Baseball season has begun. The state budget is approved. Marijuana is legal in New York State. Some other things are occurring.

Here are some facts, observations and heard-on-the-streets:

• Sheriff Tim Howard informed me by email on April 11th that comments in my April 7th post suggesting that he was no longer supporting John Garcia for sheriff, along with my report that a change in support was due Republican Party pressure, were incorrect. I based my comments on my political sources. Howard continued that regardless of the Republican Party endorsement of Karen Healey-Case he will support Garcia throughout the campaign, including efforts to qualify Garcia on an independent ballot line.

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Round One of WNY politics 2021 is scheduled for Primary Day, June 22, less than 80 days from now.  In some cases the primary will effectively end the election season, while for others its then off to November.

Once again this year requirements of the Election Law have derailed some campaign efforts. The Working Families Party takes the prize for most significant screw-ups. The party will have no candidate for Erie County sheriff because they didn’t come up with enough signatures to qualify their “placeholder” candidate, an attorney who wasn’t even from Erie County. Then they topped things off by failing to counsel their candidate for mayor of Buffalo, India Walton, that she needed to file an acceptance of the party nomination form with the Board of Elections on a timely basis, which resulted in her disqualification from the November ballot on the Working Families line.

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