Council, supervisors push for more gaming revenue

ONEIDA, N.Y. » City supervisors continue pushing for a fairer distribution of casino gaming revenue to Oneida.

Per the 2013 settlement agreement between the Oneida Indian Nation, Madison and Oneida counties, and New York state, Madison County receives $3.5 million for lost tax revenue from Nation properties. The county also receives an additional $2.25 million as part of its host county status, which was first approved in last year’s state budget.

Ward 4 Councilor Helen Acker questioned the distribution of host county funds, saying they seemed unfair to the city considering the amount of assessed property Oneida has lost. She

pointed out that Cazenovia has $77,000 worth of land in trust, but received $149,000 from the county, while Oneida has almost $29 million worth of land in trust and only received about $96,000.

Oneida Supervisor Joe Magliocca said the current payment method “gives significant amounts of money to municipalities in this county that see very little, if any, impact at all,” and that he’s pushing for a more equitable distribution method for the host county money.

“I don’t think the term ‘equitable’ applies countywide for this,” Magliocca said.

Payments are currently made based on the assessed value of properties in a municipality. Ward 1 Councilor Al Cohen said the host county agreement stressed how payments should be made to address impact to a community. He would be happy if the county compromised, using the yearly $3.5 million agreed upon in the 2013 settlement to make municipalities whole based on lost tax revenue, while using the $2.25 million host county payments to address those communities most impacted by Nation properties and businesses.

Magliocca stressed that the city’s fight isn’t with the Nation, but with the county and the state.

“There are certainly a lot of positive impacts that the Nation enterprises have to our community, but one negative one is the loss of sales tax revenue,” Magliocca said. “The county right now seems to not be willing to address that, so I’m hoping that there is further discussion and we can come up with a fair way to distribute” the additional $2.25 million from host county status.

Magliocca said that currently, Madison County keeps roughly $4 million from the combined $5.75 million in gaming revenue from the Nation.

“We have to have a deeper discussion,” said Oneida Supervisor John Reinhardt.

“We have a good relationship with the county and I want to keep that, but I don’t want to keep it at the detriment of the city,” said Mayor Leo Matzke.

Assistant Fire Marshall Dennis Fields updated councilors on the status of several nuisance properties in the city. The proposed buyers of the former Moose Lodge at 409 Genesee St. contacted him to say they won’t be able to get an engineer to the site until the first week in May. Prospective buyer Brad Marshall and Pyramid Brokerage agent John Sposato, who represents the property owners, recently appeared before council to ask for a deferment on the demolition process for the property until they can have a structural engineer assess the property.

Several other properties were touched on, including 212 Bates Ave., which Fields said needed to be reinspected now that it had been brought up to code, as well as 474 Lincoln St., which is in the process of being condemned.

Matzke said the city will move ahead with suing some nuisance property owners. “We’ve learned our lesson,” he said.

Court is not currently an option for the old Hotel Oneida, however, because there’s no “technical violation,” said city attorney Nadine Bell. Councilors intend on discussing the issue of the old hotel and other properties at a later date.

Matzke also welcomed new city assessor Jeff Lowe. He replaces Lonnie Stedman, who retired in January.

“I think he’s a real gogetter; he loves his job,” Matzke said. “He’s really looking forward to our city.”

The next Common Council meeting will be Tuesday, May 1, at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.