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Western Regional OTB cancels meeting to discuss new president

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, wearing a blue suite, white shirt and blue tie, speaks at two microphones.
Eileen Elibol
/
Buffalo Toronto Public Media
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is reportedly considered to be one of the candidates for WROTB president. Brown's spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The public will have to wait to find out who will be the next president of Western Regional Off-Track Betting (WROTB).

The organization’s board of directors was originally slated to hold a special meeting for a “discussion and review for the position of President” on Thursday, but the board announced on Tuesday that they would be cancelling that meeting “until further notice.”

Months of reports have suggested that Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is reportedly seeking the public benefit corporation’s top job.

A spokesperson to the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brown’s fifth term as mayor ends on Dec. 31, 2025.

If Brown were to step down, Buffalo Common Council President Chris Scanlon, a close ally of Brown’s who became Common Council president in January, would become mayor. And because the State Board of Elections’ Aug. 5 deadline to put any newly vacant seats on November’s ballot has passed, Scanlon would serve out the remainder of Brown’s term.

Whoever takes the public benefit corporation’s top job will replace outgoing WROTB President and CEO Henry Wojtaszek, who served in that role for 15 years. Wojtaszek and two other former WROTB executives made headlines when they accepted “golden parachute buyouts” collectively worth more than $500,000 of public money.

The board approved those buyouts by a vote of 15-1, according to The Daily News, with Erie County’s Timothy Callan voting no. The resolution was not available in minutes posted to the WROTB’s website.

State Sen. Sean Ryan and Assemblymember Monica Wallace have called on the board of directors to rescind the buyouts and, more recently, have asked the New York State Inspector General and Attorney General to investigate the buyouts. The lawmakers allege that the buyouts violate the Severance Pay Limitation Act, which limits severance packages for at-will employees at public-benefit corporations — like Wojtaszek, one of the highest paid public employees in the state — to a quarter of their annual salary. The act was passed in 2019 after similar buyouts at the Erie County Water Authority.

Brown was also reportedly being considered as a candidate for the presidency of Buffalo State University after previous Buffalo State President Katherine Conway-Turner announced she would retire at the end of the 2022-23 academic year. Brown told WKBW in the fall of 2023 that he had “discussed” the possibility of becoming Buffalo State’s president but added that “my focus is on being mayor of the City of Buffalo.”

It’s unclear whether Brown was being considered for the position and, if so, how far into the interview process he made it because the university’s Presidential Search Committee did not release a list of semi-finalists. Linda Dobmeier, the chair of the search committee, said in a statement last October that that decision was approved by SUNY and done “to protect the professionals we are engaging.”

Glenn Chance, a provost at the University of Houston-Victoria, was selected as university president last December. But the committee announced in March that they would be rescinding that appointment and that Bonita Durand would serve as interim president through the 2025-26 academic year.

Weeks before Chance’s appointment, The Victoria Advocate reported that the University of Houston-Victoria Faculty Council unanimously voted to replace Chance with an interim provost due to conflict of interest concerns. The Presidential Search Committee didn’t say whether The Advocate’s reporting played a role in their decision.

Western Regional OTB operates Batavia Downs and betting parlors across 15 New York counties, including all eight counties in Western New York. The profits from those operations are meant to be given to municipal and county governments in the region. The buyouts exceed the entire revenue share provided to 12 of the WROTB’s 15 counties in 2022, according to Ryan and Wallace.