To Members of the Niagara County Legislature:
Western New York Off-Track Betting (OTB) has become a den of corruption. Its leadership and board are lining their pockets with expensive tickets to Bills games and other events, and giving part-time board members expensive health and dental plans – all with the people's money. These matters are well documented, including in a new audit by the New York State Comptroller. As the Comptroller has said directly, "Revenues from the OTB are supposed to go to participating municipalities, not to give board members and employees generous perks and other benefits."
Niagara County is one of the 17 local governments that own the OTB and are supposed to receive its revenues for public services. As residents and taxpayers in Niagara County we are calling on you to take immediate action to clean house at OTB and to demonstrate a zero tolerance policy toward these kind of abuses of the public trust.
We specifically call on the Legislature to immediately take two specific actions:
- Dismiss and replace the County's representative on the OTB Board, Mr. Elliot Winter, with someone mandated to start cleaning house.
- Direct that new County representative to join with other OTB board members to fire and replace the agency's CEO, Mr. Henry Wojtaszek.
Anything short of these actions sends a clear message that corruption and abuse of the public's funds is an acceptable practice. As taxpayers and residents of Niagara County we are owed better. Thank you for your attention.
