency to another. And when he was finally released, he was dropped near an outdated address with no confirmed plan, no verified family contact, and no safe handoff.