Quoted Text

Quoted Text

Spitzer focuses on running agencies
Governor vows action on NYC needs, but infighting with Bruno continues
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

   BOLTON LANDING — As Gov. Eliot Spitzer shifted his focus Tuesday toward the management of state agencies and helping New York City grow as the world’s financial capital, he didn’t escape the continued infighting with the state Senate’s Republican leader.
   Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Spitzer, who campaigned on the theme that everything changes on Day One, has accomplished little of note in his first six months.
   Bruno said the freshman governor has failed to revive the upstate economy as promised and held critical legislation “hostage” because of his “obsession” with reforming campaign finance laws that could erode the GOP’s narrow majority in the Senate.
   Bruno confirmed that he called Spitzer “a big overgrown rich kid” in an interview with the NY1 TV news station and that he said the Democrat sometimes acts out as a dictator might.
   “I think I said, ‘This is not a Third World country where we have dictators,’ ” Bruno said. “It wasn’t directed at him.”
   A transcript of the NY1 interview included Bruno saying: “He ought to understand that we’re not in a Third World country where he is a dictator.”
   As for Spitzer, he couldn’t help but mix it up after a speech to the New York State Broadcasters Association in which he reviewed his administration’s accomplishments.
   He noted that in six months his administration created or retained nearly 12,000 jobs upstate, gained legislative approval for $1.3 billion in property tax breaks, adopted a record increase in school aid, and reduced health care spending.
   But he blamed the Senate’s Republican majority for blocking more change in the last days of the legislative session, which ended Thursday.
   “The Senate did have time to vote itself a pay raise then leave on June 21 without doing the people’s business,” Spitzer said. He said he will go to Republican senators’ districts and play “Where’s Waldo?” by asking voters, “Where’s your senator?’” and imploring them to tell their legislators to “get back to work, earn your keep, earn your pay.”
   But Spitzer said he’s turning now to governing and part of that will be focusing more on major initiatives to improve air travel and the subways in New York City, which he promised will remain the world’s financial capital despite challenges from London and elsewhere.    “We are excited beyond words to get back to work,” Spitzer said shortly after a meeting with top staff. “The role of being governor? One small piece of it is dealing with the Legislature. The much larger, more important piece is to run the agencies. And that’s what we’re doing.”
   He also said he will continue to press for the issues left undone last week. They include approval of a New York City traffic toll system to reduce pollution, campaign finance reform opposed by Senate Republicans, and a capital budget worth as much as $1 billion for construction projects statewide.
   Spitzer said he wants the Legislature to return to act on these issues, but he doesn’t want to appear punitive by ordering the Legislature into session — “results are what matter.” Still, he wouldn’t preclude calling the Legislature back weekly if necessary.
   “If I have to do it on a weekly basis, I won’t hesitate to do that,” Spitzer said. “I’m not there yet. I certainly going to work very hard to work with the legislative leaders.”
   While Spitzer concentrated during his first six months on trying to revive the “economic malaise” of the upstate economy, he said the next six months and the 2008 legislative session will include attention to several New York City priorities.
   Spitzer said there has been “a failure to invest in infrastructure” in New York City even as its standing as the center of the financial world is challenged.
   He said the state needs to help create growth in the subway system to accommodate a rising population: “That’s what will choke us.”
   For example, he said he recently attended a groundbreaking for the long delayed Second Avenue subway, a huge congestion-relief project dating back more than 80 years, which was derailed repeatedly by one dire financial crisis after another.
   “It was a little embarrassing having our 10th groundbreaking, but we’ll get it done,” Spitzer said.
   He also focused on the planned expansion of Stewart International Airport in Newburgh to be a full partner in serving New York City while providing an economic boost upstate.
   “As I said earlier, the infrastructure of our subway system — that is one of the critical issues we are going to be talking about,” Spitzer said. “The infrastructure for transportation, energy, for [affordable] housing in the downstate sectors have been starved for capital recently so we have to confront that.”
   There was no immediate comment from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.  

Quoted Text

But Spitzer said he’s turning now to governing and part of that will be focusing more on major initiatives to improve air travel and the subways in New York City, which he promised will remain the world’s financial capital despite challenges from London and elsewhere.  

Quoted Text

Spitzer said there has been “a failure to invest in infrastructure” in New York City even as its standing as the center of the financial world is challenged.

Quoted Text

Spitzer has no right to ignore state constitution  
First published: Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Let me preface this by saying I am not a huge fan of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. And, as a general rule, I support the governor and his agenda (except his efforts to expand charter schools -- they don't work, are failing our children, send tax money out of state to unknown private investors, and bleed the taxpayers dry -- but that is for another time).
  
I am taken aback, however, by Gov. Spitzer's statement, reported in the June 27 Times Union, that he will bypass the legislative and democratic process and use his agencies to achieve his agenda.

What, the state constitution doesn't apply to him? Just who does he think he is? private Cheney? Junior? Addington? Rove? Libby? (Oh, never mind, they got him.)

CHARLES KEEGAN
Albany

Quoted Text

Spitzer vetoes binding arbitration expansion
The Associated Press

  Gov. Eliot Spitzer vetoed a series of bills that would have expanded binding arbitration in New York for police and other municipal workers.
   Among dozens of vetoes handed down Friday, Spitzer rejected bills that would have given binding arbitration rights to Office of Mental Health security assistants, downstate court workers and Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority police and firefighters.
   He also vetoed a bill that would have expanded the power of arbitration boards handling cases involving state troopers and another that would have set new requirements for boards for Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority officers.
   Spitzer said he was concerned about expanding binding arbitration, which transfers power from municipal officials to an independent authority. Critics claim that union contracts for police and fi refighters reached through arbitration have proved too costly.
   “It should come as relief to taxpayers that he did this,” said E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy.
   Some of the bills had previously been vetoed by former-Gov. George Pataki. And following Pataki’s lead, Spitzer also rejected a bill that would have given higher workers’ compensation benefits to privately employed medical responders dispatched to the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks. Spitzer said the measure would create an “anomaly” by giving those injured workers more than other private workers.
   Spitzer also vetoed separate measures that would have granted peace officer status to court offi cers in the Town of New Windsor and the Village of Westhampton Beach, Wayne County animal abuse investigators, Union College security guards and Jefferson County civil enforcement officers.
   Peace officers have legal powers to make arrests, issue appearance tickets and conduct searches. But a full-time peace officer requires no more than 35 hours training, compared to 635 hours of instruction and training for police officers, according to Spitzer.
   “These are very far-reaching powers that should not be granted lightly and should only be granted to those who have received sufficient training,” Spitzer said in a veto message.
   Also Friday:
   The governor signed a law requiring any state agency with a Web site to post information about New York’s Freedom of Information Law. Agencies will be required to provide basic information about how citizens can request information, such as contact information. Sponsors said state agencies have been inconsistent when it comes to posting information online about the law.
   A law signed by Spitzer prohibits “juice bars” from hiring nude or topless dancers under age 18. The bars — which are not regulated by the State Liquor Authority because they don’t serve alcohol — had been allowed to hire performers as young as 16, according to the bill memo. The higher age limit goes into effect Nov. 1.  

Quoted Text

Spitzer said he was concerned about expanding binding arbitration, which transfers power from municipal officials to an independent authority. Critics claim that union contracts for police and fi refighters reached through arbitration have proved too costly.

Quoted from senders

Arbiters are still lawyers.....aren't they??? Just like lawmakers/politicians for the most part........

Quoted from BIGK75

Yes, they are still lawyers, 1 point against them, but at least they're not lawyers on the state payroll.

Quoted Text

Spitzer, Grannis falter on lawn chemicals issue  
First published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007

As attorney general, Eliot Spitzer supported proposed legislation that would have banned toxic herbicides from being used to destroy lawn weeds. Spitzer also initiated several lawsuits to deal with misleading advertising by lawn care companies, and with overuse of lawn chemicals at public housing projects. He urged schools to stop using pesticides, particularly herbicides, on lawns and athletic fields.
  
Spitzer recognized these chemicals can cause cancer, Parkinson's disease and respiratory ailments for humans, poison wildlife, and pollute our air and our drinking water.

New York state Assemblyman Alexander Grannis co-sponsored the lawn chemical ban bill. Because the state Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner during the Pataki administration was reluctant to address these issues, Grannis also co-sponsored a bill that would give municipalities some of the commissioner's regulatory authority.

Although these bills died in committee last year, I hoped Spitzer's election as governor, and Spitzer's appointment of Grannis as DEC commissioner, would mean the state would finally take action.

Reintroduced this year, A.6045/S.3206 would prohibit use of toxic chemicals to control lawn weeds. At least 60 Canadian municipalities or provinces have already enacted such laws.

Two months ago, I urged Spitzer and Grannis to continue supporting this measure. I also requested Grannis to use his authority under current law to ban toxic lawn chemicals, and I requested Spitzer to issue an executive order prohibiting lawn pesticides and synthetic fertilizers from use by state agencies, parks, colleges and highway departments.

To date, no reply from the governor's office. The letter I received from the DEC's director of pesticides management makes no commitment to support A.6045/S.3206, or to do anything new to deal with these issues.

Continued environmental irresponsibility will eventually harm all of us.

JOEL FREEDMAN
Canandaigua

Quoted Text

Spitzer Plans Major Push to Extend Health Care
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: July 11, 2007

ALBANY, July 10 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration is poised to begin an ambitious and potentially expensive push to expand health coverage to nearly three million more residents, aiming to fulfill Mr. Spitzer’s campaign promise to ultimately provide universal insurance.

A Mellower Spitzer Emerges, Playing Down Bruno Feud (July 11, 2007) Many details of the plan will be settled over the coming months, but a major component would expand existing programs for the poorest residents to cover more of the working poor and lower middle class.

Asked how much the expansion might cost, administration officials cited a recent study saying universal coverage could cost the state $3 billion to $6.2 billion annually, but could also reduce costs for employers.

Mr. Spitzer has directed the health commissioner and the insurance superintendent to draw up a plan by next summer for providing universal coverage, the governor and top officials said on Tuesday in interviews, though they cautioned that it would take several years to carry out.

Mr. Spitzer is aiming to reduce the roughly 2.8 million uninsured residents by half in his four-year term, following up on a campaign pledge, and eventually to provide coverage to all residents.

The administration wants to avoid some of the problems that have plagued similar attempts in Massachusetts and a number of other states that are expanding health coverage. Since New York has a larger uninsured population than many other states, it could have more obstacles to overcome. Approximately 15 percent of the state’s population lacks health insurance.

“We’re being practical and pragmatic rather than making a sweeping rhetorical flourish,” Mr. Spitzer said on Tuesday, adding that his efforts to cut Medicaid costs would help the state pay for broader coverage.

“I’ve always believed that when all is said and done, the cost of insuring all individuals will be less than the cost of not insuring them,” he said. “The unmeasured cost of the diseases we do not prevent, and the cost to society of the diseases we should be tending to but aren’t, outweighs the cost of insurance.”

For several months, three state agencies have been conducting joint internal briefings, officials said, and the administration is planning to begin public discussion of the issue by holding five hearings across the state, from August through November, that will explore approaches to providing coverage. The governor said that he would attend at least some of the hearings, and that high-level staffers, including the health commissioner and insurance superintendent, would probably preside.

This week, the administration also issued a formal request for proposals from consulting groups to study various universal coverage plans.

“That is going to phase in over a period of years,” said Dennis P. Whalen, the deputy secretary of health.

“A lot of states go out with a big glitzy press release and say, ‘We have a universal coverage plan,’ ” he added. “As we looked at those, they are all facing significant challenges.”

Instead, Mr. Whalen said, the governor is seeking a plan that will add more people to the health care rolls over a number of years — “foundational steps to march us toward universal health care.”

Each step would need legislative approval, and Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, is locked in a bitter feud with the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican. But Senate Republicans have close ties to 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East, the influential hospital workers’ union, which has called for universal health care.

And the Legislature this year already passed Mr. Spitzer’s proposed expansion of an existing state-financed program, Child Health Plus, which will make it available to the state’s roughly 400,000 uninsured children.

Senate Republicans have fought hard against health care cuts, rather than spending; Mr. Spitzer sought more than $1 billion in Medicaid reductions as part of his broader strategy. He had to relent on some cuts and ran into some of the same criticism that has more recently faced Pennsylvania’s governor, Edward G. Rendell, who also pushed a combination of universal care and cost cutting.

Currently, a family of three, for example, is eligible for the program only if its annual income does not exceed $25,755. Mr. Spitzer recently signed legislation opening the door to employers to buy into the program, a step toward further expansion.

Many of the details remain to be worked out over the next year, but the Spitzer approach is likely to have elements in common with the one being used in Massachusetts.

At the same time, data provided by the administration highlighted some of the challenges the state faces.

New York has more low-income and uninsured residents and a smaller percentage of employer-sponsored insurance programs than Massachusetts has.

“As a result, New York confronts a larger uninsured population, more of whom would require subsidies, and starts from a lower base of public and employer coverage than did Massachusetts,” Mr. Whalen said.

The public hearings will coincide with smaller private meetings the administration will hold with groups with a major stake in the issues, including businesses, insurers and consumers.

The administration appears to be seeking the more cooperative effort that characterized some of Mr. Spitzer’s early successes; Mr. Whalen said it was calling the effort Partnership for Coverage.

“We’re actually going to make it happen,” the governor said on Tuesday, seeming to relish a policy discussion amid continuing political battles.

He added that he wanted a solution that “sweeps large groups into the insured world with different mechanisms and structures and doesn’t try to wave one wand over the entire population and magically insure every person.”

Quoted Text

Asked how much the expansion might cost, administration officials cited a recent study saying universal coverage could cost the state $3 billion to $6.2 billion annually, but could also reduce costs for employers.

Quoted Text

Spitzer under fire for veto of welfare bill
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

   Advocates for the poor on Thursday criticized Gov. Eliot Spitzer for vetoing a welfare-to-work bill that would require governments to train recipients for higher-paying, “sustainable wage” jobs.
   The bill would have required local and state government to train recipients for jobs that pay $17 an hour or more and to seek training and openings for nontraditional employment, such as women trained for construction jobs. The Legislature passed the bill unanimously earlier this year.
   Federal rules require most welfare recipients to find jobs, which critics call a “work first” approach that emphasizes taking the fi rst job available. The bill sought to place the workers in jobs paying 185 percent of the federal poverty level, when housing, insurance and other costs are factored in.
   “The argument that Mayor Bloomberg and others made — that people have to take any job because they have to start somewhere and can move on from there — rings hollow,” said Rachel Morgenstern of Welfare Reform Initiative in New York City. “I have worked at Staples and other low-wage jobs. They seldom promote workers from inside,, and if they do, they still make less. Managers usually come from outside the company and with a degree or training.”
   The bill wouldn’t have allowed recipients to hold out for a better job but would have required government to develop a plan that focuses on better-paying jobs, said Mark Dunlea of the statewide Hunger Action Network. He said the failed effort may yet force improvements in the welfare-to-work education, training and placement programs in New York.
   “The poor people of the state need to see a governor who is willing to stand up for their legal rights so they can find employment and escape poverty,” Dunlea said.
   Spitzer said he agrees that “sustainable wage” jobs are preferred because they can lift families, often headed by women, out of poverty and break a cycle of returning to social services. But, he said, existing state programs already seek to provide better employment while reducing the cost of health care and housing.
   “Legislation is not necessary to meet these goals,” he said. “Unfortunately, this bill seeks to advance the goal of increased wages in a way that is neither targeted effectively nor administratively realistic.”
   The state Association of Counties opposed the bill.
   Among the hundreds of actions Spitzer took, he also:
   Vetoed a measure that would have provided workers’ compensation benefits to public and private workers and volunteers who repaired and cleaned vehicles damaged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The bill would have provided special benefits to these auto mechanics, the way other laws provide additional benefits to rescue workers at ground zero.
   Spitzer said there’s not enough evidence to show “members of this broadly drawn class were exposed to the same health risks.”
   Approved New York City’s first “child care tax credit.” The measure will help low-income families with the cost of child care for children up to 4 years old. About 49,000 New York City families are expected to qualify for a $1,000 tax credit or, if the family has no income, a $1,000 check.
   Enacted the nation’s first airline passenger “bill of rights” by a state. It requires airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresher air to passengers stuck on tarmacs for more than three hours. Airlines could face fines of $1,000 per passenger for failing to provide the amenities.
   The measure co-sponsored by Sen. Charles Fuschillo, a Long Island Republican, followed an eighthour delay on Valentine’s Day at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
   Vetoed a measure to dramatically increase fines for misdemeanors related to illegal shooting of big game animals. The bill would have increased the maximum fine to $3,000 from the current $500. Spitzer said the bill was flawed, but he instructed the Department of Environmental Conservation to propose increases to fines that could be presented to the Legislature.
   Vetoed a bill that would have prohibited municipalities from hiring private companies to replace fire departments and volunteer companies. Spitzer said this bill would limit municipalities’ ability to cut costs and even to serve the community during a shortage of volunteer firefighters.

Quoted Text

The bill would have required local and state government to train recipients for jobs that pay $17 an hour or more and to seek training and openings for nontraditional employment, such as women trained for construction jobs. The Legislature passed the bill unanimously earlier this year.

Quoted Text

Spitzer gets a breather from scandal
Governor tours state to announce new initiatives
BY BOB CONNER Gazette Reporter

   Gov. Eliot Spitzer spent most of last week out of Albany, going around the state to announce a few modest initiatives and fi nding time to sign or veto the last package of bills — more than 125 of them, mostly minor local issues — sent up by the Legislature.
   It was routine stuff, the sort of thing previous New York governors have done in the summer, and a far cry from the dramatic changes Spitzer talked about in last year’s election campaign, where he wound up getting almost 70 percent of the vote. For Spitzer, though, his agenda had the great advantage of keeping him mostly out of the public eye in the hope that the current scandal — or whatever you want to call it — will blow over.
   Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, RBrunswick, calls it a scandal and described it this way in an opinion piece published in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal: “Two close advisers to the governor apparently used the New York State Police to carry out a political smear campaign against me by creating documents designed to generate negative press reports.” Bruno’s characterization is based on a report issued July 23 by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
   And the scandal hasn’t blown over yet. Last week, Albany County District Attorney David Soares said he would be looking into the matter, as is the state Ethics Commission. On Thursday, news broke that Darren Dopp, Spitzer’s communications director who was suspended because of his role in the affair, has hired Terry Kindlon, a prominent Albany defense attorney, whose clients last year included a Muslim imam accused of terrorism and a Bethlehem student who was convicted of murdering his father when he attacked his sleeping parents with an ax.
   The DA’s office and the Ethics Commission would have the ability to subpoena witnesses, which Cuomo did not do in his investigation, which broke the scandal but concluded that no laws were broken. Key Spitzer aides Dopp and Richard Baum declined to be interviewed under oath in that probe.
   Soares noted in a statement: “It must be remembered that while certain conduct may appear unethical or even immoral, the only issue for our consideration is to determine whether the conduct is of such regard that criminal liability can be assessed.”
   Bruno and others have questioned whether the governor is telling the truth when he denies knowing about the scheme to use state police. But if the governor has been truthful, then it is hard to see how he could be in legal jeopardy.
GOOD RECORD CITED
   That’s the presumption made by Bethany Schumann, a lawyer who represents Amsterdam’s Third Ward on the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. “I have absolutely no reason to question the truthfulness of the governor,” she said, adding that he has earned the right to the benefit of doubt.
   Schumann also said her fellow Democrat Spitzer has a good record in government, citing increases in aid to upstate cities and the deal to keep and expand Beech-Nut’s operations in the county. The latter agreement, she said, turned “what was really an economic development crisis” — the departure of Beech-Nut from Canajoharie — into an opportunity.
   Some Republicans, too, don’t so far see political damage to the governor. Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, and new GOP Assemblyman George Amedore, who pulled off an upset victory in the 105th Assembly District in Schenectady and Montgomery counties in Tuesday’s special election, said the scandal wasn’t a factor in the Republican win. “It never once was a topic for discussion,” Amedore said, except when the media brought it up.
   Opinion polls show some decline in Spitzer’s previously high ratings. Perhaps more ominously, as a press release from the Siena Research Institute said last week, most voters who had heard about the attorney general’s report believe Spitzer “was aware of what his top aides were doing,” despite his denials.
   One of Spitzer’s major issues has been improving the upstate economy, and Schumann said she thinks his splitting up of the economic development team into upstate and downstate operations is the right approach.
   However, the annual membership survey of SSA, a small-business advocacy group, shows most responders having negative opinions about New York’s economy and prospects and little support for Spitzer or other state leaders.
   The survey obtained by The Gazette, due to be released Monday, shows most responders do not see positive change in Albany since Spitzer’s election. And while they do see the governor as focused on economic development, they think he is neglecting small business.
PROGRESS SLOWS
   Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said Thursday in an interview on radio station WROW that the Ethics Commission and the DA should be left to get on with their investigations, and meanwhile the state’s leaders should “move on” to other issues.
   Progress on those issues has slowed. Asked to rate Spitzer’s performance this year, Matthew Maguire, spokesman for The Business Council of New York State, praised a workers compensation agreement that was reached in February. Asked what the governor has done since then, Maguire cited a one-year extension of the Power for Jobs program and an unsuccessful effort to come up with a power-plant siting law. He declined to comment on the state budget, which increased spending at several times the rate of inflation.
   On the left, Mark Dunlea, associate director of the Hunger Action Network, was upset about the governor’s veto last week of what advocates called welfare reform legislation that would have tried to place participants in higherpaying jobs. Spitzer’s veto message said, “This bill does not recognize the importance of securing employment even at a low wage and building an employment history over time.”
   Dunlea said Spitzer has some accomplishments in expanding health insurance coverage but has not focused nearly enough on reducing poverty.
   The ethics reform passed under Spitzer was widely seen as weak, and his latest campaign-finance compromise is held up, tied to other issues on which agreements have not been reached between Spitzer and Bruno.
   This week, the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations will start looking into the scandal, a probe Spitzer has opposed. Silver, while saying he remains on good terms with Bruno, said that committee is the wrong forum because its majority members are appointed by the Senate leader.
   “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Spitzer said on March 29, as he wrapped up the budget compromise. Schumann said the same thing last week in defending the governor, and Amedore also used the phrase in acknowledging that he won’t be able to get everything he wants done as soon as he would like.
   In the campaign and the early days of governing, Spitzer suggested he could steamroll his way to immediate, radical changes. But the real world of Albany politics has reasserted itself, slowing the steamroller, and the pending investigations could stall it.

Quoted Text

The bill would have required local and state government to train recipients for jobs that pay $17 an hour or more and to seek training and openings for nontraditional employment, such as women trained for construction jobs. The Legislature passed the bill unanimously earlier this year.

Quoted from z2im

Once these people are provided government paid training that makes them eligible for jobs that pay $17 hours or more per hour will they be permanently removed from the welfare rolls?  Will they be required to reimburse the taxpayers for the free training that they were provided once they begin to accumulate wealth?

Quoted Text

Welcome veto of Legislature’s welfare-to-work bill

   Advocates for the poor are mad at Gov. Eliot Spitzer for vetoing a bill, passed unanimously by the state Legislature, that would require county social services agencies to develop plans for welfare recipients, especially women, that would lead to better, better-paying (as in $17-an-hour) jobs. But it was a good veto. As a Spitzer spokeswoman put it, “The intent of the bill is laudable, but the approach is unrealistic for most clients.”
   Before the federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996, championed by Bill Clinton, there was no real pressure to get a job. It was enough that one was “looking” or involved in a training or education program, regardless of the chances of them sticking with it, finishing it successfully, or getting a job at the end. As a result, welfare benefi ts were seen as indefinite; generations were growing up never seeing a family member work, totally dependent on the state.
   Welfare reform turned all this around. Now, assistance is supposed to be temporary; people are expected to work, with eventual self-sufficiency the goal. But, recognizing that most entry-level jobs won’t provide that self-sufficiency right away, government continues to provide working mothers with such essentials as daycare, transportation and health care.
   The legislation Spitzer vetoed says that too many women are stuck in low-paying, entry-level jobs, such as bank teller, food service worker and home health aide, and never advance, thus not allowing their family to break the cycle of poverty. It calls for social services agencies to prepare them for technical and nontraditional jobs — like computer technician and electrician, and professional jobs like chemist, aerospace engineer and city manager — that pay well, with benefits and have room for advancement.
   That sounds wonderful, but what if the woman has no skills, experience or interest in such a job? What if not enough $17-anhour jobs exist in today’s service economy?
   Wouldn’t it be better for the woman to establish a work history and good work habits, and then offer her the opportunity to continue getting benefits if she wants to train for another, better job?
   Spitzer is right when he says the legislation seeks to increase wages in a way that is not targeted effectively or administratively realistic.

Quoted Text

Unions Line Up Behind Spitzer In Troopergate
by Rick Karlin

So far, two labor groups have come out on Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s side in the Troopergate affair. Both the Working Families Party and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union have come out with statements in the wake of today’s Senate Investigation Committee hearing, urging lawmakers to esesntially move on.

Here’s what Working Families said:

“The Senate Republicans have the skills of neither Siegfried nor Roy. This hearing is about distracting us with the illusion of substance while real concerns – like paid family leave for thousands of working mothers and fathers – are ignored,” said WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor. “The lives of working people – including their newborn or adopted children — would be immeasurably improved if the Senate Republicans did the job that their constituents actually favor, instead of wasting time and money on a redundant investigation.”

And the Retail union President Stuart Applebaum:

‘’The hearings being conducted by the State Senate Investigations Committee are a distraction from the real work that needs to be done in New York State.

The men and women of the RWDSU who live and work in New York State need action not hearings. We need action on Governor Spitzer’s agenda – an agenda that the voters in New York heartily endorsed.

New Yorkers need our state government to focus on issues like paid family leave, strengthening the state’s economy and expanding access to health care. Instead we are getting grandstanding. We cannot afford delays and dysfunction when there is real work to be done.

If Republicans in Albany use these hearings as an excuse not to address the important needs of working people, that would be a tragedy for all New Yorkers. It’s time to get back to business.'’

A couple of thoughts here. Obviously these labor groups are anxious to see some progress on their push for legislation allowing more family leave, and there are a number of bills coming up next week that the governor must veto or allow to become law.

Also, it’ll be interesting to see if other unions join in the cry to move on. Not sure what groups like SEIU, 1199, who had heavy Repbulican backing in last springs health funding fight, will do, for instance.    

Quoted Text

Spitzer targets working poor
Plan aims to help families achieve ‘economic security’
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

   Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Monday detailed a plan to better help the working poor rise from welfare to the middle class, including lowering the costs and availability of housing and day care.
   Spitzer ordered 17 state agencies to team up to try to end what he has called a “perfect storm of unaffordability.” The Economic Security Cabinet will also provide ways to improve job opportunities, training and education for families to move from welfare to the work force. The aim, Spitzer said, is a sustainable job that pays expenses and help a family become financially secure.
   Advocates for the poor have long complained that government has done too little to bolster the working poor who, through extra training, education, services or by law left social services during the welfare overhaul efforts of the late 1990s.
   Spitzer’s attention on Monday was welcomed even by some advocates for the poor who criticized the Democrat less than two weeks ago for vetoing a welfare-to-work bill. That bill would have required the government to train recipients for higher-paying, “sustainable wage” jobs. Under the bill, local and state governments would have had to train recipients for jobs that pay $17 an hour or more and to fi nd training and openings for nontradi- tional employment, such as women in construction.
   Spitzer said then that the Legislature’s bill was “neither targeted effectively nor administratively realistic.”
   The Hunger Action Network of New York State had been disappointed by the veto, but applauded Spitzer’s action on Monday.
   “The state needs to be making better policy choices to truly build ‘one New York’ for all of our residents, including the working poor and working people on welfare,” said Bich Ha Pham, executive director of Hunger Action Network of New York State. “Almost a half a million people receiving welfare in our state have dreams of joining the middle class and becoming economically secure.” But she said too many aren’t able to benefit from education and job training.
   State data show there are about 530,000 New Yorkers receiving social services now, down from 1.6 million before welfare reform began more than a decade ago.
   “I’m rather encouraged by [Spitzer’s announcement],” said Jillynn Stevens of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies. She said, however, it should be expanded. “He’s talking about working New Yorkers who are not on welfare, but there also needs to be a meaningful intervention to help those who did fall into the safety net and [back] on welfare.”
   Spitzer said the special Cabinet will “make certain that no New Yorker falls through the cracks.”
   “New York leads the nation in the gap between rich and poor,” Spitzer said Monday from a Harlem job training site. “My economic security agenda is focused on lowincome, working New Yorkers who are one step away from economic peril, and who are neither firmly established in the middle class nor firmly supported by the full array of programs that make up our social safety net.
   “These families work hard and play by the rules,” he said. “They have done their part. Now we must do ours. “  

Quoted Text

“The state needs to be making better policy choices to truly build ‘one New York’ for all of our residents, including the working poor and working people on welfare,” said Bich Ha Pham, executive director of Hunger Action Network of New York State. “Almost a half a million people receiving welfare in our state have dreams of joining the middle class and becoming economically secure.” But she said too many aren’t able to benefit from education and job training.

Quoted Text

“New York leads the nation in the gap between rich and poor,” Spitzer said Monday from a Harlem job training site. “My economic security agenda is focused on lowincome, working New Yorkers who are one step away from economic peril, and who are neither firmly established in the middle class nor firmly supported by the full array of programs that make up our social safety net.
   “These families work hard and play by the rules,” he said. “They have done their part. Now we must do ours. “  

Quoted Text

Unchecked Spitzer arrogance could mean 4 long, lonely years  
First published: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Midway through his first year in office, the new governor we elected last November has become a rumor, seldom seen, seldom heard. Nobody wants to ride on his band wagon these days.

  
That kick-butt, sharp-tempered, smart-as-hell lawyer from Manhattan who was going to clean up this town and get government working again has had his wings clipped, that's for sure. So how long is he going to sulk over it?

So now what? Give up? That's not an option, governor. A known as "On Day One ..." turned out to be a bust because Eliot Spitzer's monumental arrogance coming in as chief executive permeated his staff and their attitudes. That arrogance is the direct link between Eliot Spitzer and those accused of going unethically too far to undo Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, the scandal that hangs in the air.

Overzealous, cocky, nasty, disrespectful, our way or the highway. Those are the words I've heard most often from both sides of the aisle and from those regulated or doing business one way or another with government about the first seven months of the Spitzer administration. This is an administration with no friends, even among like-minded reform Democrats.

That's why nothing of any great substance is getting done. Eliot Spitzer elicits a negative reaction from nearly everyone who has to deal with him and that is simply an ineffective way to govern.

But does he recognize it? There is no hard evidence yet that he really does.

He says he's sorry about what's come to be called Troopergate, and takes responsibility for the actions of his staff. sorry for what? For getting caught? For the profiteering going on by his opponents over it? It's hard to say because he has gone quiet on us, and has not given the public the painful long form explanation it deserves for his involvement, and any sense that his personality fault is the root cause of it all.

Right along, Spitzer has claimed his hot temper and attorney-general- for-life attitude have been a plus for him by shaking up people. He is mistaken. Thus far, they have been his undoing, the reasons he has fallen so dramatically from grace. Even the people who voted for him have got the message. That mandate of last November? Gone. If he were running for office today, John Faso would be governor.

So now what?

First and foremost, Eliot Spitzer has to admit the error of his approach and start over as governor, as difficult as this may be. Otherwise we are in for a very long four years, and oblivion at the other end for the man many expected just months ago to be the first Jewish president.

Talk to the people, governor. Show your vulnerabilities. court of public opinion can be far more forgiving than any court of law if mistakes are admitted and personal faults are thoroughly aired and genuinely recanted. But that same court can condemn the unrepentant arrogant to the dust heap of history without any remorse, or appeal.
Your choice, governor. government at the moment is in paralysis. The Spitzer governing team appears in shambles. We're being treated to the inevitable side show of partisan hearings by the Senate Investigations Committee. Democrats have launched a public relations counter offensive poo-pooing those hearings, and saying let's just all hug, get back to the people's business and let the various investigations conclude whatever it is they conclude.
The trouble is, the people's business at the moment is Troopergate and establishing the integrity of the governing administration. As annoying and partisan as it is, Republican senators have every right, and even obligation, to raise as many questions as they can. That's what checks and balances in government are all about.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno is trying desperately to keep this issue well fanned, and that's politics. But who gave Joe Bruno that opportunity? Eliot Spitzer. Who will be responsible for the Senate remaining Republican because of the checks and balances lesson that will come out of Troopergate? Eliot Spitzer.

But far more important, who is responsible for state government being at a standstill? Eliot Spitzer. partisans can dismiss Bruno's circus as much as they want, but there's only one governor to set the agenda for all of government and at the moment he's making like Rip Van Winkle.

So wake up, governor, and get on with why we elected you in the first place. Not for your arrogance, but for your drive, brilliance, new ideas and better solutions. Absolutely nothing stops you from regaining momentum out of the current stagnation by putting on the table, for the public inspection, a great big package of upstate development plans, for example. The best way to deal with a crisis like this is to work through it, very publicly and openly.

But not before a chastened governor acknowledges with genuine contrition that he needs to be a different Eliot Spitzer, and will be. Otherwise, as I said, a very long four years. LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

Quoted Text

Spitzer signs law protecting nursing moms at work
  
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Gov. Spitzer has signed a new law that will allow mothers to keep providing breast milk to their babies after returning to work.

The law requires employers to provide time and private space for women to express milk or nurse their children for up to three years following the birth of a child.

Spitzer said allowing women to breastfeed will benefit both businesses and families. Employees' dedication to the workplace will be strengthened, and children will benefit from the nutritional value of breast milk.

The Assembly and the Senate unanimously approved the legislation.

Assemblywoman Roann Destito sponsored the bill. She said a young mother was fired in her district for expressing breast milk for her baby. She said the new law ensures that won't happen again.

Quoted from Admin

http://www.wnyt.com

Quoted Text

Spitzer signs law protecting nursing moms at work
  
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Gov. Spitzer has signed a new law that will allow mothers to keep providing breast milk to their babies after returning to work.

The law requires employers to provide time and private space for women to express milk or nurse their children for up to three years following the birth of a child.

Spitzer said allowing women to breastfeed will benefit both businesses and families. Employees' dedication to the workplace will be strengthened, and children will benefit from the nutritional value of breast milk.

The Assembly and the Senate unanimously approved the legislation.

Assemblywoman Roann Destito sponsored the bill. She said a young mother was fired in her district for expressing breast milk for her baby. She said the new law ensures that won't happen again.

Quoted Text

Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
Spitzer kicks non-union
contractors

   Here’s a beauty.
   Do you remember a few years ago Schenectady and other localities began adopting a rule that in order for contractors to bid on public construction jobs they had to have apprentice programs? And not just apprentice programs, but apprentice programs approved by the state Labor Department, following the union model and based somewhere other than the contractor’s own premises?
   It was a way to make it diffi - cult for non-union contractors to bid on public jobs, and local governments went along with it, authorized to do so by the state, not out of any sense of fairness or any concern with training new workers but simply bowing to union power.
   In response, small non-union contractors endeavored to get their own apprentice programs approved, despite the bureaucratic hurdles, and some of them even succeeded. In fact quite a few succeeded — about 100 statewide, just from the Associated Builders and Contractors, which is a consortium of mostly non-union builders. Which meant that the requirement didn’t entirely have the desired effect. It didn’t entirely drive non-union shops out of public business. Some of them still managed to compete.
   So now Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat supported by and beholden to labor unions, has just
halted the recognition of new apprentice programs, which means if a contractor wants to bid on a public construction jobs he must still have an apprentice program, but he can no longer get one approved.
   A beautiful catch: You gotta have it, but you can’t get it!
   We are “suspending the development and approval of apprenticeship programs in all trades,” the governor announced the other day. “The addition of new participating employers to existing programs is also being suspended.”
   He made the announcement at a convention of the Long Island Federation of Labor, and though I wasn’t there, I’m sure it went over very well with the union officials.
   “This is the pay-off for all their support throughout the campaign,” said Scott Zylka, political affairs director for Associated Builders and Contractors, and I suppose it is. It certainly has nothing to do with the economic health of New York and nothing to do with fair competition.
   And please note that this amazingly brazen move goes well beyond the bogus Wicks Law reform, which was passed by the Assembly, is supported by the governor, but is stalled in the Senate. That non-reform would require that contractors have apprentice programs in place for three years before being allowed to bid on public works, meaning, it wouldn’t be enough that you jumped all the hurdles and got a union-type program approved by the state. After you got it approved you would still have to wait three years before you could build a school or a library.
   Or even more, because you would have to actually graduate some apprentices, not just have the training program in place, and since some of those programs last five years, you would have to wait that long. So that particular measure would be another way of locking up work for the trade unions, masquerading as reform of something else.
   The unilateral executive action by the governor leapfrogs that pokey little scam and leaves it far behind. Now you can’t get an apprenticeship program approved no matter what. Never mind waiting three years or five years.
   More clearly than anything it gives the lie to the propaganda we endured a few years ago, or at least I endured, when trade-union representatives and subservient local politicians were beating their breasts about the great importance of apprentice training and how vital it was to quality workmanship, economic growth, and the future of mankind.
   Now they don’t want it anymore. All finished. Why? Because non-union contractors were taking them up on it.
   What they do want is what I said they wanted all along: a monopoly on public construction work.
   No, wait! Not just public work after all. This bulletin just in from Long Island: The town of Oyster Bay passed a local law on Tuesday evening extending the apprenticeship requirement to private construction also. Specifically to commercial buildings or collections of commercial buildings totaling 100,000 square feet or more, meaning anything of any consequence in the private sector.
   You can’t do that kind of construction any longer in Oyster Bay unless you have an apprentice program, and of course, thanks to Gov. Spitzer, you can no longer get an apprentice program. You can do the work only if you already have one.
   This local law was pushed by — do you want to guess? — the carpenters’ union, the electrical workers union, the laborers union, the sheetmetal workers’ union.
   So maybe the governor’s suspension of new apprentice programs throughout the state is not the fi nal step. There’s still the Oyster Bay step. And then maybe there could be another step of flat-out prohibiting anyone from engaging in any construction work whatsoever unless a member of one of the trade unions.
   Becky Meinking, chapter president, Associated Builders and Contractors: “Every time in New York I think I’ve seen it all, then I see something new. It makes me wonder where we’re going to be in five years. As a taxpayer I fear for the future of the state.”
   Me too. After all, why do you think our local taxes are so high? Why do you think it costs so much to build schools and libraries and courthouses?
   And here I was, all set to give the governor credit for vetoing another silly and insulting labor-sponsored bill that had been slavishly passed by the Legislature, a bill that would have required licensing of all levels or workers who install fire sprinklers, which was an arcane matter designed to benefit no one but the trade unions.
   But forget that now. He didn’t give them that little gumball, but he gave them the store.

Quoted Text

CAPITOL
Spitzer vetoes legislation to alter squatters rights
The Associated Press

   Gov. Eliot Spitzer has vetoed a bill that would have prevented people from taking ownership of properties through a centuries-old statute commonly known as “squatters rights.”
   The governor signed several bills into law as well.
   The squatter’s rights legislation would have changed the state’s “adverse possession” law, which dates back to English common law and allows a person to take title to a property he uses for 10 years or more, without objection from its actual owner, even if that person knew the land wasn’t his to begin with.
   The bill, introduced in April by State Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury, would have changed the law to prevent such a transfer of ownership when the person knows the property belongs to someone else.
   In a memo justifying his veto, Spitzer said the bill may appear to improve the law, but it could create a flood of lawsuits because it would make it difficult for property owners to know when the statute of limitations had run.
   “I cannot approve a bill that undermines this statute of limitations and thus leaves property ownership rights so uncertain,” Spitzer said.
   Proponents of the bill were disappointed by the veto.
   “This measure would not have overturned the entire adverse possession legal mechanism,” Little said in a statement. “It would, however, have addressed those situations, for example, in which someone mows their neighbor’s grass or plants some shrubs in the hope that they may eventually claim the property as their own.”
   Spitzer also vetoed a bill that would have taken the city of Buffalo out from under the oversight of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, which was created in 2003 to provide financial assistance and provide budget oversight to the city.
   The bill proposed easing the criteria to lift the oversight provisions by next July. Spitzer said doing so would set a bad precedent.
   He also signed several bills into law including:
   A measure allowing local governments to grant property tax breaks to “Cold War” veterans who served at least a year in the military between Sept. 2, 1945 and Dec. 26, 1991.
   A ban on electrocuting chinchillas, mink, muskrats, beavers and other fur-bearing animals.
   A federally funded Veteran Burial Fund that would reimburse families of veterans up to $2,500 for burial costs. The fund would only be established if the federal government grants the money.
   New rules requiring New York City school cafeterias to be adequately heated and cooled.
   An extension of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, created to provide financial assistance and budget oversight to the city of Buffalo, through next July.
   New rules requiring state contractors to print on workers pay stubs the wages they are entitled to when they work on public projects.  

Quoted Text

He also signed several bills into law including:

Quoted Text

A ban on electrocuting chinchillas, mink, muskrats, beavers and other fur-bearing animals.

Quoted Text

New rules requiring New York City school cafeterias to be adequately heated and cooled.

Quoted Text

New rules requiring New York City school cafeterias to be adequately heated and cooled.

Quoted from senders

I guess there are some fur farms in upstate.....?Duanesburg?.....

Quoted from Rene

No fur farms.....and do we really need to get on the farm animal subject again? ;D

Quoted Text

Strock too quick to cast aspersions on apprentice programs
JOHN H. NEWELL JR. Amsterdam

   While I agree with Carl Strock almost 95 percent of the time, I believe he is way off with his take on apprenticeship programs [Aug. 30 Gazette].
   Apprentice programs administered by the unions can be a top-level educational process that promotes quality workmanship as well as worker safety. In this day and age of unrestricted multi-tasking for the sake of profits, union apprenticeship programs help new workers focus on job-specific information and production. The beauty of trade unionism is that each member is trained to the highest degree in mastering his or her own particular niche, that is to say job title. This ensures quality workmanship, which translates into tangible cost effectiveness not only for today, but for years to come.
   Most of the Capital Region’s important infrastructure (i.e. large dams, power plants, bridges, buildings, campuses, etc.) have been constructed by union members who have been trained within the parameters of a union apprentice program. This fact facilitates quality and safety not only for the worker, but for the citizens of this area.
   With that said, my own particular edition of the Gazette on the day Mr. Strock’s column ran, had on its front page of the second section, men working on bridge projects along Cranes Hollow Road in Amsterdam. These men are employed by the Steven Miller Co. of Mayfield, a local nonunion contractor. Miller has many other area projects in the Fulton-Montgomery county areas. While Miller is non-union, it at least employs local workers for the most part, and at prevailing wage rates for public works projects. Their safety record and ability to create quality workmanship within the confines of the non-union model needs to be studied further.
   Tioga Construction, another non-union firm, also has many large projects in the area. Their ability to perform safely and cost effectively remains unproven in my mind, and they employ many people from outside the Capital Region.
   With Labor Day on the horizon, maybe Mr. Strock should delve further into the so-called adversarial relationship between union and non-union contractors. An in-depth investigation and analysis, as opposed to off-the-cuff pontifications and free-form dissertations, would better provide a valuable service to the concerned citizens of this area.

Quoted Text

Wake up, Mr. Spitzer  
First published: Sunday, September 2, 2007

So here's Governor Spitzer, elected by that record margin last year to transform the very culture of state government, now showing alarming signs of not recognizing how potentially corrupting the climate of special interest money is. He's on the verge of recommending to the Legislature which company should be awarded the franchise to operate the state's racetracks. Yet he's nonplused by questions about the $2.3 million (and counting) sweepstakes of lobbying and campaign contributions that will taint such a decision.
Conflict of interest?

Not that the governor can see.

"We've been meticulous and transparent," he says, about the process of analyzing the bids from four outfits that have given him more than $600,000 in campaign contributions since 2003.

That sure strikes us as pay to play, the very sort of exchange of money for access that Mr. Spitzer was ostensibly determined to stop. How can someone who's otherwise been so admirably relentless on the issue of campaign finance reform, even during a rather difficult eight months in office, not be bothered by such a high-stakes bidding war to run horseracing, of all things?

No, there's nothing illegal about this arrangement, deciding which campaign contributor ought to win such a coveted reward. But it hardly requires illegality for something about the way government operates to be inappropriate. It's also not like Mr. Spitzer didn't know that a recommendation on who should get the racing franchise was going to be one of the most closely watched decisions of his first year in office.

The same governor who fought, but lost, a prickly battle with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno for public campaign financing earlier this year ought to demand this sweeping change when their rematch commences. It would be, quiet simply, a ban on political contributions from companies doing business, or seeking to do business, with the state. No public contracts for high-rollers like Empire Racing Associates, Excelsior Racing Associates, Capital Play LLC and the New York Racing Association. More immediately, Mr. Spitzer should realize this problem. Richard Fields of Excelsior Racing Associates, a major contributor of his, is making a mockery of the very loopholes in the campaign finance laws the governor has been trying to close.

Contributions from corporations are supposed to be limited to $5,000. But Mr. Fields took advantage of a provision in the law that lets what are known as limited liability corporations give much more than that. Donations from five different LLCs and six different addresses added up to more than $209,000, according to an analysis of campaign contributions and lobbying expenses by the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Mr. Spitzer might see all this as post time, of sorts, in his quest to live up to all the expectations of how he was going to change Albany.

THE ISSUE: The governor must decide which of four campaign contributors of his should run the state's racetracks.

THE STAKES: The public has good reason to be suspicious.

Quoted Text

VESTAL, N.Y. -- Governor Spitzer was at Vestal High in the Southern Tier during Wednesday's school day. He planned to talk about a healthy school lunch program. Instead, Spitzer taught a class about careers in global economy.

A local reporter then tried to cash in on an opportunity to ask about Spitzer's aide who just served a suspension over his role in the "Troopergate" scandal.

"Get a life, buddy," was Spitzer’s response.

WBNG anchor Justin Moss never did get an answer to what Darren Dopp's future is.

Quoted Text

Repeated scandal questions prompt Spitzer scolding
The Associated Press

   VESTAL — Gov. Eliot Spitzer scolded a local TV journalist who asked about his political troubles during a media event on the opening day of classes at a Binghamtonarea high school.
   “Get a life, buddy,” Spitzer snapped at WBNG-TV anchor and reporter Justin Moss after the last of three questions about fallout from the scandal involving Spitzer aides who schemed to discredit his main political rival.
   “It caught me off guard for sure. What do you say to that?” Moss said. “I kind of backed off.”
   Spitzer spent part of the morning at Vestal High School lecturing a class about preparing for careers in the global economy and then spoke about the state’s commitment to education funding.
   At a question-and-answer session, Moss asked about the future of top Spitzer aide Darren Dopp, recently returned to the state payroll after a suspension for his role in using the state police to compile travel records on Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
   “I don’t know,” Spitzer replied.
   Moss asked if the governor is worried about Dopp’s upcoming testimony in investigations of the incident.
   “Not in the slightest bit,” the governor said. “Any other questions? Any about education? Anything about something that matters?”
   Moss took one more shot, asking if the scandal has been a distraction from the main business of government.
   That prompted Spitzer’s caustic reply.
   “I didn’t think the question was that controversial,” Moss said.
   Spitzer spokesman Paul Larrabee said the governor was at the school to focus on improving the quality of the education for students in New York state.
   “It is our belief that the reporter was being overly aggressive in that context; that we were guests in the school district on the first day of classes, surrounded by students, and other reporters were endeavoring to ask on-topic questions,” Larrabee said.
   Since the scandal erupted in late July, Spitzer has spent most of his time away from Albany at events like the Wednesday appearance. Wherever he appears, he’s often hit with questions about the ongoing political and legal fallout from the Bruno scandal.
   During and since the campaign for governor, critics have publicly questioned Spitzer’s temperament, pointing to his use of a profanity to describe himself to a ranking Republican as a steamroller, among other things.

Quoted Text

Instead, Spitzer taught a class about careers in global economy.

Quoted Text

“It is our belief that the reporter was being overly aggressive in that context; that we were guests in the school district on the first day of classes, surrounded by students, and other reporters were endeavoring to ask on-topic questions,” Larrabee said.

Quoted Text

Since the scandal erupted in late July, Spitzer has spent most of his time away from Albany at events like the Wednesday appearance.

Quoted Text

Spitzer aide meets with DA probing trooper scandal
The Associated Press

   A longtime aide to Gov. Eliot Spitzer spoke Friday to a district attorney investigating the Democratic administration’s use of state police to discredit a political adversary.
   “I wanted to tell my side of the story,” Darren Dopp told Capital News 9 in Albany. “I have nothing to hide, but while there is an ongoing D.A. inquiry it’s just not appropriate to do so.”
   Spitzer suspended Dopp, his longtime communications director, without pay after Attorney General Andrew Cuomo issued a critical report about the scheme on July 23. That report concluded Dopp and public safety aide William Howard acted improperly. Cuomo said they used state police to track Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno’s use of state aircraft and a state police driver during trips to Manhattan that mixed state and partisan political business.
   The report said Dopp and Howard collected documents and had police reconstruct some travel records in what they said was a response to a reporter’s requests for information about the mixed travel, which has since been restricted by the state Ethics Commission.
   Spitzer demoted Howard and transferred him from the executive chamber.
   Dopp returned to the state payroll Aug. 28, but not to his $175,000 job. He is drawing some of his 10 weeks of vacation pay, according to a Spitzer aide. It is uncertain if Dopp will return to the communications post.
   Dopp and Secretary to the Governor Rich Baum, on advice from the governor’s counsel, had refused to be interviewed by Cuomo’s investigators. Instead they provided short statements that Cuomo didn’t accept for his report.

Quoted Text

Dopp returned to the state payroll Aug. 28, but not to his $175,000 job. He is drawing some of his 10 weeks of vacation pay, according to a Spitzer aide. It is uncertain if Dopp will return to the communications post.

Quoted Text

Governor warns of difficult budget decisions to come
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

   The Spitzer administration warned Thursday that declining revenues will make the 2008-09 state budget now being crafted difficult because of a projected $3.6 billion deficit and Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s promise of no tax increases.
   But the budget Spitzer will present in January will still likely increase spending by more than 5 percent before it goes to the Legislature, which traditionally increases the governor’s plan.
   Budget reform measures pushed by Spitzer and adopted earlier this year will speed the budget process and give the public a rare chance to weigh in. Public hearings around the state will be scheduled after fi scal forecasts including projected deficits are made public in early and mid-November.
   Spitzer Budget Director Paul Francis said Thursday he hopes to keep increased spending at no more than 5.3 percent, which Division of Budget economists pegged to be the rate of personal income growth in New York.
   He said the inflation rate of about 3 percent, which is often used by critics of high government spending, is an unrealistic measure. Francis told the Citizens Budget Commission, a good government group, that if the state capped spending at the rate of inflation, local governments would have to make up the shortfall in state aid by raising local taxes.
   The current budget increased spending in the operating budget by more than 7 percent over the last Pataki-era budget. By comparison, Francis noted the last Patakiera budget increased spending by almost 11 percent.
   And Francis wants to use the operating budget figure — about $80 billion — as opposed to the all-funds budget of $120 billion that includes federal funds and capital borrowing.
   E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy agrees with Francis that the operating budget is a better judge of state spending and he doesn’t dispute the 5.3 percent figure for personal income growth. But he says that’s not a good goal.
   “That means, ‘We’re going to spend all the money you make,’ ” McMahon said.
   McMahon said spending commitments in the current budget, including a multiyear historic increase in school aid, will make the current budget session difficult. It’s already threatened by a downturn in Wall Street revenues — which Francis said can account for 20 percent of state revenues — and the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market and the tax revenue from it.
   Francis said that in past years revenues have usually risen between the time the governor submits his budget and the April 1 start of the fiscal year.
   “The windfall of added revenues has largely absolved the Legislature from having to make hard decisions when it comes to the budget,” Francis said. “But all indications are that next year will be different.”
   The Legislature usually adds $1 billion to $2 billion to the budget. That means the governor’s executive budget proposal every January can be about 99 percent of the final product, whenever it is finally passed by the Legislature.  

Quoted Text

"Governor Spitzer took an oath to protect the citizens of New York State when he took office in January.  Today's directive to the Department of Motor Vehicles to no longer require applicants to provide Social Security numbers, or proof that they are eligible for Social Security cards, will certainly make it easier for illegal immigrants to obtain valid identification to blend into society," said State Chairman Michael R. Long.

Quoted Text

Law asserts nursing moms’ rights
State expands workplace rules
BY SARA FOSS Gazette Reporter

   New York has joined the ranks of states that protect the rights of nursing mothers in the workplace.
   A new state law requires employers to make a reasonable effort to provide a private place for nursing women to pump breast milk during unpaid breaks for a period of up to three years following the birth of a child.
   It also bars an employer from discriminating against an employee exercising this right.
   “This is great for working women and babies, particularly low-income women,” said Steffany Stern, a policy analyst at the National Partnership for Women & Families in Washington, D.C. “This aims to set a standard.”
   Twelve other states have similar breast pumping laws.
   The law unanimously passed the Assembly and Senate, and was signed into law by Gov. Eliot Spitzer last month.
   It was sponsored Assemblywoman Roann Destito, who had been trying to get the law passed since 2001, after a New Hartford woman told her she was fired from her accounting job for pumping breast milk at work. The woman, Camille Benzo-Fukes, filed a federal lawsuit against her employer, St. Luke’s Memorial Hospital Center in Utica, alleging that her civil rights were violated. The hospital’s attorneys denied firing Benzo-Fukes over her pumping, but maintained that they would have had the right to do so. The court agreed; in his decision U.S. District Judge Frederick Scullin wrote that discriminating against a breast-feeding woman was not prohibited under federal civil rights laws.
   Last week a judge rejected a Harvard student’s request for extra break time during her nine- hour medical licensing exam so she could pump breast milk for her infant daughter. Sophie Currier, 33, sued after the National Board of Medical Examiners turned down her request to take more than the standard 45 minutes in breaks during the exam. She said that if she does not nurse her 4-month-old daughter, Lea, or pump breast milk every two to three hours, she risks medical complications.
   But Norfolk Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady said Currier has other options, beyond asking the board to change its rules for her. “The plaintiff may take the test and pass, notwithstanding what she considers to be unfavorable conditions. The plaintiff may delay the test, which is offered numerous times during the year, until she has finished her breast feeding and the need to express milk,” he said.
   The state’s new law is a step in the right direction, but needs “stronger to be stronger and have more enforcement provisions,” said Julie Kay, a senior staff attorney in the sexuality and family rights program at Legal Momentum, a New York City-based organization that advocates for the rights of women and girls. For instance, it would be a stronger law if it required employers to provide cold storage for nursing mothers, she said, adding that it’s not clear how the New York law will be enforced.
   In 2006, Legal Momentum received a call from a teacher in a district outside of Buffalo who said her employer forbid her to use 10 minutes of her preparation periods to pump breast milk or go to the school’s nearby child care center to nurse her baby, Kay said. Under the law, the employer would now be required to provide the teacher with a place to pump breast milk, and the time to do so.
   “The law allows employees to have a leg to stand on,” Kay said. “It’s a private and difficult thing for an employee to talk to an employer about.”
   Because of the difficulties in pumping breast milk, many women wean their children before they return to work, Kay said. “It’s one of those things families deal with individually, and everyone thinks it’s an individual problem until they start looking at the barriers,” she said.  

Quoted Text

Middle class doesn’t need help for health insurance

   Regarding Gov. Spitzer’s threat to sue the federal government after his plan to increase the income limit for a family of four to $82,000 to enable their children to qualify for state health insurance was rejected:
   I cannot think of a more frivolous lawsuit. Nor can I think of a better example of a wealthy politician having no concept of what it’s like to be a lower-middle-class individual. Eighty-two thousand dollars is more than twice my gross annual income. I have a huge problem knowing that my tax dollars (exorbitant as they currently are, with no reduction in the near future with him in office) are going to provide health insurance for a child whose parent(s) makes double my income. How is that fair?
I cannot complain when my taxes are going to help those who are less fortunate, but how can a family with that income limit ever be considered for state assistance? That is absolutely ridiculous, and I’m happy that the federal government is standing up to it.
This, Mr. Spitzer, is why there is a brain drain. My fellow 20-something-year-olds don’t want to pay New York’s high taxes — especially when it is just for waste.
ELISA J. O’GRADY
Niskayuna  

Quoted Text

SPITZER: STILL SINKING
October 3, 2007 -- Gov. Spitzer seems headed for an ugly crash-and-burn - and, while no one wants that, he'll have only himself to blame if it happens.

A Quinnipiac University poll yesterday put Spitzer's approval rating at its lowest point to date: 47 percent. More voters than ever think he lied about his office's Dirty Tricks campaign - and a whopping 78 percent say he should testify under oath about his role.

For months now - since July, when The Post exposed that campaign (in which the gov's top aides used State Police to smear Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno) - Spitzer's numbers haven't improved one bit.

Most tellingly, more than half (51 percent) told the Q-poll that his "steamroller" shtick just ain't working (versus a meager 16 percent who think it is). They say it's fueling "legislative gridlock."

As if to prove the point, Spitzer has been in full steamroller mode for a week - mostly targeting critics of his loopy driver's-licenses-for-illegal-aliens scheme.

Monday, he again blasted his foes' "fear-mongering," "ugly politics," "hysterical allegations" and obstruction of "what is morally and practically right."

The tirade came after an out-of-the-blue broadside impugning the ethics and morals of his supposed friend, Mayor Bloomberg - who had the temerity to question the license proposal.

Yesterday, Spitzer tried to defend his go-for-the-jugular approach.

"Reasonable people will have different points of view about public policy. I get that," he said.

"But what we are not going to accept is hysterical rhetoric that preys upon the public's fears," Spitzer added.

In fact, the hysterical rhetoric emanates solely from Czar Spitzer.

There is just no give in this gov - which is close to being his undoing.

His obdurate refusal to allow himself to be questioned under oath on the Dirty Tricks scandal certainly hasn't caused it to fade away.

In fact, the Quinnipiac poll was conducted after Albany County DA David Soares issued his seedy whitewash of the affair - and things just got worse for the governor.

Folks still think he's a liar.

Spitzer says he wants Albany to get back to the business of governing.

We're not unsympathetic to that. New York desperately needs governing.

But if his idea of governance is biting the heads off opponents, impugning the integrity of his dwindling supply of friends and insulting the intelligence of all New Yorkers by refusing to come clean on the Dirty Tricks scandal - well, it ain't going to fly.

Try the truth, Eliot

Quoted Text

Quoted Text
Middle class doesn’t need help for health insurance

   Regarding Gov. Spitzer’s threat to sue the federal government after his plan to increase the income limit for a family of four to $82,000 to enable their children to qualify for state health insurance was rejected:
   I cannot think of a more frivolous lawsuit. Nor can I think of a better example of a wealthy politician having no concept of what it’s like to be a lower-middle-class individual. Eighty-two thousand dollars is more than twice my gross annual income. I have a huge problem knowing that my tax dollars (exorbitant as they currently are, with no reduction in the near future with him in office) are going to provide health insurance for a child whose parent(s) makes double my income. How is that fair?
I cannot complain when my taxes are going to help those who are less fortunate, but how can a family with that income limit ever be considered for state assistance? That is absolutely ridiculous, and I’m happy that the federal government is standing up to it.
This, Mr. Spitzer, is why there is a brain drain. My fellow 20-something-year-olds don’t want to pay New York’s high taxes — especially when it is just for waste.
ELISA J. O’GRADY
Niskayuna

Quoted Text

Spitzer targets upstate economy
Governor unveils ‘City by City Plans’
BY CAROLYN THOMPSON The Associated Press

   BUFFALO — Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced Wednesday a tailored approach to revitalizing the upstate economy based on the strengths and geography of individual cities.
   “We often talk about the upstate economy as if upstate was some monolithic region, but quite the opposite is true,” Spitzer said in Buffalo, where he unveiled an ambitious agenda for western New York, a region particularly hard hit by population declines troubling all of upstate.
   “For the first time, a generation of upstate New Yorkers has had less economic opportunity than their parents — and many have been forced to leave for opportunity elsewhere,” Spitzer said.
   The cities-driven strategy will complement ongoing statewide initiatives focused on lowering the cost of doing business in New York and strengthening the state’s infrastructure, the governor said.
   “Going forward, we must not only continue to address the macrolevel issues on a statewide level,” he said, “we must also complement this strategy with a focused effort to revitalize each region.”
   New “regional blueprints” will have state and local business leaders, elected officials and economic development agencies working together to set economic development priorities.
   “City by City Plans,” meanwhile, will identify and provide state funding to specific projects seen as pivotal in each city.
   “While each of our cities is different, they do have one thing in common,” Spitzer said. “They have all been held back by too many competing priorities. Each city has a deep well of potential that has remained untapped because of key projects that have stalled and been mired in gridlock.”
   In Buffalo, the long-sought development of the waterfront — anchored by a Bass Pro store — and construction of a new international Peace Bridge to Canada were named priorities, along with redevelopment of a Niagara Falls tourist corridor and the transformation of a vacant, asbestos- and PCB-contaminated downtown Buffalo office building into a hotel-office-residential complex.
   Spitzer will roll out priorities for other cities over the next two weeks.
   “We will no longer be second fiddle to our downstate cousins,” said Dan Gundersen, who awaits state Senate confirmation as Spitzer’s upstate economic development chief.
   “What we want to do with City by City is instill confidence,” said Gundersen, who said the plan focuses on “strategic investments.”
   The office building project in Buffalo, for example, will receive $7 million in grants and up to $14.6 million in loans from the Empire State Development Corp., while private developers spend $56.6 million to redevelop it as a luxury hotel that will have condominium units and office space. The project had been in jeopardy after the private-sector partnership that acquired the building discovered cleanup costs would far exceed their projections.
   “We are now good to go,” said investor Carl Montante Sr. of Uniland Development.  

Quoted Text

Assembly GOP exploring possibility of recall
A measure allowing the removal of a sitting governor would likely require a change in the constitution  
  
By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau
First published: Saturday, October 13, 2007

ALBANY -- In what may be the Republicans' most aggressive action so far in their increasingly bitter struggle with Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, lawyers for Assembly Republican Minority Leader James Tedisco are researching a proposal to create a way of allowing voters to unseat a sitting governor.
  
Such a recall mechanism would probably have to come through a constitutional amendment, which would entail approval by two consecutive legislatures and by voters.

And while it's highly unlikely the Democratic-dominated Assembly would pass the plan, the fact that Republicans are looking at it underscores how hard they are going after Spitzer.

"We're researching the possibility of a recall, similar to what California has," said Bill Sherman, Tedisco's ch