Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz gets blowback for out-of-state eclipse trip
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz is facing major backlash after leaving the county and New York State to view Monday’s total solar eclipse.
Poloncarz posted a video to X, formerly Twitter, just after 2:30 p.m. on Monday, sharing that he watched the eclipse at the Ohio Welcome Center in Ashtabula County, Ohio.
“It’s nice and sunny….in Ohio,” Poloncarz wrote. That comment came as much of Erie County experienced the eclipse with heavy cloud cover overhead.
Gallery: Photos and videos of the total solar eclipse in Western New York
The post set off a firestorm online, as more than 500 people chimed in, most of whom were critical of the county executive’s decision.
“Delete this,” one user wrote. “You hype this up for how long, preach safety precautions and you aren’t even here? And you brag about not being here?”
Elected officials at local and state levels for weeks warned of the potential for bad traffic, as some estimates called for nearly a million visitors to Western New York on the day of the eclipse.
Many people criticized the county executive’s decision to leave the area when hundreds of thousands of visitors were expected to bring the county to a standstill.
Though fears of mass gridlock never materialized, residents wanted to know why he would suggest people view the eclipse from home, when he hit the road himself.
Poloncarz also considered issuing a state of emergency at the time, a thought he shared with reporters during a February news conference.
“If we doubled, every person in Erie County, doubled every vehicle. It is a serious situation as it pertains to trying to respond to an emergency,” Poloncarz said. “So the less people that are on the roads, the better.”
The county executive declined to go on camera with News 4 for an interview but did speak on the controversy at a conference Wednesday morning.
“This is something I care about deeply,” Poloncarz said. “Anybody who knows me knows I am so much into astronomy. I have my own telescope. I do my own astrophotography and I didn’t want to miss this, and I was concerned that I would.”
Poloncarz went on to say he would have left his house no matter what, and says that he traveled out of state following a text conversation with another leader in Erie, Pennsylvania, who told him skies were clearer further south.
“I was planning on either being at Chestnut Ridge Park or Sprague Brook Park,” he said.
While the critics were loud, some Erie County taxpayers were indifferent.
“He can do what he wants. It’d be nice to have him here because, you know, the community and everything,” said Stephen Malinowski of Buffalo. But if he had family out there, want to go visit some friends. He could do what he wants.”
“I think the executive shouldn’t have any problems being an example to the citizens he represents by practicing what he preaches,” said Alexander Kolasny of Buffalo.
The Erie County Republican Committee blasted Poloncarz saying he was a “hypocrite.”
“You’d have to stare directly into the sun not to be able to see how big of a hypocrite Mark Poloncarz is for leaving Erie County during the solar eclipse,” Chairman Michael Kracker said in part.
Meanwhile, the Erie County Democratic Committee said Republicans manufactured this issue.
“And when they’re not obstructing routine but vital infrastructure programs for our local towns or holding the nation hostage with threats of a government shutdown, they’re busy manufacturing phony ‘crises’ like this,” Chairman Jeremy Zellner said in part.
Clouds covered most of Erie County on Monday morning and into the afternoon, but residents in many locations witnessed the spectacle by the time totality came around 3:18 p.m.
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