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Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown can open doors, says Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. Chairman Dennis Bassett.
He can open doors in Albany. He can open doors with the office of Gov. Kathy Hochul.
"The OTB is looking to have good, solid representation in Albany," Bassett said. "We feel that what better individual is there who could help us open doors that we haven't been able to open before than a five-term mayor with a legislative background?"
A unanimous board vote on Sept. 5 authorized Bassett to open contract negotiations to hire Brown as OTB's new CEO and president. Bassett said the negotiations are ongoing. Brown has yet to officially accept the job offer.
The 65-year-old Brown became Buffalo's mayor in 2006. He served in the state Senate from 2001 to 2005. He was a member of the Buffalo Common Council from 1996 to 2001. He has a dual bachelor of arts degree in political science and journalism from Buffalo State College. He worked in sales for a year at Bristol-Myers before starting a legislative staff career.
OTB reportedly advertised the job as paying between $280,000 and $320,000 annually. Henry Wojtaszek, the outgoing CEO and president, makes $264,898.
"The key thing that we have to do is get someone that can open doors that we don't have open," Bassett said. "We're running a pretty well-oiled machine now. I think that what I have stressed consistently as board chair is that we may have some government obligations, but we have run Batavia Downs as a business. Mayor Brown assured us that his business hat would be on at all times and that he would be able to focus on how we can generate more revenue for the 17 municipalities."
For several years, Erie County Democrats, such as Sen. Tim Kennedy, Sen. Sean Ryan, and Comptroller Kevin Hardwick, have attacked the OTB and its leadership, making unsubstantiated corruption claims. Kennedy successfully pushed legislation that changed the OTB board's voting composition, giving Democrats a weighted vote majority even though Democrats represent fewer jurisdictions on the board than Republicans.
Genesee County is leading a legal challenge to the voting change.
Sen. George Borrello, who represents many of the rural counties that own a portion of the corporation, said last week that Brown's selection smelled of corrupt politics.
"The ‘culture of corruption’ is actually the way that Erie County and the City of Buffalo have rigged the Western Regional OTB board," Borrello said.
Borrello praised Wojtaszek's work to increase revenue and profitability at Batavia Downs and expressed concern that the "winning team" was being replaced by political patronage jobs.
Throughout the search process, Bassett has vowed that politics would not play a part in selecting a new CEO. On Thursday, he told The Batavian that, indeed, politics was not a factor in the decision to hire Brown.
"The appointment was based upon a global search that narrowed down the best candidates based on the key focus areas that we were looking at -- C-suite experience -- government involvement, budget management, and public benefit corporation experience," Bassett said. "As a chairman of the search committee, politics never entered into our decision-making as we looked at the resumes and evaluated each of the resumes and the talent of the individuals. The press may have predicted who would be the next President and CEO but that did not influence our selection process."
So far, Republican members of the board -- who all supported the job offer to Brown -- have been mum about their decision. Asked if he had any insight into why Republicans backed Brown for the job, Bassett said it was because of the recommendation of the search committee.
"The reason they supported (the committee's recommendation) is because we stressed very seriously and very strongly that we are going to continue our focus on running Western Regional OTB as a solid business and that the outside world may play the politics game, but as long as we, the board, stay steadfast on the fact that we are trying to deliver as positive a results as we can to small municipalities who depend on OTB a lot more than some of the big Rochesters and Buffalos and Erie counties and Monroe counties, that we want to continue to give them the kind of revenue they can use to fill some of the gaps that they have."
He said that only happens if the organization is run like a business.
"Once again, the press and the outside world may continue to have us fall into this political game, but those individuals in those small municipalities bought off on the idea that we're not going to succumb to that," he said.
Bassett said Wojtaszek and Brown have a good relationship and he's expecting a smooth transition.
Wojtaszek is scheduled to leave the job on Dec. 31.
Bassett isn't expecting any issues for current employees.
"I think the employee base is very comfortable with me, and they're very comfortable with how our board is being run, and I think we'll have no problems with the leadership team and the board and the employees working at Batavia Downs," he said.
Bassett stressed that there are issues that need to be addressed in Albany that haven't been addressed until now, issues that must be addressed if Batavia Downs and the OTB are going to increase revenue and profits for the municipalities. Brown can open those doors, he said.
Batavia Downs has achieved record-breaking revenue two years running and 2024 is shaping up to be another record year, Bassett noted.
"We know that we can't grow this business and be successful if we don't look at how we can go into different ventures, and we can't do the same things we've been doing tomorrow that we're doing today and be successful," Bassett said.
He initially declined to address the specific issues Brown would be asked to tackle. When asked about harness racing, which might be considered a loss-leader for the corporation, Bassett said Brown might address it; he said that is one area to look at, but so are branch operations.
"We're putting together a strategic framework that looks at how we should be running this business five years from now," Bassett said.
Besides harness racing and branch operations, there is also sports betting.
"We need to look at sports betting. Sports betting is very important moving forward. We, the small racinos and casinos such as ours, don't have it. We have to fight for that in Albany, and hopefully, Mayor Brown can help us do that."
Batavia Downs has also been locked out of table games. Bassett said he's a blackjack player himself and would like to see Batavia Downs be able to offer poker and blackjack to customers.
"We're not going to leave any stone unturned for us to grow this business and look at how we can be competitive in the future," he said.
