Poloncarz's 2021 State of the County differs in tone, delivery and style

But, as with everything else, this is not a typical year. So as the county emerges from the Covid-19 crisis, this year's State of the County address looks very different.

Instead of hosting a full-house event in the auditorium of the Buffalo History Museum, Burchfield-Penney Art Center or Buffalo Museum of Science, as he has done in past years, Poloncarz's State of the County address is prerecorded and posted to YouTube for today's release.

Instead of standing up on stage before a PowerPoint presentation at the Albright-Knox auditorium, like he did in 2019 – the last time he held a live State of the County event – Poloncarz opted for a 19-minute video, complete with piano music, photo cut-ins and animated graphics.

And instead of devoting the bulk of his address talking about his priorities for the rest of 2021, most of his comments are devoted to the year that passed and Erie County's role in getting through the biggest public health crisis of a lifetime. His upbeat, wide-angle rhetoric offers positive reflections on the work done by the many county departments to respond to the pandemic, the work of county employees and the collective efforts of the community.

Comparatively little time is spent on forward-looking priorities.

Poloncarz said he thought it was more important with this year's annual address to reflect on what the county endured and survived; to highlight the public health and community support effort undertaken by the county; and to give residents an opportunity to see what the county's public health response looked like behind the scenes.

"We just went through 15 months of hell," Poloncarz told The Buffalo News, "and this is a lot of what went on, and the things we're still dealing with. And coming out of it, what we need to do as a community going forward."

In Poloncarz's address, he:

• Recalls the county's scramble for gloves, masks and Covid-19 testing supplies, and the challenges of storing and distributing them

• Praises the "flexibility and adaptability" of county government workers across almost every department to provide essential and emergency services and keep parks open

• Reviews the county's ramp up and continuation of its vaccination efforts and community partnerships

• Touches on how the county chose to spend millions in federal stimulus money to support schools, day cares, parents, local businesses and homeowners and renters

• Mentions other economic development projects, previously promoted, that are still underway. 

He also continues to beat the drum for residents to be vaccinated and pays respects to the 1,900 Erie County residents who have died from the novel coronavirus.

"We have endured great adversity," he said. "We are overcoming it. Inequity does exist, but together, we are moving to eradicate it and build a more inclusive tomorrow."

For those who have come to expect major announcements from Poloncarz's State of the County address, the 2021 address is anticlimactic. Many of the programs and initiatives he mentions already have received public attention.

In addition, the State of the County address was recorded prior to the county RENEW Plan, which Poloncarz unveiled early last week with Rep. Brian Higgins. In that news conference, Poloncarz laid out how the county would spend $123.7 million, which includes $89.2 million from the federal American Rescue Plan, as well as $34.4 million in state funding that was threatened, then restored this year.

That spending plan eclipses anything shared in the State of the County address, though Poloncarz does mention plans to invest $3.8 million of federal money in affordable housing; the renaming of the county-owned property at the former Bethlehem Steel site as "Renaissance Commerce Park"; and plans to extend the Shoreline Trail from the Bethlehem Steel site to Woodlawn Beach. 

While Poloncarz teases a few things he's likely to revisit in the fall, he said he made the deliberate decision to keep a hotter spotlight on the past.

"I couldn't do a State of the County that was like, 'Hey, we're coming out of Covid and here's what I want to do,' " he said. "I really wanted to focus on, this is what we had to deal with for the last 15 months."