Results tagged “timroske”

Governor Eliot Spitzer think the State Senate's idea to have Attorney General Andrew Cuomo appointed "special prosecutor" - to investigate misdeeds in Spitzer's office - is "pointless." Spitzer told the Sun, "It seems to me that the attorney general already issued a report that he called complete, and Joe Bruno already called it a complete report. We have the Ethics Commission doing its thing."

Albany seemed to be its usual stagnant self, as the legislative sessions closed on notes of rancor, versus happiness and optimism on the job well done. Many issues were left unresolved, and Governor Spitzer and Senate Majority seem to be rarin' for a fight.

Looks like we may avoid an Albany shutdown after all. Even though our steamrolling governor threatened to shut down the state government if the Legislature wouldn't agree to his budget by April 1, Governor Eliot Spitzer and the Legislature's leaders have tentatively agreed to a budget. The Sun says the compromise "puts the brakes on but does not completely stop Mr. Spitzer's plans to redistribute more education funding to less wealthy, urban school districts such as New York City, deliver more property tax relief to middle-class homeowners, and slow the growth of Medicaid spending."

The latest Quinnipiac poll about New York politics shows that the public is behind Governor Spitzer and his "Steamroller Style." Sixty-one percent say Spitzer's way is "good for the people"; by gender, men like Eliot a little more than women, with 63% men approving to 57% of women. (Men like a man who gets angry!) Interestingly enough, 59% of Republicans approve of Spitzer's attitude - probably because they are enjoying his fight with Assembly leader Sheldon Silver.

In the latest battle between Governor Eliot Spitzer and Assembly leader Sheldon Silver, the governor has said that legislators should disclose their outside income, something they are currently not required to do. The state Constitution classifies legislators as part-time representatives, allowing them to work outside their elective office. Silver has worked "of counsel" to the law firm of Weitz and Luxenberg for the past five years. The New York Post reports that Albany insiders believe Silver pulls in $300,000 a year from his law firm job in addition to his $121,000 salary as Assembly speaker.

Hours ago, former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi was fined $5,000 and sentenced to probation for "unlawful use of a state vehicle and driver" when he used his employees to drive his ill wife. The Times Union has an 18-minute video of the sentencing; reporter Rick Karlin noted that Albany County Court Judge Stephen Herrick said to the Queens Democrat, "Your fall from grace has been total and from a very great height…You are now the symbol, the icon, used by local and state reformers... Hopefully, your failure will serve as a deterrent." (See mugshot here)

Newly anointed State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli may be a "nice guy" who finished first, but the State Legislature's dealings to put him in place makes our head spin. The Legislature, and more importantly the Assembly, had agreed to select someone an outside panel would find qualified. The thing is, no one on the shortlist was an Assembly member, so the Democratic-run Assembly which calls the shots in Comptroller selection, decided to pick Assemblyman DiNapoli of Nassau County. Check out these editorials from the region:

NY Times "A Member of the Club": "The choice is a setback for a legislature that is already considered one of the worst in the nation — and a further sign that its members are not listening to the public’s demands for reform."

Continue reading "Everyone Loses With DiNapoli As Comptroller"

Mayor Bloomberg headed to Albany to criticize Governor Spitzer's new budget, accusing him of going beyond nickel and diming the city. Spitzer has proposed cutting over $300 million in municipal aid to the city, and while it doesn't sound like a lot in a time of multi-billion dollar surplus, here's an explanation of the municipal aid program from the NY Times:

Mr. Bloomberg saved his strongest criticism for Mr. Spitzer’s plan to eliminate the city’s share of a state program called Aid and Incentives to Municipalities, which provides the city with $327.9 million in unrestricted aid each year...The city has received the aid since 1946 and sees it as particularly valuable because it is steady from year to year — unlike property tax receipts, the city’s main source of revenue.

Continue reading ""New York City Is The Economic Engine" of NY State"

Governor Eliot Spitzer gave his first 2007 Budget Address, one that shook up old budget ideas. He wants to spend more, for starters, increasing the budget by 6.3% to $120.6 billion (illuminating Times graphic here). Still, Spitzer called his budget "austere," as he suggested adding almost 2,500 more state jobs. And though he's not cutting taxes, he's not raising them (there is also some property tax relief for the middle class).

We couldn't even get through Governor Spitzer's first month before a "showdown with Assembly Speaker Silver." State Democrats have been saying they feel betrayed - or, in the words of Manhattan Assemblyman Keith Wright to NY1, "totally, totally disrespected" - because the panel formed by Spitzer to select State Comptroller candidates didn't select any of their choices. State Democrats claim the panel was supposed to pick five candidates, including a Democratic Assemblyman interested in the job, but when the panel recommended three non-lawmaker candidates, all hell has broken loose. Spitzer claims the panel would choose up to five candidates, but now it looks like the Democrats will reject those Spitzer-approved candidates. We bet Alan Hevesi is smiling somewhere over this.

On the one-week anniversary of the noxious natural gas-with-mercaptan stink that took over Manhattan, eastern NJ and parts of other boroughs, we thought that new NY State homeland security chief Michael A. L. Balboni had an interesting idea. The NY Times reports he expressed frustration about the lack of an answer, “What if next time it smells like almonds and it turns out to be cyanide?” He also said he would "put people’s feet to the fire" to get to the truth.

If you didn't catch it the first billion times Governor Eliot Spitzer mentioned "reform" during the campaign trail, his State of the State address brought it up 31 times according to the NY Times count. His address emphasized a "one New York" that would spend far less, and mentioned things like the lack of progress at Ground Zero, longer school years, a property tax cut, bringing health insurance to the uninsured and lots of reform for the way politicians work.

At midnight, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was sworn in as the 54th Governor of New York. The NY Times reports that during the private ceremony (the public inauguration will be today at 1PM, pushed back an hour because of the weather) that federal judge Robert W. Sweet swore in his former clerk, that guests cheered, "Go get 'em, Eliot!" after he took the oath, and that a 12-liter bottle of Veuve-Clicquot was very difficult to open.

Mayor Bloomberg was in Albany to witness Governor Pataki sign a bill that increases penalties for carrying a loaded illegal gun. Previously, the minimum sentence was 1 year - now it's 3 1/2 years. This news comes as prices for illegal guns are apparently "soaring" in the city, given the Mayor's efforts to curb them. It's also interesting to see these two men together - they both may or may not have presidential ambitions.