Legislator Jeanne Vinal

Legislator Jeanne Vinal Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal represents the 5th District in the County Legislature

12/25/2024

Happy Holidays and New Year to all!

12/12/2024

How do people feel about increasing income levels for the senior exemption. Doesn't decrease taxes, but shifts from older adults with certain income limits to the rest.
Helps people "age in place".
Seniors many have fixed incomes so when taxes goes up, their income doesn't.
Was 37000 Max and proposal raises to 58000.
401s, IRA distributions, etc aren't included in income by a change in definition of income anymore. So millionaire could get the exemption.

I'd like to know what you think.
Message me, email me, text me, write to me.

11/28/2024
11/14/2024

Do you think your property assessment is too high? Want to learn how to challenge it?

CELJ is pleased to partner with Senator Sean Ryan to bring an informative session on how to challenge your City of Buffalo property assessment. We hope to see you this Friday!

📅 When: November 15th, 12:00 PM
📍 Where: Merriweather Library: 1324 Jefferson Ave., Buffalo, NY 14208

HEAP "regular" gives 400 plus a month towards electric or natural gas for eligible, including income based or disabled o...
11/03/2024

HEAP "regular" gives 400 plus a month towards electric or natural gas for eligible, including income based or disabled or senior. Limited available so apply ASAP. Applications open 11/1. There's regular and special. Start with regular and see. (Note monthly is really 4 weeks wages or salary, not full month.)
https://www3.erie.gov/heap/regular-benefits.
It's a federally funded program so it brings federal dollars into NYS.

The HEAP Regular (Heating) component is scheduled to open for the season on November 1, 2024.  Public Notice: Avoid Duplicate HEAP Applications We anticipate HEAP to open on November 1, 2024. Duplicate applications cause significant delays in processing for Erie County Department of Social Services...

10/27/2024

Wow! Such a long line of committed voters today.
Voting is ope again tomorrow 9-5!

Polls are officially OPEN for early voting!!! You can vote at any location across the county! 🗳
10/26/2024

Polls are officially OPEN for early voting!!! You can vote at any location across the county! 🗳

10/26/2024

The meaning of County proposition 1.
New York State sales tax is 4% and the local share is 4.75. 20 years ago it was 3% in local.
Each year in the budget because sales tax is over 7%. There needs to be a super majority to pass the budget. If we had 12 legislators the super majority would be eight. We have 11 legislators so the super majority is still eight. So, basically that's 73%.
This gives the minority party a chance to blackball anything.
Every year since I've been in the tax rate has lowered. In addition, last year total tax collected and the tax rate overflowed. The minority party used that influence to cut off certain funding to help lower the overall tax collected, but the previous years that I've been in, they've used it to increase spending to their own districts. There's never been a preposition to lower the sales tax rate ever since I've been in by the minority caucus.
I have wanted to to lower the sales tax but when I talk to voters all the voters I've talked to stated if they had to choose between sales tax and property taxes. They'd rather the property taxes stay lower. Sales tax is paid by us but it's also paid by people who come to Erie County from other counties in Western New York and from other places as well.

I do think it's very important to work together as a group. When I chaired a committee on the charter revision committee 10 years ago we had strong people on both sides and I worked hard to have all of our recommendations be unanimous and they were. In fact, the vast majority of things voted on are voted on unanimously. Most times if there's a question by one person including myself, we go back to the drawing board a little bit and make a change solves the problem raised or we get more information to answer the questions until everyone is in favor of it.
However, giving a minority caucus the power of basically a veto.

Proposition 1 one was not my idea and I was 50/50 on it initially. However, proposition one is stating that to raise the tax you need a super majority but to lower it or keep it the same, you need a simple majority.

I do believe this will make it very unlikely that the tax ever gets raised.
And that's a good thing.

Will it make it less likely that the tax will be decreased on sales tax? Honestly either way I don't see sales tax going down because sales tax has turned into such a huge portion of our budget. The budget used to be about a third property taxes. A third third other government's passed through money and a third sales tax. Now sales tax dwarfs property taxes and our property taxes are already high enough.
Also, we're one of the only counties that shares sales tax with the cities and towns and school districts. And one of only two counties that shares taxes collected the Transit authority,

Basically the question on proposition 1 is do you want to make it easier for lawmakers to keep the tax as is or lower it and harder to raise it? Or do you want all three choices to have the same super majority needed, so that the minority party can add or subtract with power in excess of their numbers?

It's a question up to the voters because there are pros and cons on both sides.

Early voting starts today and the most important thing, whomever you vote for and whatever you vote, for is to vote.

I greatly appreciate it when people reach out with ideas, suggestions, comments. Please keep them coming.

Early voting begins TOMORROW! Make a plan to get you and your family out to cast a ballot. Remember you can early vote a...
10/25/2024

Early voting begins TOMORROW! Make a plan to get you and your family out to cast a ballot. Remember you can early vote at any location across the county!

Early voting begins SATURDAY! Make a plan to get you and your family out to cast a ballot. Remember you can early vote a...
10/24/2024

Early voting begins SATURDAY! Make a plan to get you and your family out to cast a ballot. Remember you can early vote at any location across the county!

If you’re still unregistered to vote or someone you know needs to register, the Erie County Board of Elections will be o...
10/04/2024

If you’re still unregistered to vote or someone you know needs to register, the Erie County Board of Elections will be open tomorrow 1pm-9pm at 134 W. Eagle St in downtown Buffalo.

The deadline to register to vote in that election is Saturday, October 26, 2024.

At our small business committee yesterday, Seth Piccirello, the director of Economic Development for the Buffalo Niagara...
10/04/2024

At our small business committee yesterday, Seth Piccirello, the director of Economic Development for the Buffalo Niagara Partnership spoke and then the lead atty Neha Karambelkar, and a director Karen Welch, of the FREE small business legal clinic run by WNY law center. They agreed to hold a drop in clinic in the district which we're scheduling for January. Let me know if you are interested.and any dates you can't do. We're meeting next 11/14 if you want to attend.

09/13/2024

Curtain up!

Address

92 Franklin Street , 4th Floor, Buffalo, NY 14202
Street , NY
14202

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