PLA MORNING DRIVE
June 4, 2014
Your morning reading from PLA – A sampling of today’s New York news
STATE NEWS
Cuomo caves to the Tea Party of the left New York Daily News (Bill Hammond)
…Four years ago, Cuomo drove a hard bargain with WFP — insisting that party leaders issue a statement of support for his no-new-taxes agenda before accepting their endorsement and helping them claim the 50,000 votes needed to keep control of a ballot line.
This time, it was the party making demands — and Cuomo, leery of a challenge from the left, who caved….
NYSUT president: No early endorsement for Cuomo Capital New York (Jessica Bakeman)
ALBANY—New York’s largest teachers’ union announced early endorsements in the races for state attorney general and comptroller, but Governor Andrew Cuomo will have to wait until August to see if educators will back him in November.
Karen Magee, president of New York State United Teachers, told Capital on Monday that “nothing has changed” since she was elected in early April, and that there wasn’t much appetite for a Cuomo endorsement.
1199 SEIU ends longtime deal with Senate Republicans Capital New York (Laura Nahmias)
ALBANY—For the first time in more than a decade, the State Senate Republicans isn’t getting any money from the state’s powerful health care workers’ union at election time.
“We won’t be giving any money to the Republicans,” 1199’s political director Kevin Finnegan told Capital. “We haven’t since the last election cycle. We normally don’t endorse or make contributions until after the session’s over but we are definitely on board with a Democratic-coordinated effort to take back the Senate.”
Working Families Party out of business with two veteran Staten Island pols SILive (Tom Wrobleski)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – A pair of veteran Staten Island lawmakers are taking a pass on seeking the Working Families Party (WFP) endorsement this year, including one who was there at the founding of the party.
“I didn’t seek the line this year,” said state Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn), who was at the first meeting of the WFP and is a former executive committee member of the party. “They are in a different place this year. There are issues outstanding that we don’t see eye-to-eye on.”
Republican Rob Astorino has cut funding for Westchester mental health systems since taking office: budget figures New York Daily News (Glenn Blain)
ALBANY — Republican Rob Astorino hasn’t put his money where his mouth is when it comes to beefing up mental health services.
Astorino said better mental health systems — not tougher gun control laws — were needed to combat mass shootings, but he’s slashed funding and staffing for such services since taking office as Westchester county executive in 2010, budget figures show.
Rensselaer may be back in running for a casino Albany Business Review (Michael DeMasi)
There are indications that Rensselaer, New York still may be in the running for a casino, a week after the city’s prospects for landing one appeared dead.
Mayor Dan Dwyer told me this morning something has changed since last week, when he said a casino operator had passed on a riverfront site and there were no other operators in the wings.
Court of Appeals weighs local zoning bans on gas drilling Buffalo News (Mary Esch, AP)
ALBANY – New York’s highest court is expected to decide by the Fourth of July whether municipalities can use local zoning laws to ban shale gas development using hydraulic fracturing within their borders.
The seven-member Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Tuesday in two cases where a midlevel appellate court unanimously concluded last year that state oil and gas law doesn’t trump the authority of local governments to control land use.
CPR rally aims to pump up bill Times Union (Casey Seiler)
Dozens of red-shirted American Heart Association volunteers performed chest compressions on slot-mouthed dummies to the beat of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” on Tuesday at the Legislative Office Building.
The surreal sight was in service of the “CPR in Schools” bill, legislation that would task the state Board of Regents with creating programs to teach students the basics of the technique — a lesson that, in the words of state Sen. Mark Grisanti, could be accomplished “in the time it takes to watch a sitcom.”
NYC NEWS
De Blasio to Dedicate 750 Public Housing Apartments a Year to Homeless Wall Street Journal (Michael Howard Saul)
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration plans to dedicate 750 apartments a year in public housing to homeless families, officials said Tuesday, a number that council members and advocates say isn’t enough to address record levels of homelessness.
Roughly 5,000 apartments become available each year inside developments run by the New York City Housing Authority, the largest public housing agency in the nation. Advocates and elected officials want the mayor to designate 2,500 a year to move homeless families out of city shelters. More than 53,000 people, including nearly 23,000 children, slept in a city shelter last week—both records.
De Blasio ‘not satisfied’ with pace of NYCHA cameras Capital New York (Sally Goldenberg)
Mayor Bill de Blasio said today he’s ordered his administration to install security cameras at 49 public-housing developments in the city by year’s end, following last weekend’s fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old boy at the Boulevard Houses complex in Brooklyn.
In an unusually harsh self-assessment, the mayor faulted his administration and that of his predecessor for its lack of urgency in installing cameras in New York City Housing Authority complexes after funding was allocated by the City Council.
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito wants $15 minimum wage for NYC New York Daily News (Corinne Lestch)
If the City Council speaker has her way, the city’s minimum wage might not be so minimal.
Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan) said Tuesday she would like to see the minimum bumped to as much as $15 an hour in the city, nearly double the current statewide minimum of $8.
She is ready to convene hearings on the matter, she said.
New York City Teachers Vote for Raise and a Nine-Year Contract New York Times (Al Baker)
New York City teachers have approved a nine-year labor contract, their union announced on Tuesday, a deal that raises pay by 18 percent but leaves questions about the future of their health benefits.
The agreement, which includes billions of dollars in back pay, is likely to set the standard for several other municipal unions that, like the teachers’ union, were left without contracts in the final years of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration.
BUFFALO/WESTERN NY NEWS
Brownfield tax credit works for upstate, advocates say Buffalo News (David Robinson)
The state’s program to provide tax credits for developers whose projects lead to the cleanup of contaminated property doesn’t expire until next year, but local developers and economic development officials are pushing the Cuomo administration and state legislators to extend the programs before the end of this month.
The state’s Brownfield Cleanup Program has been an important subsidy for developers who tackle projects that often involve millions of dollars in added costs associated with remediating sites that have been contaminated from previous uses, often linked to the Buffalo Niagara region’s industrial past.
Targeting of emissions seen as N.Y. advantage Buffalo News (Jerry Zremski)
WASHINGTON – In its strongest measure yet to combat climate change, the Obama administration Monday proposed new rules that would dramatically cut carbon emissions from the nation’s power plants. It’s a move that could make for a costly transition for the coal-dependent Midwest while leaving New York with an advantage from its early shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuel.
Under the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal, coal-fired power plants would have to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent, compared with 2005 levels, by 2030.
Buffalo’s new ‘Rust Belt chic’: the Belt Line Buffalo News (Mark Sommer)
The cavernous building on Niagara Street – once home to Curtiss Malting Co. – for decades has been a run-down reminder of a bygone era.
The building and dozens of others like it are clustered along the Belt Line – the 15 miles of track that the New York Central Railroad opened in 1883 to circle Buffalo. Many have sat idle or underused for many decades.
But the brick and concrete structures of past industrial might and elegance are emerging again as engines for economic development and could help revitalize Buffalo’s neighborhoods.
CAPITAL REGION/NORTH COUNTRY NEWS
Albany to Rensselaer: Casino site switch? Times Union (Kenneth C Crowe II, Jim Odato and Alysia Santo)
The Rensselaer Common Council is expected to vote on a resolution Wednesday night that would support a casino license for De Laet’s Landing as a public presentation for an Albany site has been pushed off by the developer.
Rensselaer County political sources familiar with casino developments in East Greenbush and Rensselaer said Tuesday that David Flaum is moving toward making the 24-acre De Laet’s Landing on the Hudson River his preferred location for a casino in the Capital Region.
LONG ISLAND NEWS
Suffolk Democrats pick Kimberly Jean-Pierre for 11th Assembly District Newsday (Rick Brand)
Suffolk Democrats have named Kimberly Jean-Pierre, director of Babylon Town’s Wyandanch Community Resource Center, as their Assembly candidate to succeed 26-year Albany veteran Robert Sweeney.
Jean-Pierre, 30, of Wheatley Heights, is a first-time candidate for elected office but worked as an aide to Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) and Suffolk Legis. DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville) before he became presiding officer.
Her late entry into the race came after Richard Schaffer, Babylon supervisor and Suffolk Democratic chairman, tried unsuccessfully to enlist Gregory and former County Executive Patrick Halpin and to persuade Sweeney to put off retirement.
