PLA MORNING DRIVE
July 30, 2014
Your morning reading from PLA – A sampling of today’s New York news
STATE NEWS
Cuomo’s big bluff backfires New York Daily News (Bill Hammond)
Here’s the real story of how Gov. Cuomo got himself into the Moreland mess, the story he’s tying himself in rhetorical knots to avoid telling: His Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption was an elaborate bluff — and the Legislature called him on it, not once but twice.
Despite the panel’s name and formal legal authority, Cuomo had no desire for it to really investigate public corruption. Stirring up the muck in Albany was bound to poison his relations with lawmakers — whose cooperation he needed to get things done — and could’ve easily splashed back on him, too.
State Senate Democrats’ coalition deal on verge of falling apart: sources New York Daily News (Ken Lovett)
ALBANY — A deal for a breakaway group of state Senate Democrats to realign with the mainstream party in a majority coalition is in jeopardy of falling apart, sources say.
One of the breakaway Dems, Sen. David Valesky, groused Tuesday that two Democratic senators have broken the agreement.
Moreland Commission’s nine-month tab: $350,000 Capital New York (Jimmy Vielkind)
ALBANY—The Cuomo-created state panel that investigated public corruption spent over $350,000 in its nine months of existence for travel, information technology and data analysis, records show.
The Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption folded in April after Governor Andrew Cuomo agreed during budget talks to disband it. The governor on Monday said he didn’t want to set up “another expensive prosecutor’s office” when the state is already well-served, and that the legal changes agreed to after the commission disbanded justified its shorter-than-expected lifespan.
Astorino, bleach in hand, calls for cleanup of Albany Times Union (Matthew Hamilton)
Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino continued his Moreland Commission controversy barnstorming tour of the state Tuesday, stopping in Albany to re-hammer Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Holding a bottle of Clorox bleach — a sight gag on Cuomo’s 2010 campaign pledge to clean up Albany — Astorino said the governor showed “arrogance, hubris (and) defiance” in his Monday response in Buffalo to questions about alleged meddling by his office in the commission’s work should concern all New Yorkers.
Odds slightly favor casinos in the region Times Union (Matthew Hamilton)
Capital Region residents are split on casino development in the region — but if they build it, will they come?
Maybe not.
A Time Warner Cable News/Siena College poll released in two parts on Monday and Tuesday shows that Capital Region residents are divided, 49 percent to 40 percent, in favor of casino development in the area. But 63 percent of the same voters say they’re not likely to visit a regional casino.
Breaks go to existing companies Times Union (Rick Karlin)
START-UP NY might be a misnomer: Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature job-creation initiative isn’t really aimed at start-up companies.
Of the two dozen companies so far announced that will receive 10 years of tax breaks, more than half are actually expansions of companies that already operate in New York or elsewhere.
Feds: State owes $1.5B Times Union (Jim Odato)
Two new federal audits of New York’s massive Medicaid program have concluded that state government must refund $1.5 billion to Washington.
The biggest hit came from an audit by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that was revealed Tuesday at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing.
New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a New York City Democrat, criticized a federal agent for targeting New York.
New York Educators Fight Back on Attacks to Tenure New York Times (Javier C. Hernandez)
Education advocates in recent days have assailed job protections for New York teachers as antiquated, unwarranted and unconstitutional.
On Tuesday, the United Federation of Teachers, which represents 75,000 educators across the city, fired back. In an eight-page memo, the union argued that tenure laws help guard against unjust firings, while providing city officials with a way to remove teachers it deemed ineffective.
NYC NEWS
Ticket me Elmo? NYC mulls law for impersonators Aol.com (AP)
NEW YORK (AP) – New York City officials are turning up the heat on Elmo, Cookie Monster and Statue of Liberty impersonators – Times Square costumed characters who often demand money for posing in photos with tourists.
The city wants to rein in a summertime spike in badly behaving characters such as the Spider-Man accused of punching a police officer recently.
“This has gone too far,” a frustrated Mayor Bill de Blasio said this week. “It’s time to take some real steps to regulate this reality.”
De Blasio gets high marks for city’s fiscal plan Capital New York (Sally Goldenberg)
Mayor Bill de Blasio received high marks on Tuesday for his financial plan for the city.
In testimony before the New York State Financial Control Board, city Comptroller Scott Stringer applauded de Blasio for saving billions of dollars in reserves and accounting for the multi-billion-dollar cost of settling New York City’s open labor contracts.
“I’m pleased to report that the Fiscal Year 2015 adopted budget is balanced and responsible,” Stringer, a fellow Democrat, said.
De Blasio’s Plans to Reduce Worker Health Costs Have a Carrot and a Stick New York times (Steven Greenhouse and Nikita Stewart)
When Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his first labor agreements with New York City unions this spring, he was sharply criticized for granting long-awaited wage increases in exchange for promises of unspecified though sizable savings on health care expenses.
Now, some of the specifics are coming into focus: City officials and union leaders say they hope to push municipal workers to use walk-in clinics more and emergency rooms less, order generic drugs more often than brand-name ones, and buy them through the mail rather than at retail pharmacies to achieve bulk discounts.
BUFFALO/WESTERN NY NEWS
Bidding for the Bills has begun Buffalo News (Jerry Zremski and Robert J. McCarthy)
The clock began ticking Tuesday on the most important game of the year for the Buffalo Bills: the bidding contest over who will buy the team from the estate of its founder, the late Ralph C. Wilson Jr.
The News confirmed that Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula and his wife, Kim, as well as billionaire developer Donald Trump submitted preliminary bids. The Toronto Sun reported that a Toronto group that involves rock star Jon Bon Jovi also submitted a bid. And former Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano also may have made an offer.
Schumer: ‘A number of serious bidders’ would keep Bills in WNY Buffalo News (Jerry Zremski)
WASHINGTON – As a 5 p.m. deadline approaches for initial bids to buy the Buffalo Bills, Sen. Charles E. Schumer said today that he has spoken with several of the potential purchasers – and that a number of them are strong candidates who would commit to keeping the team in Western New York.
“Over the past few months I have been engaged in an ongoing dialogue with a number of potential buyers as well as with the NFL and local and state leaders,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “I am confident as preliminary bids are submitted, and as we move into the next phase of this process, that there will be a number of serious bidders who will commit to keeping the Buffalo Bills in Western New York for decades to come.”
Catholic Health employees start move to new downtown headquarters Buffalo News (Brandon Schlager)
It was but two years ago that a vacant lot served as Buffalo’s welcome mat to commuters who poured from the Kensington Expressway into its central business district.
Starting Monday, as construction of the $51 million Catholic Health corporate headquarters building neared completion and employees began their move-in, the plot at 144 Genesee St. offers a brand new gateway that promises better first impressions and a potential boon for area commerce.
Start-Up NY proves its worth in Buffalo with planned job creation Buffalo News (Opinion)
It’s hard to recall any time in the last decade or more that a governor has made so many appearances in Buffalo to announce hundreds of new jobs.
But it’s happening, right now, as a result of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s leading effort in providing business tax incentives that dovetail with the state’s colleges and universities while promoting jobs for graduates.
Buffalo parking violators, take heart: Your fines could be worse Buffalo News (Aaron Mansfield)
When the calendars flipped from June to July, Buffalo received a new distinction: It assesses the least expensive fines for parking tickets of any major city in upstate New York.
Syracuse jacked up the cost of most parking tickets by $5 at the beginning of July, and the cost of parking illegally in a space for the handicapped – the biggest change – increased by $25.
So the changes by Syracuse have sent Buffalo – which Forbes magazine already ranked as the nation’s most affordable city – to the top of the upstate list in an unusual category.
New York agrees to buy land for energy complex Newsday (AP)
BUFFALO, N.Y. – (AP) — New York state has reached an agreement to buy the rest of the land needed for a solar-energy manufacturing complex planned for Buffalo.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the $2.8 million purchase from the city on Tuesday.
The state’s already bought 88 acres of former brownfields from the Buffalo Urban Development Corp. for $2.5 million. The latest purchase adds 96 acres.
CAPITAL REGION/NORTH COUNTRY NEWS
Convention center eyes SMG to run Albany site Times Union (Jordan Carleo-Evangelist)
ALBANY — The downtown convention center authority has restarted talks with the firm SMG to jointly manage the soon-to-be-built Albany Capital Center with the county-owned Times Union Center arena.
Authority Chairman Gavin Donohue made the announcement Tuesday morning, signaling that plans to seek a sole operator for the new convention hall, the arena and state convention center at Empire State Plaza are at least temporarily shelved.
LONG ISLAND NEWS
Nassau faces $77 million cash deficit, county comptroller says Newsday (Celeste Hadrick)
County Comptroller George Maragos projected Tuesday that Nassau will end the year with a nearly $77 million cash deficit, primarily due to a steep decline in sales tax revenues and increasing costs of police overtime.
Maragos also said in his midyear budget report, required by the county charter, that the difference between recurring revenues and recurring expenses — the structural budget gap — will increase to $242 million by the close of this year, after dropping to $99 million last year.
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