Chemung County Legislator Rodney J. Strange joined his legislative colleagues and voted to table the repurchase offer for First Arena at the Legislature’s regular meeting on Monday, March 12th.
Before the regular meeting of the Legislature, the Budget Committee met and voted unanimously to recommend to the full Legislature that it table the repurchase offer from Dr. Mustafa Afr through Southern Tier Economic Development.
At the Budget Committee meeting Strange said what legislators have learned over the past week about the situation at First Arena is disturbing abd disgraceful. “The fact that the owner put people’s lives in jeopardy and in danger, and knowing that he did this, in my opinion, is criminal,” he said, referring to a nonfunctional fire alarm system. “Voting not to accept his dirty money is easy. I really wish we could vote to put the guy in jail.” Strange is angry that Afr knowingly allowed events to be held and hockey games to be played at the Arena while the fire alarm system did not work. He says he’s been told that had a fire occured, and the alarms pulled, nothing would have happened. This could have created a human catastrophe and one Afr could have avoided had the fire alarm system been repaired.
With the rejection of the repayment offer, the Legislature gave it’s support to County Executive Tom Santulli’s plan to hire a consultant and do a complete investigation into the financial records and physical structure of the building.
A committee will be formed to work with the consultant and seek a new owner for the facility. Santulli hopes to have the consultant and committee’s work completed with a recommendation to the County Legislature by June 30th.