Baskin, citing 5/14 massacre, seeks $10M to expand food services to underserved communities

ALBANY – Lawmakers and advocates from Western New York urged Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders Tuesday to include $10 million in the state budget to expand the number of grocery markets offering fresh food in underserved communities.

State Sen. April Baskin, a Buffalo Democrat who sponsored a bill to require the funding, said the limited number of area grocery stores left the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue vulnerable to the racist massacre that killed 10 people and wounded three others on May 14, 2022. The killer, Payton Gendron, then 18, of Broome County, selected the East Side market to target the largest number of Black victims.”The deviant science behind thinking, ‘Where can I find the most Black people possible to kill them? Oh, I know, they only have one grocery store, so that’s where I’ll go.’ There’s something to be said about that,” Baskin said at a news conference in the state Capitol. “That should never be anybody’s reality, the fear of going to the one grocery store closer to them could cost them their life.”

Baskin’s bill, known as the Food Retail Establishment Subsidization for Healthy (FRESH) Communities Act, was included in the Senate’s recent budget plan. The proposal, co-sponsored by Assembly Member Al Stirpe, D-Cicero, died in the Assembly in January. The bill, previously sponsored by Baskin’s predecessor, now-Rep. Tim Kennedy, D-Buffalo, passed both houses in 2024. Hochul vetoed it, citing other food programs. She said the bill would come at a “substantial cost that is not accounted for in the state’s financial plan.”

On Tuesday, Baskin and Stirpe said other programs do not mirror what their bill would do.

“I think that the executive level is focused on helping people buy food. We’re looking at the other end,” Stirpe said. “We want to provide access to it and that’s different. Unless you’re focused on providing access, you’re not putting money that’s going to help these small grocery stores expand.”

The news conference drew Niagara Falls City Council Chair Brian Archie; Jessica Gilbert-Overland, the director and co-founder of the Good Food Buffalo Coalition; and Collin Bishop, the chief communications officer for FeedMore WNY. All traveled from Western New York.

Archie said the food that is available is not necessarily healthy and nutritious. He said he lives in one of the poorest ZIP codes in Niagara Falls, where the lack of transportation makes the 2 miles to reach the nearest grocery store too far for many residents. Health outcomes in the area, he said, are not the best.

“This bill, in and of itself, is desperately needed in places like Niagara Falls and Buffalo and the rest of upstate,” Archie said. “It will allow an opportunity for people to live happy, healthy and fruitful lives by making the condition that they need to live readily available. It will offer an opportunity for small businesses to have an economic uplift and be able to provide the resources that I believe they actually get into business for.”

He said the bill could connect the larger farming community in Niagara County to the grocery stores. Gilbert-Overland said farmers need access to new and stable markets. Over the last three months, she said, her coalition has spoken to some 80 farmers and others in the food system at roundtables.

“We keep hearing the same thing: Farmers are struggling more than ever before to make ends meet and they need New York State policy to support them,” Gilbert-Overland said.

Baskin noted that the bill’s supporters include Buffalo’s Masten District Common Council Member Zeneta Everhart; Niagara Council Member Bridgette Myles; and Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay.

Gendron, who pleaded guilty to state charges of hate-motivated domestic terrorism, murder, attempted murder and weapon charges, is serving life in state prison without parole. He faces a death penalty-eligible trial in U.S. District Court in Buffalo.