From WAMC in Albany, this is the legislative gazette.
A weekly magazine about New York State government and politics, your host is David Castino,
with political commentary by Dr. Alan Shartock, political scientist and professor emeritus
at the University at Albany.
Statewide distribution for the legislative gazette is made possible by New York State United
teachers, representing professionals in education and healthcare, online at nysut.org.
And NISCASA, the New York State Coalition against Sexual Assault, working to support men and
their decisions to end sexual violence with the My Strength is not for hurting campaign
online at nyscasa not ORG.
Coming up this week, the governor travels upstate to deliver flood relief, or political
observer Alan Shartock shares his thoughts on a familiar voice and face back at Nipurg,
and an upstate probe business group says regions of the state north of Westchester need special
attention.
Those stories and more on the legislative gazette.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was an upstate New York this week to deliver flood relief.
His first stop was in the Adirondack Village of Usable Forks, to announce a funding initiative
for Tropical Storm Irene Recovery and to present a check to rebuild a firehouse destroyed
in that storm.
The legislative gazettes pat Bradley was there and filed this report.
The New York Rising initiative is a program that receives federal storm recovery funds
allocated through the state.
Essex County Board of Supervisors Chair and Town of J Supervisor Randy Douglas explained
that the Adirondack Towns of Keene and J have formed a committee to craft a rebuilding
plan utilizing those funds.
Today is a day to reflect on where we were two years ago at this time.
We've worked on how far we have come during this time frame and that plan for the future
if another such natural disaster should decide to revisit us.
We are here to kick off the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Planning Committee meetings.
The committee members selected in our two communities to the VISA plan to make us more
resilient and stronger than ever.
Governor Cuomo joined the group in Usable Forks.
He told the committee that the two Adirondack Towns most devastated by Tropical Storm Irene,
J and Keene, could receive millions of dollars through the New York Rising initiative.
What the North Country needs is different than what Buffalo needs is different than what
Long Island needs.
So let the North Country fashion its own solution and that's what this is about.
We have up to $3 million that Keene can qualify for and $3 million that Jake can qualify
for $6 million in total which can implement a vision that you have.
And to the extent you can come up with a regional approach even better.
If you come up with one of the smartest regional plans that are submitted in the state, this
bonus funding where you can possibly be eligible for additional funding.
Cuomo explained that J and Keene must submit the plans and compete for the funds.
You're very careful how we spend taxpayer money.
You don't automatically get the funding.
But if you come up with a plan and a strategy that shows how you would intelligently and
effectively use the funding to make the community more resilient than they can qualify for up
to $3 million.
Who makes the decision?
State.
We also want to foster regional collaboration.
So to incentivize that regional collaboration on top of the in this case, the $3 million,
there's a bonus funding that the best regional collaboration plans in the state can qualify
for.
J Keene committee co-chair Vinnie McClellan noted that each New York rising committee will
include experts in labor, hazard mitigation, zoning, economic development, transportation,
public works, and emergency management.
Climate change is real and we will be faced with a variety of challenges in the future,
including more frequent floods.
This is a real opportunity to help make our communities more resilient and in the process,
I think the entire region and state will benefit and be stronger.
The governor used the rebuilding of the Keene Firehouse following tropical storm Irene
as a metaphor for how the state and communities have come together to rebuild.
But he also noted another firehouse in the region has yet to be restored.
The state was helpful when it came time to rebuild the Keene Firehouse and the state wants
to be helpful in rebuilding the upper J firehouse.
And upper J is about $1.5 million short in the ability to replace the firehouse.
And when we leave here today, upper J will no longer be $1.5 million short because the
state is going to be comfortable.
The funding for the New York Rising initiative comes from a supplemental appropriation that
was requested by New York State and approved following Hurricane Sandy for reconstruction
and rebuilding.
The state successfully included damage from Irene and Lee in that appropriation.
The governor's second stop of the day was in the Hudson Valley where communities that
qualified for funding for recovery and rebuilding from Hurricane Sandy, tropical storm Lee and
Hurricane Irene, fall under a new state program.
The legislative gazette's Allison Dunn was on hand for the governor's Rockland County
visit and has this report.
Governor Cuomo visited Stony Point hit hard by storms before and after the bruising
Hurricane Sandy last October.
He says it is inarguable that we are living amid a new weather pattern.
You know, I've been hearing about 100 year floods that now happen every three years, right?
Irene wasn't supposed to happen.
Lee wasn't supposed to happen.
Hurricane Sandy, that wasn't supposed to happen.
I think it is the ostrich strategy to say it's never going to happen again.
The visit came as Stony Point's first New York Rising Community Reconstruction meeting
was about to get underway with planning experts, residents and community officials gathering
to discuss redevelopment strategy specific to Stony Point.
And that is the point of New York Rising to have reconstruction planning committees and
storm damaged communities across the state.
And the best people for that are the people in the individual communities.
I can sit in Albany and give them my thoughts and ideas, but really every community is different.
And the way to do this is to empower each community to come up with its own plan and that's
just what we're doing with this approach.
Cuomo in July designated 102 New York Rising communities combined, eligible to receive more
than $750 million for storm recovery and rebuilding plans.
Stony Point is the only such community in Rockland eligible for up to $3 million.
Again, here's Cuomo.
And what we do as New Yorkers, we get up, we pull together, we're smarter and we're
the better for it.
And that's what we want to do with this community, this program rising communities where communities
rise up smarter than before.
Cuomo visited the North Country Wednesday morning, Osable Forks and says he will be working
his way across the state, visiting communities eligible for funding through the New York
Rising program.
Republican State Senator Bill Larkins sat with the governor in Stony Point.
Larkins district includes portions of Orange, Rockland and Ulster counties.
I think the governor, he's been in all three counties I have.
And he's come up and helped us time after time after time.
But it's to the point now where time has ended.
We now have to take a positive approach and this new rise will come to be it.
Governor, I thank you for coming here and I really mean it when I say I appreciate you
and I did vote for you.
Larkin also a conservative had said just a few minutes earlier that he voted for Cuomo
for governor, telling why.
Like Assemblyman James Scufus sat alongside Senator Larkin, Scufus's district includes
the town of Stony Point.
Along with an Orange County community in the New York Rising program, Washingtonville,
Scufus thinks Cuomo's visit to Stony Point will resonate with local officials and residents.
But him actually physically coming here and being here means a lot because he's showing
tremendous leadership and just being here for residents and business owners and those
who are affected to see that he cares is so important.
Grant amounts will be based on federal emergency management agency assessed damage levels as
well as applications for new infrastructure and other mitigation and will be awarded once
a community's plan is approved by the state.
The communities will be eligible to share in more than $500 million of funding through
a federal supplemental appropriation and the state will award at least $250 million
of New York's FEMA funded hazard mitigation grant program to New York Rising communities
to implement eligible projects contained in their plans.
There are more than 10 communities in Ulster County and a few in Orange and Delaware
counties also eligible for up to $3 million.
For the legislative Gazette, I'm Allison Dunn.
You are listening to the legislative Gazette.
A program about New York State government and politics.
I'm David Gostina.
Joining us now legislative Gazette political observer Alan Shartuck, he's back.
Alan, he's back.
I'm talking about a guy that we've known for what?
We've known for what 30, 40 years, me at least 25.
And he looks so young.
He does.
He doesn't seem to age.
Maybe it's because he's fighting the good fight.
We're talking about Blair Horner.
He's now back as the legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
Well, David, that's right.
Blair Horner is the legend in Albany.
You know, there are a lot of what we call googoo groups or good government groups, but Blair
Horner has always been the best of them.
Well, he went away for a little while to work for another great institution, the American
Cancer Society as a vice president of communications for this region.
And I think, frankly, he'll tell you that he took a little cut to come back to Nipert,
although I know they love them at the Cancer Society.
And the thing is that it has never been the same without him.
He is so blazingly smart.
He can look at the deals and he can say, well, on its face, this deal like a deal that
might bring us a constitutional convention could be a good one according to some people,
but we think it could be a stinker.
Or he'll look at other things and he'll tell you that the reapportionment bill that the
legislature passed, he won't maybe use these words, is a self-serving, rotten-stinking
piece of legislation that keeps them in the driver's seat and in the end will probably
allow them to keep on doing what they're doing, which is drawing their own districts.
So now we have the fire engines, but we've got the chief fireman back and it's a great
pleasure to announce that.
You've often talked about these so-called Google Groups and the idea that the resources
they have amount to a light bulb and a pencil.
Certainly a good spokesman can help that kind of an organization, but in general, do
Google's get enough?
Well, it depends.
You know, that's a terrific question, David, because there are some Google Groups, which
in order to go back to their members and say, look at what we got done in Albany, take
the stinking deal, the one which is self-serving done by the legislature to perpetuate their
power.
You see, I think that the great difference between some of those groups and Blair Horner
and the New York Public Interest Group is that they really look at the way in which it
is actually going to work.
And when they have something to say, it's listened to, you know, you're right, David,
when I got here.
All those years ago, Niperg was New York Public Interest Group, was somewhat of a joke.
It is no longer a joke.
It is the substantive change agent among all of those groups, and therefore it's something
to watch.
You know, there are other Google Groups, I think of one down at NYU, where, you know,
they get a headline by saying, New York is the worst legislature in the country.
Well, obviously they've never been to Louisiana or to Florida.
Nevertheless, I can tell you, or Mississippi, we can tell you they're reaching for the
headlines.
That's not the kind of work that Blair Horner and Niperg do.
They're going to be some headlines soon in New York City as we are coming closer to this
mayoral primary, and I'm wondering what you're thinking as we see what's happening.
Will there be a runoff?
Well, it's very close.
The one thing that we've known, political scientists have always known, we've studied it.
There is a phenomena in which when somebody takes the lead, we have what's called the
bandwagon approach.
And then says, oh, I want to be with the winner.
And so it does appear that there's going to be a very strong turnout for DiBlasio, who
is the liberal's liberal in the race.
Nevertheless, New York has a conservative element.
They're like people with names like Giuliani and Koch in his older age.
Turn out to be very, very conservative people.
You know, New Yorkers tolerate a lot in principle, they're liberal, but they don't like to get
hit over the head when they're going down into the subways.
And so when you have something like stop and frisk, which DiBlasio is really opposed to.
And the others have been walking as if they have two buckets on their shoulders.
You know, they used to call it the governor of New Jersey shoes, two buckets used, because
they're always trying to balance the things.
Well, DiBlasio went for it, apparently, as one.
And then what's going to happen is even if there's no runoff, there's going to be a Republican
opponent.
And New York is elect Republicans.
They have had a long history of doing that.
And the Koch brothers, they're going to spend a lot of money pushing the Republican candidate,
who was, after all, Giuliani's number two in New York City.
And so there is a very good chance that you will have a closer election than a lot of people
assume in blue, Democratic, New York City.
Legislative Gazette political observer Alan Shartalk.
An upstate pro-business group says regions of the state north of Westchester need special
attention in the coming months to help the floundering economy.
The group unshackle upstate is proposing a series of tax cuts as well as a start to
hydrofracking as the remedy.
Legislative Gazette's Karen DeWitt reports.
An unshackle upstate's Brian Samson unveiled a five-point plan that he says could help
provide the long-troubled upstate economy.
One, the pro-business group wants a phase out of the corporate franchise tax for upstate-based
companies.
Two, they want to repeal an energy assessment on manufacturers.
Three, they'd cut the state sales tax in half in counties with the worst unemployment
and population decline.
And number four, they want to make it easier for New Yorkers making less than $50,000
a year by reducing their taxes by 25%.
It's very, very clear.
The upstate economy is suffering.
It is teetering.
We're close to a recovery, but we can't wait for the future.
We need help today.
The plan comes amid reports that Governor Andrew Cuomo at a private fundraiser said he expects
to push tax cuts in 2014.
Although Senate Republicans who lead the Senate in a coalition with a small group of breakaway
Democrats are beginning a series of hearings on tax reform.
Samson says he believes chances are good for passage this year, and he says the money
for the nearly $750,000 plan is there, even with the state facing another budget deficit.
We're talking about a legislature that somehow found close to a billion dollars this past
budget to spend on education.
How about you find some of that same money and you give it to the taxpayers and the business
owners in upstate New York?
Unshackle upstate and other business groups have long called for regulatory reform.
They want to get rid of some collective bargaining rules, including the Triboral Amendment
in New York's Taylor Law.
Under those rules, public workers can't strike, but they are allowed to continue to work under
the terms of their previous agreements after a contract expires.
And employers are not allowed to cut back on pay or benefits for the workers.
After the presentation, Samson admitted that with the 2014 election year fast approaching,
it might be easier to win tax cuts than to convince the legislature to repeal regulations
favored by labor unions, which he calls political grenades.
Tax cuts, you know, it's black and white.
You're either going to raise them or you're going to lower them or you're going to leave
them the same.
We don't recommend leaving them the same way.
We certainly don't want them to raise them.
Let's lower the taxes.
It's a much easier thing to do.
There is a fifth proposal that the business group is pushing.
The start of the gas drilling process known as Hydrofracking in New York, which they say
would create thousands of high paying jobs.
There's been a de facto five year moratorium on the drilling.
Most recently, Governor Cuomo has said he's waiting for his health commissioner to complete
a health review.
Samson says the process has dragged on for too long.
This is an instance where the governor is waffled on this issue.
The data is there.
The science is there.
We can see what's going on in other states.
New York has the highest environmental standards in the country.
I think maybe some people argue California's are higher, but we think they're high here.
If anybody's going to do it the right way, it's going to be here in New York.
And I think to say it takes five years to look at the science and develop a health assessment
plan.
I think this is just being disrespectful to the people of the southern tier that can benefit
so dramatically.
He says while the political climate may be right in 2014 for tax cuts, he predicts it
will not be the year that hydrofracking is finally approved in the state.
But Samson says he expects a pilot program in communities that want fracking could start
in 2015.
In Albany, I'm Karen DeWitt.
You are listening to the Legislative Gazette program about New York State government and politics.
I'm David Guestina.
Global technology is driving the modernization of disaster and public safety responses, but
a recent report from the Brookings Institution says issues with infrastructure are preventing
the technology from reaching its full potential.
We get more from the innovation trail's Cato Connell.
Mobile communications will be very important for the future of disaster relief as well as
emergency communications.
Darryl West is the director of technology innovation at the Brookings Institution.
It's really becoming the primary means by which people communicate during emergencies.
What we need to focus on is ensuring the connectivity and the interoperability of those types
of systems.
West says mobile devices present a practical, cost-effective and reliable platform for early
warning systems and emergency responder communications.
But while South-House are much easier to restore than land lines after storms or natural disasters,
he says we need to invest in infrastructure.
You know, we need broadband networks that have adequate bandwidth and that also have reliable
sources of electrical power.
Because in many emergencies, the first thing that goes out is electricity and so therefore,
if self-towers don't have backup generators, that can become a major problem.
West says mobile systems also need to become more integrated.
Networks remain fragmented, he says, meaning not all mobile devices can talk to each other.
Despite these challenges, a range of new smartphone apps are already being created, enabling
emergency services to process information from the general public.
Chris Russo has been a firefighter in Chicago for more than 30 years and is the founder of
ELOTS Corporation, a company that develops apps for emergency responders.
What do you devices you have in your GPS, your mapping, your two-way communication
platforms, pictures, a video, and what we can do with these devices is we can move everything
from an emergency notification to an evacuation app to maybe a weather alert.
There's all sorts of information that we can share on these smart devices to the general
public.
Russo says keeping up with the pace of technology can be a challenge and they'll always
be a learning curve.
But he says even symbol applications are already yielding dramatic results for emergency
teams working in public safety.
Everything from a child being found in 37 minutes, a missing child, to people on the most
wireless being caught on the trains.
So we're seeing great results on that simple platform.
Russo acknowledges there are still ingrained cultures in the emergency services that need
to be addressed to enable mobile technologies to take the place of more traditional communications.
In Rochester, I'm Kato Kwonal for the Innovation Trail.
And that about does it for this week's show.
We had help from the New York City Public Radio Network.
These are available call 1-800-3239262.
That's 1-800-3239262.
That's for program number 1336.
Or just listen or podcast on the web at wamc.org.
And join us again next week at the same time for more news on New York State government
and politics for the legislative Gazette.
I'm David Gistina.
Statewide distribution for the legislative Gazette is made possible by New York State United
teachers representing professionals in education and health care online at nysut.org.
And Nisqasa, the New York State Coalition against Sexual Assault, working to support
men in their decisions to end sexual violence with the My Strength is not for hurting campaign
online at nyscasa.org.
