BUFFALO, N.Y. — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is expected to address adjustments regarding the state's "micro-cluster" strategy on Wednesday, which could result in some changes to rules that have impacted businesses in particular.
On the eve of any announcements the fingers of Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz remain crossed.
"I believe the governor will be making a good announcement for this community and others in New York State tomorrow," Poloncarz said during a Tuesday briefing with reporters. "We deserve it, but we'll just have to wait and see."
Poloncarz is cautiously optimistic about the potential easing of some of the Orange Zone restrictions the state has kept Erie County under despite data showing COVID-19 numbers here to be better than some places that have fewer restrictions.
"The numbers are much better in Western New York," Cuomo said on Monday in talking about potentially adjusting the state's strategy. "And we are at the period of time where we believe that those adjustments are sound."
It is also true, however, that the state has been on the losing end of several recent court decisions where judges have ruled the state's imposition of some restrictions to be arbitrary and capricious.
Poloncarz says he wouldn't put too much stock in those decisions holding up.
"I'm fairly confident that when some of these cases that go up to the fourth department (of the NYS Supreme Court Appellate Division) some of these big 'victories' they had are going to get reversed," Poloncarz said.
The Justices of the Appellate Division are appointed by the Governor of the state, and the majority of those currently serving on the 4th Department bench were appointed by Governor Cuomo.
Meanwhile it was also announced that the county will have to cancel additional vaccination clinics, due to continued problems with the state getting them the doses they'd been promised
This leaves almost 1,300 1-B candidates for vaccines, including emergency responders and teachers who'd been scheduled to receive them, having to now wait until a time to be determined.
