Morning News Brief

Following his arrest for Campaign Finance Fraud Lt Governor Brian Benjamin has resigned his position effective immediately according to Governor Hochul just after 5 on Tuesday night.  The Southern District of New York attorney Damian Williams said that “this is a simple story of corruption.”  Benjamin was arrested Tuesday for charges of taking bribes from a real estate agency for use of his authority to send 50,000 dollars to a charity run by that company.  In a 23-page sealed indictment made public Tuesday, Benjamin is accused of abusing his authority as an elected lawmaker and “engaging in a bribery scheme using public funds for his own corrupt purposes.”  The court documents suggest he had help from “others acting at his direction and his behalf” to lie and cover up the bribe, including falsifying campaign donor forms although those others have not been named as of yet.

With a 700,000 dollar allotment from New York State’s DRI and another 400,000 from the NY Main Street Grant program, Batavia Players are moving towards transforming a site in the City Center for use as a new playhouse.  The project as a whole will cost about 1.5 million dollars and the Players have raised about 210,000.  The Batavia Players presented Shakespeare in Springtime: Love’s Labour’s Lost in March, and will be presenting The Springtime Music Spectacular: Back on the Boards Again, a tribute to Stephen Sondheim, on April 22-24 in their makeshift stage area until construction is finished.  They have an open house scheduled for April 30th.  They are hoping construction will be finished by Christmas.

The state’s budget is now providing 2.5 million eligible New Yorkers a property tax rebate. The credit is available for low and middle income households as well as seniors enlisted in the School Tax Relief Program.  Under the program, basic STAR & Enhanced STAR recipients are eligible for the rebate. Basic Star recipients are those with an income less than $250,000. Enhanced members are those 65 and older making less than $92,000. The rebates would be a percentage of their existing STAR benefits.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz is revealing new information about the negotiations for a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills. He confirmed Monday that the team’s owners, Kim and Terry Pegula, wanted the public to pay the entire cost of the more than one-billion-dollar facility. Instead, the state stepped in and provided 600-million-dollars in funding as part of the new state budget while Erie County agreed to chip in 250-million dollars. The stadium is going to be built in Orchard Park across from Highmark Stadium, which is where the Bills currently play their home games.

The Buffalo Sabres beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in Tuesday night’s game 5 to 2.  The Sabres were on a 3 game losing streak.  Kyle Okposo, Tage Thompson, Jeff Skinner, Rasmus Dahlin and Rasmus Asplund all scored a single goal.  The Sabres return to Buffalo for a home game Thursday against the St. Louis Blues.