City & State Magazine, September 29, 2014 by City & State

AGENCY FOCUS:

NYS Department of Transportation

WESTWARD EXPANSION:

C&S Buffalo Bureau Launches

September 29, 2014

ALL IN

THE CASINO DEVELOPERS HAVE PLACED THEIR BETS.

WHO HAS THE STRONGEST HAND? CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

Trifecta ad_City&State 9/9/14 1:45 PM Page 1

NKINGS

COLLEG

It’s a CUNY Trifecta!

COL

INGS

Rated 1, 2 3 Nationally “Best Bang for the Buck” #

#1 BROOKLYN COLLEGE “

# and

#2 QUEENS COLLEGE

#3 BARUCH COLLEGE

he CUNY schools are legendary for having educated wave after wave of first-generation students, many from immigrant backgrounds, from Jonas Salk to Jennifer Lopez. These – The Washington Monthly colleges continue that tradition.”

“CUNY colleges are nationally recognized as offering tremendous value, with our world-class faculty, low tuition, new facilities and wellearned reputation with employers, graduate and professional schools.” – Chancellor James B. Milliken

cuny.edu/value

CONTENT S

CONTENTS

6........

BETTER KNOW A LAWMAKER

A potpourri of Albany legislators’ unusual biographical details

8........

CITY

12.......

STATE

.... 14.......

Inside Mayor De Blasio’s first Management Report By Nick Powell What really would the Women’s Equality Act abortion plank do? By Ashley Hupfl

BUFFALO

“Beirut on the Lake”: The civil war dividing Erie County’s Dems By Chris Thompson

16....... A recap of C&S’ Buffalo Bureau Launch 18.......

22......

28......

WANTED: DOCTORS

Rural areas struggle with doctor shortage By Ashley Hupfl

COVER STORY

What matters most in selecting New York’s casino bids? By Jon Lentz and Wilder Fleming

AGENCY FOCUS: NYS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

A Q & A with Commissioner Joan McDonald, bios of the top deputies at the agency, a look at DOT’s top projects, and analysis from the Citizens Budget Commission

34......

ROAD TO SOMOS:

Beyond the Dream Act: Latino leaders must think big By Angelo Falcón

35......

Island to Island: Fascinating facts about New York City’s connection to Puerto Rico

36......

A Q & A with Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto, the mayor of San Juan

37......

PERSPECTIVES

38......

Nicole Gelinas on why Mayor de Blasio should not ban horse-drawn carriages and New York City Councilman Ben Kallos on using technology to upgrade government and society

MARCHING ON

A Q & A with filmmaker and activist Josh Fox

61 Broadway, Suite 2825 New York, NY 10006 Editorial (212) 894-5417 General (646) 517-2740 Advertising (212) 284-9712 advertising@cityandstateny.com

CITY AND STATE, LLC Chairman Steve Farbman President/CEO Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com

PUBLISHING Publisher Andrew A. Holt aholt@cityandstateny.com Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@cityandstateny.com Chief of Staff Jasmin Freeman jfreeman@cityandstateny.com Business Development Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com Director of Marketing Samantha Diliberti sdilierti@cityandstateny.com Office Administrator Kyle Renwick krenwick@cityandstateny.com Distribution Czar Dylan Forsberg

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Morgan Pehme mpehme@cityandstateny.com Managing Editor Michael Johnson mjohnson@cityandstateny.com Albany Bureau Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com City Hall Bureau Chief Nick Powell npowell@cityandstateny.com Albany Reporter Ashley Hupfl ahupfl@cityandstateny.com Buffalo Reporter Chris Thompson cthompson@cityandstateny.com Policy Reporter Wilder Fleming wfleming@cityandstateny.com Associate Editor Helen Eisenbach Columnists Alexis Grenell, Bruce Gyory, Nicole Gelinas, Michael Benjamin, Seth Barron, Jeff Smith, Jim Heaney, Gerson Borrero, Susan Arbetter PRODUCTION Art Director Guillaume Federighi gfederighi@cityandstateny.com Graphic Designer Michelle Yang myang@cityandstateny.com Marketing Graphic Designer Charles Flores, cflores@cityandstateny.com

Cover: Illustration by Guillaume Federighi

cit yandstateny.com

Web Manager Lydia Eck, leck@cityandstateny.com Illustrator Danilo Agutoli

city & state — September 29, 2014

September 29, 2014

Letters to the

Editor

GETTING ALONG

city & state — September 29, 2014

ew organizations in New York can bridge the partisan and ideological divide like City & State. Under the same roof at our recent party in celebration of the launch of our new Buffalo bureau were Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, a Democrat, By Morgan Pehme and 2010 Republican Editor-in-Chief gubernatorial nominee and Tea Party darling Carl Paladino; State Senator Tim Kennedy and his colleague from across the aisle, Mark Grisanti; political machine leaders and good government advocates; top lawyers and labor officials; environmental activists and energy industry bigwigs; representatives of the Working Families Party and members of the Conservative Party; high-powered lobbyists and grassroots gadflys. While this unusual mélange may conjure images of a lunchroom on the verge of a food fight, in actuality there was something of a Tower of Babel feel to it. Rather than speaking in strange tongues, when brought together these disparate tribes had more points of accord than one might suspect, particularly given the acrimonious impasse our politics is generally portrayed to be. Most striking to me was the agreement among everyone I spoke to about the ruinous effect that the explosion of money has had upon our electoral system. In interviews with City & State, all three major candidates for State Senate in Western New York’s 60th SD—Kevin Stocker, the Republican nominee; Marc Panepinto, the Democratic Party’s choice; and Grisanti, who is running on the Independence line— bemoaned the influence big dollar campaigns are having upon the state. All three said they favor campaign finance reform—though the scope of what they believe should be done to rein in the system differs. Panepinto points to public financing as the key to curbing the pay-forplay culture that permeates Albany. Stocker expresses just as much outrage with a system he views as fostering legal corruption, though he has reservations about taxpayer-funded elections, preferring instead strict spending limits and equal media time to level the

playing field—measures that would be tenuous from a legal standpoint, given the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent decisions pertaining to this area. Grisanti, who has been both the beneficiary and casualty of fierce independent expenditures, also endorses a host of campaign finance measures, though he too stops short of embracing publicly financed elections. The fact that three candidates vying against each other, who on paper are fundamentally at odds in their world view, all felt so strongly about one of the root causes of our government’s dysfunction and were passionate to tackle it gave me the sense that our political divisions may not be as intractable as those that benefit from them make them out to be, and that if only we could bring ourselves to concentrate on our concordances rather than our conflicts than we could achieve meaningful progress in many of the areas that seem intractable. Unfortunately, emphasizing our harmonies is not the effective campaign technique that stressing our discord is. Take the Women’s Equality Act. While personally I agree with the effort to codify Roe v. Wade in state law, I disagreed with the decision of Democrats in the Legislature last session not to pass the nine planks of the bill upon which there appeared to be universal concurrence, and from which the women of New York would already have benefitted immensely had they been enacted. In my mind, it is manifest that the Democrats drawing a line in the sand over the abortion plank was a cynical ploy to force Republicans into a position where they either had to compromise their core values or be branded women-haters, unfairly, during this election cycle, as has occurred already and will continue to be the case through November and beyond. New Yorkers deserves better than these selfserving stalemates. I know it will come off as ridiculous to our battle-hardened readers to even proffer this olive branch, but my experience in Erie County reignited in me the hope that we could refocus our politics and fashion a platform of unity based upon our shared beliefs. As long as we are divided we will never conquer the greatest challenges to our society, like inequality and the disastrous influence of money upon our democracy. For a change, let us put aside our differences and work for the greater good of the people.

In the magazine’s September 15 cover story, City & State Buffalo correspondent Chris Thompson wrote about Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s concerted effort to win Western New York this cycle, after losing it in 2010 to his Republican opponent, Carl Paladino. In January 2014 Gov. Cuomo announced that the state would invest $60 million to assist owners of the Buffalo Bills in renovating their stadium. At the time I said this confirms that taxpayers should just say ‘no’ to using public funds for any new or renovated major sports stadiums. It was recently revealed that the owners of the Buffalo Bills actually posted a profit of between $30-$40 million in 2013 (“Bills scored millions in ‘13”, New York Post, August 9). Cuomo also said “I want to do everything I can to keep the Buffalo Bills in the state and will consider public aid for a new stadium if necessary.” This proclamation was followed several weeks later by Buffalo Sabers owner Terry Pegula offering to buy the Buffalo Bills for $1.4 billion. Why should taxpayers subsidize a profit making business? The growing corporate welfare practiced by Cuomo is far worse than abuse of public welfare. Is Cuomo attempting to buy votes in an election year with taxpayer dollars? You decide. —Larry Penner (Great Neck, NY) City & State columnist Jim Heaney explored the tax incentives that New York would have to offer Elon Musk, the famous tech mogul, to entice his company SolarCity to build a solar panel manufacturing plant in Buffalo. Considering the latest efficiency innovations of Panasonic and SunPower and the 1,000 megawatt (or more) scale required of this factory to even remotely globally compete, it is difficult to imagine Buffalo as a host to this endeavor without it suffering severely negative air and water environmental impacts from silicon and related production. As all of the local “environmentalists” race to the Hallmark Store to buy cards for Elon, nobody seems to be noticing the army of men and women immediately below beloved Mr. Musk acting as the world’s best cut-throat capitalists. From specter to nightmare it is impossible to imagine Musk’s financial team being willing to spend an extra $14 million on environmental protections and procedures for a factory footprint, which many renewable energy voices throughout the world are joking will require the present balance of Lackawanna real estate to be Andy-nent Domain bulldozed and its citizens indentured for $3 per day. Somewhere between the worst scenarios of Quasar Energy, SolarCity and City Labs we have a magical tax and environmental crisis trifecta capable of making Bethlehem Steel at 1970’s full capacity look like Disney World. —Charley Tarr (via cityandstateny.com) To have your letter to the editor considered for publication, leave a comment at www.cityandstateny.com, tweet us @CityAndStateNY, email editor@cityandstateny.com or write to 61 Broadway, Suite 2825, New York, NY 10006. Letters may be edited for clarity or length. cit yandstateny.com

NYSNA: Caring for ALL New Yorkers

Here in New York City and throughout our state, nurses are uniting to improve care for our patients. We’re working together to end healthcare inequality and to raise standards so that every New Yorker has access to quality care. Through our union, the New York State Nurses Association, we’re creating a better future for nurses and our patients:

Æ Safe RN Staffing. Having enough nurses at the bedside is key to safe patient care.

In our union contracts and in the legislature, we’re working to ensure that every patient has access to the care of a nurse whenever they need it.

Æ Community Voices. We believe that our communities should have a voice in decisions that

impact their access to care. Healthcare decisions should be based on community needs, not on the bottom line. That’s why we’re advocating to strengthen community voices in care.

Æ Quality Care for ALL. Every patient deserves equal access to quality care regardless of

income, borough, or insurance coverage. We’re working with fellow healthcare unions, patients, community leaders, and elected allies to stop the devastating tide of hospital cuts and closures in underserved communities.

www.nysna.org

nynurses

@nynurses

BETTER KNOW A LEGISLATOR A POTPOURRI OF UNUSUAL FACTS ABOUT ALBANY LAWMAKERS

city & state — September 29, 2014

ou may be familiar with your state legislator’s political stances on policy and issues, but chances are your knowledge doesn’t extend to more obscure biographical information about them. Did you know, for instance, that one assemblyman has appeared in two movies with Denzel Washington, while another is one of America’s top curlers. In recognition of our state legislators’ wealth of talents and eccentricities, City & State presents the following collection of lesser known facts about their lives.

cit yandstateny.com

ASSEMBLY

• WILL BARCLAY represents the eighth generation of his family living in Pulaski, N.Y. • HARRY BRONSON is one of 12 children. He is the co-owner of Equal=Grounds, a coffee house noted as a neighborhood meeting place in the South Wedge part of the 138th Assembly District. • ALEC BROOK-KRASNY in 2000 became the first Russianspeaking American to run for political office. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and engineering from the Moscow Technological Institute. • From 1976 to 1986, MARC BUTLER was a reporter for the Utica Observer-Dispatch. He spent most of that 10-year run at the Herkimer County bureau, where he reported extensively on local government and politics. • MARCOS CRESPO spent three years living in Lima, Peru, where he completed his fourth- and fifthgrade studies while attending Santa Tersesita. • CLIFFORD CROUCH graduated from Cornell University in 1965 with an AAS degree in Dairy Science. From 1967 to 1989 he was the owner and operator of a 350-acre, 180-head dairy farm. • MICHAEL DenDEKKER is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, and has appeared in several films and television shows including Spike Lee’s Inside Man and Ridley Scott’s American Gangster. • In 1991 DAVID DiPIETRO took cit yandstateny.com

over the family business, Sparkle Cleaners, in Amherst. Within three years he tripled sales, doubled the number of employees, and added two locations. • STEVE ENGLEBRIGHT holds a master of science degree in paleontology/sedimentology from SUNY Stony Brook. • Since 1970 GARY FINCH has been the owner and chief operating officer of Brew-Finch Funeral Homes, Inc., a company operating multiple funeral homes in northern, central and southern parts of the state. • CHRISTOPHER FRIEND met his wife, Renée, in the ninth grade. They have been together ever since. • ANDY GOODELL is a PSIAcertified ski instructor and a licensed marine pilot engineer. His cousin is embattled NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

medical technician and received a commendation for delivering a baby boy on the side of the Southern State Parkway.

• From 1985–90 WILLIAM MAGEE was employed at the New York State Fair in various positions, including manager of agriculture and livestock, equestrian events manager and coordinator of special projects.

• JOSEPH SALADINO is a mountain climber who has climbed to the top of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the U.S. outside of Alaska; Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in western Europe; Italy’s Mt. Etna and Mt. Stromboli, the world’s most active volcano, and Mt. Marcy in New York.

• STEVE McLAUGHLIN was once a pilot with Mall Airways, concurrently with owning a small lawn-care business to make extra money to repay his student loans. His next job was with another commuter airline, Brockway Air, which became Metro Air Northeast. When that airline shut down during the first Gulf War, he flew as a corporate pilot for Key Bank, then the Airbus and Boeing 737 for America West and US Airways. He has compiled over 12,000 hours of flight time with a perfect safety record. • BILL NOJAY once served as an election monitor with the International Republican Institute in Ukraine and Afghanistan. He is currently a director and secretary/treasurer of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran. He received a certificate in international and comparative law from the Columbia Law School-affiliated Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law. • PHIL RAMOS was an emergency

• MICHELLE SCHIMEL was a physical therapist and certified wound care specialist at North Shore University Hospital. • JAMES SKOUFIS is in the top 50 percent of curlers in the country. He was once a New York State under-18 champion in table tennis, for which he traveled to China to train. • ROBERT SWEENEY was named one of the “100 Most Influential People” of the 20th century in the Town of Babylon. • CLAUDIA TENNEY was the only American employed by the Consulate General of Yugoslavia, and served as a foreign correspondent and intermediary between ABC Sports and the Yugoslavian government leading up to the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. She produced and published the first Bosnian newspaper in Utica.

SENATE

• RICHARD GOTTFRIED was first elected to the Assembly in 1970, at the age of 23, while still a student at Columbia Law School. • MARK JOHNS achieved the rank of Eagle Scout at the age of 14. • STEVE KATZ served as a field researcher for the World Wildlife Fund in French Guiana and the Galapagos. He also lived in Italy for two years, and speaks fluent Italian. • CHARLES LAVINE grew up in Marinette, Wis., Menominee, Mich., Manistique, Mich., and Green Bay, Wis. He served as editor-in-chief of the Moot Court Board, chairman of the Student Curriculum Committee and representative of the Student Bar

• TERRY GIPSON was born in Tyler, Texas, and put himself through school by working as a landscaper, dishwasher, cook, carpenter, painter, cafeteria manager and scenic and lighting designer.

• KENNETH LaVALLE received the honorary title “Cavaliere Ordin e al Merito della Repubblica Italiana” from the Italian government for his work in education and promotion of cultural exchange.

• BRAD HOYLMAN won a Rhodes Scholarship and put himself through Harvard Law School.

• LEE ZELDIN was sworn in to the New York State Bar at just 23 years old—the youngest attorney in New York State at that time.

city & state — September 29, 2014

• CARMEN ARROYO wrote a book of poems called Mis Poesias.

Association, where he was the recipient of the Student Bar Association’s Exceptional Service Award.

CITY

PROGRESSIVELY MEASURING PROGRESS DE BLASIO’S FIRST MANAGEMENT REPORT SHOWS MIXED RESULTS IN MEETING SOME OF HIS EARLY GOALS By NICK POWELL

city & state — September 29, 2014

nce upon a time, the annual release of the Mayor’s Management Report was a notable event for civic observers in New York City, a moment when the administration is mandated by the City Charter to give the “straight dope” on the performance of the city’s agencies, devoid of any political agenda or spin. While Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first Management Report is not quite the propaganda handbook that some accused Michael Bloomberg’s of being, it is safe to say that there are still gaps in the information being disseminated to the public. Each administration over the last 30 years has had a different philosophy behind the report. Ed Koch’s reports were typically very data-driven and acted as a report card of sorts (the mayor even once declared that based on the report, he would give his sanitation commissioner a “C”). David Dinkins’ reports were typically a sober evaluation of the highs and lows of governing, acknowledging setbacks, but acting as a cudgel his office could wield to fight off cutbacks to social services. The messaging of the Management Report truly changed, experts say, under Rudolph Giuliani, who stocked it thick with charts and graphs to demonstrate that the city, previously crime-ridden, had risen from the ashes under his stewardship. His successor, Bloomberg, downsized the report significantly and took a page out of Giuliani’s playbook by using it primarily to highlight the good at the expense of the bad. The common thread of de Blasio’s report is a focus on “equity, equality and opportunity,” writes Mindy Tarlow, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Operations, and one of the

Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks to his commissioners, who contributed agency write-ups to his first Mayor’s Management Report. primary authors of the report. To that end, each agency section, regardless of its function, provides a “Focus on Equity” statement in the report to explain how it will achieve this goal. Considering de Blasio’s campaign mantra, and overall branding of himself and his administration as “progressive,” this theme is hardly surprising. City & State examined de Blasio’s first mayor’s management report through the lens of how it dovetails with some of the issues that his administration has prioritized in its first year, from improving policecommunity relations to creating affordable housing to decreasing the city’s homeless population.

POLICING & CRIME In a nifty bit of campaign branding, de Blasio made his candidacy for mayor synonymous with putting an end to the unconstitutional use of stop-

and-frisk policing, despite the fact that his position on the controversial tactic did not differ all that much from his opponents. So it was somewhat of a surprise that the New York Police Department’s agency report mentions the term “stop-and-frisk” only once, saying that crime rates have remained low, while “the Department has experienced a dramatic decrease in the levels of stop-and-frisk,” yet there are no statistics provided in the report to support this claim. By contrast, Bloomberg’s reports also did not account for the number of stops, but he and and his police commissioner, Ray Kelly, were proponents of the tactic. Judging by the sharp rhetoric de Blasio has used to criticize stop-andfrisk, it would be reasonable to assume that some mention would be made of the NYPD’s attempts to curb its use. It is worth noting, however, that cases commenced against the city in state and federal court decreased

from 3,997 in Fiscal Year 2013 to 3,701 in Fiscal 2014, perhaps a sign that the recently enacted Community Safety Act, which makes it easier for individuals to sue the NYPD over stopand-frisk, has had the desired effect of reducing unconstitutional stops. In addition to the stop-andfrisk claim, the NYPD’s “focus on equity” comes through “needsbased” allocation of police personnel, establishing an Office of Collaborative Policing to develop strategies to enhance community relations, and supporting another one of the mayor’s campaign platforms, Vision Zero, by strengthening the department’s enforcement of traffic safety violations throughout the city. As a result, moving violations issued by the NYPD increased five percent in Fiscal 2014 and summons issued for hazardous violations increased by 10 percent. Despite much public uproar over new Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s emphasis on “broken windows” policing—i.e. focusing on quality-of-life crimes before they escalate to a larger scale—statistics show that quality-of-life summons have actually decreased by 12 percent in Fiscal 2014 compared to the previous year.

HOUSING For city housing experts and advocates hoping that the management report might provide an additional window into how the de Blasio administration will utilize the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to create and preserve 200,000 units of affordable cit yandstateny.com

city & state â&#x20AC;&#x201D; March 24, 2014

cit yandstateny.com

Custodian Engineers: Doing More with Less for Too Long Robert J. Troeller

Business Manager/President IUOE Local 891

As the Business Manager/President of IUOE Local 891, I am proud to represent New York City’s 800 Public School Custodian Engineers. Our members have the responsibility to ensure our children and all others who enter our schools have a safe and clean environment in which to learn and work. Unfortunately, the Bloomberg administration failed to provide our members with the necessary help. Not only have my members and the custodial workers they supervise not received a contractual raise since 2007, during his tenure Mayor Bloomberg reduced the custodial budgets used to operate the schools by over $58 million. Combined with the deliberate $25 million reduction in spending on after-school activities over the past three years, the result is the equivalent loss of over 2,000 full-time custodial workers system-wide.

Thankfully, Mayor de Blasio, the UFT and several other unions have negotiated a new wage pattern that I believe is both fair to the workforce and fiscally responsible. And, it is at the bargaining table and not by challenging City and State prevailing wage laws, where my Union and the other unions representing custodial workers should secure their much needed raises. Custodial budgets are based entirely on a manpower allocation calculated according to the estimated staffing needs of that building. There is absolutely no funding provided to purchase materials or supplies. Rather, each Custodian Engineer receives an annual supply allocation in the form of a credit with a single vendor, SDI. Despite inflation, higher costs for environmentally safer cleaning products, energy-saving light bulbs and all other rising costs, the dollars allocated to each school have not increased for more than 20 years. Today, a typical school building’s “annual supply allocation” will only cover the cost of six to seven months of supplies. As a result Custodian Engineers must utilize their labor budget to purchase necessary supplies allocation. It’s time the DOE allow the most efficient use of its limited resources by providing Custodian Engineers with approved vendors who have bid based on specific material costs. Foolishly, the Department of School Facilities requires almost all additional purchases be made through a sole-source vendor. The price of materials and supplies through that company are significantly higher than the price of identical items on the open market.

city & state — September 29, 2014

This process deserves a serious investigation and oversight. New dangers such as the hanta-virus scare, lead dust, lead caulking, swine flu (H1N1) and PCBs leaking from fluorescent light fixtures have all resulted in additional mandated protocols with additional cleaning requirements for my members and their staff. Not one of these mandates came with additional funding. It has been 10 years since the City Council passed a resolution condemning the wasteful and dangerous practice of outsourcing custodial services to private, profit motivated contractors. The hearings and investigation which led to that Resolution proved that private cleaning companies were not only more costly than Civil Service Custodian Engineers they were more prone to dangerous mishaps due to inexperienced and unqualified supervisors. Yet, the Department of Education continues to utilize private facilities management companies in more than 100 school buildings. The cost differential has continued to grow due to the budget cuts my members have experienced. It is long past time that this waste of tax-payer dollars comes to an end.

projects that broke ground this year were originally negotiated by the Bloomberg administration, including the Domino Sugar development in Williamsburg and Livonia Commons in East New York. Next year’s management report will offer much greater insight into how quickly HPD, the city’s Housing Development Corporation, and Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Alicia Glen are able to negotiate with developers to ramp up the number of housing starts.

HOMELESSNESS It’s no secret that New York City is dealing with a homelessness crisis, one that predates de Blasio’s mayoralty. Unfortunately, despite a lot of rhetoric devoted to the issue—lest we forget Dasani Coates’ appearance frontand-center at Inauguration Day—the number of homeless individuals in New York City now stands at 56,454 people, 2,839 more than the number on the day de Blasio introduced policy changes to decrease the homeless population in May. It is surprising then, that the Department of Homeless Services’ (DHS) agency report tends to give the impression that the agency is struggling to cope with this tragic reality. One telling indicator is that DHS’ homeless prevention program, Homebase, which provides individualized assistance to homeless families and individuals, continues to exceed its “targets” with a 95 percent success rate, though hitting these benchmarks evidently has not done much to curb the overall homeless population. Another discouraging sign is that despite an uptick in the number of single adults exiting the city’s homeless system, a figure that climbed by 20 percent for the first time in DHS history, the number of exits among families has decreased, a reflection of a vicious cycle that even where the city has made notable gains, it still cannot chip away at the total homeless population. The agency does highlight some of the de Blasio administration’s new initiatives, such as rental subsidy programs beginning this fall, as measures that could ultimately help decrease the length of stay in shelters for families, though their actual effectiveness is a question for next year’s Mayor’s Management Report to address. cit yandstateny.com

CITY

THE ENGINEERS REPORT

housing over the next ten years, the respective agency reports reflect that the administration’s long-term housing goals are beginning to bear fruit. Housing advocates had long pointed to reforming NYCHA as a key part of any long-term plan for preserving affordability, and the authority has taken steps to that end. The number of applicants placed in public housing increased 41 percent in the last year, an encouraging statistic at first blush, though the increase in rentals is largely attributed to the fact that 470 apartments that were reserved for residents impacted by Superstorm Sandy were put back on the market. Eliminating NYCHA’s lengthy repair backlog, a key step in the de Blasio administration’s plan to preserve afforadable housing, continues to be an issue under new NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye. While the percentage of active projects on schedule increased from 24.3 percent in Fiscal 2013 to 32.3 percent in 2014, the percentage of active projects in construction and on schedule actually decreased from 70.2 percent in Fiscal 2013 to 61 percent in 2014. Whether that is attributable to a transitional slowdown between the former and current administration is unclear, though the report vaguely cites “administrative delays” as one reason for the drop-off. If de Blasio is to meet his ambitious goals for preservation, he will need NYCHA to accelerate its much-needed repairs and housing improvements. HPD, the agency taking the lead in administering de Blasio’s affordable housing plan, showed in its report that the administration is largely on target in terms of its goals for housing creation, but it is lagging far behind on the preservation front, the latter partially attributable, perhaps, to the repair backlog at NYCHA, though the report cites a large number of Mitchell-Lama developments that were projected to be completed in Fiscal 2014 that were not, with no reason given for that failure. Curiously, the administration also does not set a desired target for housing creation and preservation for the following fiscal year, a reflection that the mayor’s housing plan as it currently stands is still largely painted, at least publicly, in broad strokes and with few specifics. The administration exceeded its targeted number for “housing starts,” meaning new affordable housing created, by two percent, though a number of the new affordable housing

WHEN BILLIONAIRE REAL ESTATE DEVELOPERS TAKE PUBLIC MONEY FOR PRIVATE PROFIT,

NEW YORKERS DESERVE SOMETHING IN RETURN: 11

REAL CAREERS & TRULY AFFORDABLE HOUSING

city & state — March 24, 2014

WE’RE FIGHTING FOR YOU!

cit yandstateny.com

Info@NYCConcreteCoalition.org • 1322 3 RD Ave., New York, NY 10021

S TAT E

THE ABORTION WARS

WILL THE WOMEN’S EQUALITY ACT MAKE IT EASIER TO GET AN ABORTION IN NEW YORK?

ver since Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled the Women’s Equality Act last year, Democrats and Republicans have clashed over a controversial abortion rights measure that is one of the planks of the tenpoint legislative package. Republicans have insisted that the measure would make it easier to get an abortion. “Abortion is [already] safe [and] legal in New York State. It’s not going to be changed,” State Senate Republican Conference Leader Dean Skelos told reporters in 2013. “And what I see is the expansion of partial-

city & state — September 29, 2014

Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for a Women’s Equality Act during his 2013 State of the State address. The legislative package has stalled over a controversial abortion measure.

birth abortion, in from the radical left. It’s an extreme measure and I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary.” Proponents of the legislation counter that it would simply codify in state law the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. “The only way [opponents] see they have a chance of justifying their opposition to the Women’s Equality Act is to misconstrue, mischaracterize and outright lie about the law and about what the law would do,” said Andrea Miller, president of NARAL ProChoice New York. Now, with election season heating up, the Women’s Equality Act has become a major campaign issue. The Cuomo campaign created a Women’s Equality Party earlier this year, in part to capitalize on the issue, and the governor recently called on candidates to commit to passing all 10 points of the bill. But politics aside, what would the policy actually do? Who is depicting the bill accurately, Democrats or Republicans? As with most issues, the answer isn’t simple. Much of the dispute boils down to what exactly it means to codify Roe v. Wade and how the landmark 1973 decision will affect current New

York State law. In layman’s terms, the bill would indeed align state law with Roe v. Wade. But again, that fact does not clearly explain what the change would mean for New York State. Currently, state law only limits abortions if a woman is 24 weeks or longer into her pregnancy—the period when a fetus is considered “viable,” or potentially able to survive on its own. After the 24-week threshold, state law dictates that a woman can only get an abortion if her life is at risk, a determination that must be made by a licensed doctor. By contrast, the Roe v. Wade ruling allows for a women’s “life or health” to be taken into account when a physician decides whether to perform a lateterm abortion. Just as important is the lesserknown Doe v. Bolton U.S. Supreme Court case ruling, which was issued the same day as Roe v. Wade and is supposed to be read as a companion ruling. Doe v. Bolton struck down a Georgia law that prohibited abortion except in cases in which the pregnancy would endanger the life of the mother. The ruling also defines “health” to include “all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the wellbeing of the patient.” Supporters of the Women’s Equality Act argue they are not pushing to expand access beyond what the federal government already allows. Miller said women in New York currently are denied abortions when their health—but not their life—is jeopardized after the 24th week of pregnancy, because state law is stricter than the Supreme Court rulings, which are based more broadly on a woman’s health as well as her survival. Thus, codifying Roe v. Wade in state statute as part of the Women’s Equality Act would indeed expand cit yandstateny.com

(JUDY SANDERS / OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR)

By ASHLEY HUPFL

pponents of the Women’s Equality Act argue in addition that the legislation would not just change standards but also pave the way for more people to perform abortions in the state. The bill does repeal several sections of the state penal law that are inconsistent with federal law, specifically removing the provisions that punish a doctor for performing an abortion after 24 weeks in cases other than when the life of the mother is at risk. The bill’s critics claim that the repeal would also remove a requirement that only a licensed physician can perform an abortion. “The governor’s bill repealed that law and basically doesn’t put anything in its place,” Gallagher argued. “So, basically that means whoever the Health Department decides would be allowed to perform an abortion in New York State. That will undoubtedly expand the availability of abortion in New York State.” cit yandstateny.com

nother question raised by abortion opponents is why Cuomo chose to codify Roe v. Wade instead of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a more recent U.S. Supreme Court abortion ruling that came down in 1992. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed the constitutional right to an abortion and reiterated that states cannot ban abortions before “viability,” or in cases when the life or health of the mother is at risk. However, the ruling rejected parts of Roe v. Wade and held that states could legally pass laws protecting the life and health of the fetus or mother in far broader circumstances, which allowed states to place more restrictions on abortions. The ruling also found a mandatory 24-hour waiting period was not an undue burden and is constitutional,

and upheld parental consent for minors—two restrictions New York State does not have in place.

S TAT E

However, the act specifically prohibits such an outcome. The bill language says that it “would not change or alter existing State and federal laws that permit a health care provider or institutions from refraining from providing an abortion for religious or moral beliefs, would not expand the class of individuals who could perform abortions, nor would it alter the current long-standing criminal ban on partial birth abortion.” Even if New York wanted to broaden the pool of professionals licensed to perform the procedure, Roe v. Wade specifically prohibits it. According to the ruling, “The State may define the term ‘physician’ to mean only a physician currently licensed by the State, and may proscribe any abortion by a person who is not a physician as so defined.” The task of deciding who can perform an abortion in New York is left to the state Education Department’s Office of the Professions, under the direction of the state Board of Regents. Even if the Women’s Equality Act were passed and signed by Cuomo, that responsibility would be unchanged. “Scope of practice can only be determined by the licensing boards, not by the Legislature,” said M. Tracey Brooks, the CEO of Family Planning Advocates. “And the first section [of the bill] clearly places the Roe v. Wade section in the Public Health Law and so there’s no way that moving it to the Public Health Law can change who can or cannot change who can perform an abortion. That’s determined by the licensing boards.” Additionally, Public Health Law section 4164, which would not be altered by the Women’s Equality Act, requires an abortion after the 12th week of pregnancy to be performed in a hospital and only on an inpatient basis. After the 20th week of pregnancy, two physicians are required to be present during the procedure. Brooks also noted that few doctors are willing to perform abortions later in the gestation period for personal reasons or because of concerns about safety. An abortion surveillance study conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2010, the most recent federal data available, found that 1.2 percent of a total of 765,651 abortions nationwide are performed after 21 weeks. The state Department of Health did not respond to repeated requests for statewide data.

ith the Women’s Equality Act stalled in Albany, Cuomo had previously said that he could support breaking it up and passing the other nine points, which have broad bipartisan support. But lately Cuomo has doubled down on his pledge to pass the full package after the elections. “This is the modern-day Seneca Falls movement, just being carried to its natural conclusion,” Cuomo told reporters at a Women’s Equality Party event in September. “I believe if the people of this state know that an elected official doesn’t represent support for these ten points, I don’t think that person’s going be an elected official in the State of New York. And I don’t think they should be.”

city & state — September 29, 2014

abortion access. “The problem is, New York law doesn’t say the same things and what that means in practical terms is that you currently have women in New York State who under federal law should be able to access abortion care when their health is jeopardized after the 24th week of pregnancy, but who are not able to do so because the default [of medical providers is to side with New York State penal law], and who can blame them—it’s a criminal statute,” Miller said. “And let’s be frank, we shouldn’t expect healthcare providers, we shouldn’t expect physicians— particularly physicians treating women with challenging circumstances during their pregnancy—to have a law degree in order to practice medicine.” Pro-life groups say that the Roe v. Wade standard should not be adopted in New York because it is too vague and that it makes it too easy to get abortions after 24 weeks. “The problem with the word ‘health’ is that it’s been construed to mean virtually anything,” said Kathleen Gallagher, the director of pro-life activities at the New York State Catholic Conference. “It’s not like a grave physical health exception. It’s a broad, drive-a-Mack-Truckthrough-it exception. So we see that as an incentive for abortionists to come on into New York and open up their late-term clinics.”

B U F FA LO

“BEIRUT ON THE LAKE” NO TALK OF UNITY AFTER ERIE COUNTY DEMS RE-ELECT ZELLNER By CHRIS THOMPSON

city & state — September 29, 2014

fter squeaking past her by a little over 100 votes two years ago, this time around Buffalo state Sen, Tim Kennedy soundly defeated Erie County Legislature Minority Leader Betty Jean Grant, settling their Democratic Primary rematch by an indisputable 61 percent to 39 percent. The two politicians had long held a personal grudge against each other, and this election, like the previous one, was marked by rancor and barely disguised disdain. But having won so conclusively, on primary night Kennedy struck a conciliatory tone at his victory party that suggested he was ready to forget the enmity of the past and was eager to return his focus to his work in Albany. That spirit didn’t last long. Shortly thereafter Kennedy, along with former Erie County Democratic Committee Chairman Steve Pigeon and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, launched a last–minute attempt to seize control of the Erie County Democratic Party’s leadership from the forces that had favored Grant. The three supported a surprise bid by Amherst Town Councilman Mark Manna to unseat the current chairman, Jeremy Zellner—with several local unions backing their ambush. “We wanted to send a message, that at least a third of the party was unhappy with the majority’s willingness to collude with the Republican-led coalition in the Senate,” said Kennedy. “It was a protest vote.” Despite the heavy hitters on Manna’s side, Zellner survived the Sept. 20 challenge, shutting down Manna with 69 percent of the vote. After his victory, Zellner, in remarks reminiscent of Kennedy’s post-primary pronouncements, did his best to be magnanimous. “We’re moving in the right direction. We’re

Erie County Democratic Chair Jeremy Zellner with his family

growing the party,” he said. “My overwhelming victory showed that we Democrats are committed to winning in November.” These latest internecine battles are only the most recent salvos in an ongoing war that has divided Erie County’s Democratic Party for almost two decades. The two factions within the party have long loathed one another with a combustible passion they do not bother to disguise, even if it comes at the price of victory at the ballot box. At this point many people at the heart of the feud do not even remember why the two sides started fighting. A legislator challenged a state Senator for his seat 20 years ago … a local labor union leader had too much power … someone didn’t attend the requisite funeral—the origins of the animosity no longer matter, notes Kennedy. All that matters is that the two sides hate one another—and probably

always will. “This goes back to the days before I was even on this planet,” Kennedy said. “In Erie County, there’s a Hatfield-McCoy situation, where people don’t even know why they’re fighting. … There’s an old saying that goes back to the days of Mario Cuomo: ‘Buffalo is Beirut on the Lake.’” When asked what is the source of their strife, leaders of both factions don’t mention stances on poverty or education or economic development— they cite some moment when the other side betrayed them. “The difference between them and me is I respect the leadership of the party,” said Betty Jean Grant. “They have not accepted that Jeremy Zellner was elected. And they have spent the last two years undermining him.” Steve Pigeon claims that the side aligned with Grant and Zellner have worked assiduously to maneuver his colleagues out of power. “There was

no good reason to go against Tim Kennedy,” he said. “It’s kind of a petty group that fights wars that go back 15, 20 years. … There’s a historic split, and we were willing to negotiate, but there’s no compromise on their side.” Pigeon said his opposition is “beholden to patronage politics, at the expense of winning elections. … They’re doubling down on dysfunction.” Grant makes a comparable accusation: “They work against anything that’s conducive to a smooth, efficient, electable party.” Before this election there was a chance that the Democrats would finally settle their grudges and get back to the business of battling their Republican foes, but the challenge to Zellner, and the bad blood it fostered, has destroyed any possibility of détente for the near future. Still, with the primaries over, the Democrats may yet come together, if halfheartedly, to defeat their local Republican candidates. But the ultimate prospect of unity is one for which Kennedy holds out little hope. After he won the 2012 primary, according to Kennedy, the Grant– Zellner faction worked openly to undermine his candidacy in the general election. Moreover, he says his enemies began collaborating with the Independent Democratic Conference and its Republican partners in the Senate as early as January to unseat him. Erie County’s Democratic civil war will continue indefinitely, he says, even at the potential cost of the party losing power. If Kennedy wins the general election, he vows he will put all disharmony behind him and get down to the business of governing. But like every Buffalo Democrat who has come before him, he does not seem to have any plans to forget who did what to him any time soon. “It’s been quite a year, brother,” he said. cit yandstateny.com

The Must-Read Morning Roundup of New York Politics and Government

Our morning email delivers daily exclusives from City & State, as well as a curated summary of the day’s most pertinent headlines, editorials, news tidbits, schedules and milestones from across the political landscape in New York—all before 7 a.m.

city & state — March 24, 2014

Be the the first first to to know. know. Be www.cityandstateny.com/subscribe for more information.

cit yandstateny.com

B U F FA LO

CITY, STATE AND ERIE CO. A WHO’S WHO OF WNY POLITICOS COME OUT FOR C&S LAUNCH PARTY

host of Western New York’s most prominent elected officials, power brokers, activists, journalists and government insiders turned out for C&S’ Buffalo Bureau launch party on September 23, which was co-sponsored by Bolton-St.Johns, Ellicott Development and Underberg & Kessler. Chris Thompson, C&S’s Buffalo correspondent, will helm the new bureau, and spearhead the magazine’s expanded coverage of the region.

Carl Paladino with EffectiveNY’s Bill Samuels.

State Sen. Tim Kennedy and Bolton St. Johns’ Jack O’Donnell

Underberg & Kessler’s Steve Pigeon (right)

Partygoers fill Buffalo’s Dinosaur BBQ

city & state — September 29, 2014

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and C&S Editor Morgan Pehme

Clean Air Coalition of W.N.Y. Director Erin Heaney, Bill Samuels, Investigative Post Editor & Executive Director Jim Heaney, and Jesse Lenney of the Working Families Party

Republican State Sen. Mark Grisanti

cit yandstateny.com

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16 • HYATT REGENCY BUFFALO • 2 FOUNTAIN PLAZA • BUFFALO, NY 14202

THE NEW YORK – CANADA SUMMIT City & State’s New York – Canada Summit will highlight the importance of cultivating and

maintaining a strong, efficient border relationship to support and expand New York and Canada’s $32.2 billion bilateral trade network. By convening government and business leaders from both sides of the border, City & State will advance the conversation between these two entities, focusing on how public-private partnerships and collaboration can benefit New Yorkers and Canadians. SPONSORED BY:

DID YOU KNOW?

Canada is New York’s #1 trade customer New York exports $13.2 billion to Canada New York imports $19 billion from Canada 557,000 New York jobs depend on trade with Canada

AGENDA

Welcoming Breakfast featuring Consul General John Prato, Consul General Jim Dickmeyer, and Delegate General Dominique Poirier. BORDER, PORTS & RAILS Panelists analyze transportation issues plaguing

CLEAN ENERGY PANEL DISCUSSION Panelists discuss New York’s

Invited Panelists: James H. I. Weakley, President, Lake Carriers’ Association Craig H. Middlebrook, Deputy Administrator of the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation Representative from Western NY US Customs & Border Protection Bryan Roth, Buffalo Niagara Partnership Stephen Laskowski, Canadian Trucking Alliance Sam Hoyte, Office of Governor Cuomo, ESD*

Invited Panelists: Diane X. Burman, Commissioner, NYS Public Service Commission* Ron Dizy, Managing Director, Advanced Energy Centre, MaRS Rosemarie Leclair, Chair & CEO, Ontario Energy Board* Colin Anderson, CEO, Ontario Power Authority* More Panelists TBD

DEVELOPMENT, TRAVEL, & TOURISM Panelists highlight Western

New York and Canadian tourism initiatives, economic development projects surrounding those initiatives, and potential partnership or collaboration opportunities. Invited Panelists: Carl Paladino, Owner/Operator, Ellicott Development* Scott Congel, Owner, The Pyramid Company* Thomas C. Wilmot, CEO, Wilmorite Co.* Dottie Gallagher - Cohen, Buffalo - Niagara Partnership

increasing demand for energy, the increased focus of both NY and Canada on renewable energy, and the role of Canada in meeting NY’s energy demands.

THE NEW YORK – CANADA BORDER MAYORS DISCUSSION

A panel of mayors from both sides of the border discuss local transportation and energy policy, and the state of cross-border relations between Canada and New York’s localities. Invited Mayors: Moderated by City & State and Canadian Media Outlet Mayor Paul Dyster, Niagara Falls, NY Mayor Byron Brown, Buffalo, NY Mayor Lovely Warren, Rochester, NY Mayor Paul Diodati, Niagara Falls, ON* Mayor Doug Martin, Fort Erie, ON

it yandstateny.com For cmore information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, contact Samantha Diliberti at Sdiliberti@CityandStateNY.com or call 646-442-1617

city & state — March 24, 2014

the 445-mile shared border that supports a $32.2 billion bilateral trade relationship.

H E A LT H C A R E

WANTED: DOCTORS LIKE THE NATION, NEW YORK STRUGGLES TO LURE DOCTORS TO RURAL AREAS By ASHLEY HUPFL

city & state — September 29, 2014

n his 2008 State of the State Address Eliot Spitzer, recognizing the growing problem of a dearth of doctors in rural areas of upstate New York, proposed a new program called Doctors Across New York. In his speech, he referred to it as a “Peace Corps” for doctors designed to give young medical professionals student loan relief in return for them working in underserved areas. “There should be a family doctor, and there will be, for every family in New York,” Spitzer bellowed from the podium. Despite his resignation months later in a prostitution scandal, his plan passed in the 2008 budget. However, six years later the program and subsequent efforts have had unsatisfactory results. The Council on Graduate Medical Education recently called the tendency for physicians to choose to practice in affluent urban and suburban areas rather than in rural and inner city areas one of the “most persistent characteristics of the American health care system.” Like Spitzer, policymakers across the country have tried to provide financial incentives for graduating medical students to entice them to move to high-need areas, but critics question how effective a short-term financial incentive is when potential doctors can earn larger salaries working in cities and wealthy suburbs. The Healthcare Association of New York State’s annual physician advocacy survey released in April revealed that the doctor shortage is only expected to get worse in the near future as the current primary care workforce ages out and an aging population with an increased life expectancy creates

a larger demand. Also adding to the problem is the influx of people receiving insurance through the Affordable Care Act. HANYS’ report found 51 percent of rural hospitals eliminated or reduced services as a result of the physician shortage, and 71 percent of upstate hospitals reported there are times when certain specialties are not covered in their emergency rooms, requiring them to transfer patients elsewhere. Doctors who have their own solo practices are much more common in rural areas, but they are also aging out, and experts say fewer physicians are going into solo practice. A recent report released by the New York Public Interest Research Group found that nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population resides in rural areas, but only about 10 percent of the nation’s

COUNTIES WITH GREATEST DOCTOR DECREASE FROM 2012-2013 DELAWARE 31% ALLEGHANY 21.8% FULTON 15.2% CHENANGO 12.1% CHAUTAUQUA 11.7% SOURCE: HANYS

doctors work in them. “For a number of reasons, mostly around quality of life issues, rural areas have a much more difficult time recruiting physicians to work there, and primary care physicians are particularly difficult to recruit,” said Sherry Chorost, director of workforce at the Healthcare Association of New York State. The chair of the state Senate Health Committee, Kemp Hannon, said the single most important factor in rectifying this problem is incentivizing doctors via Doctors Across New York. “This has been a target of concern for the [state] Senate,” Hannon said. “Obviously, for the Republicans in the Senate, the majority of our districts are over there in the rural part of the state, and I think the main thing we’ve focused on is a program called Doctors Across New York. We made the funding [available] so that we would be giving grants and loans to hospitals so they could attract doctors, they being the focus of healthcare.” State legislators also have been working with hospitals to expand health services using physician assistants and nurse practitioners, as well as through telemedicine, which can provide health services by means of two-way video, email and other technology to remote locations. Hannon said the financial crisis upset the funding for the Doctors Across New York program, but the 2014–15 budget increased funding for the program by $2.5 million, a fivefold increase. The Doctors Across New York program offers incentives such as $150,000 in loan repayment for physicians who commit to a fivecit yandstateny.com

BIG IDEAS Public Affairs Campaign Management Media & Public Relations Coalition Management Stakeholder Engagement Digital & Paid Media Independent Expenditures Creative Design Business Development Issue Advocacy Association Management Corporate, Labor & NGO Positioning Strategic Consulting Crisis Communications

MPUBL ICA F FA I R S.COM cit yandstateny.com

M Public Affairs is proud to announce the hiring of

CHUCK MEARA

As a Managing Director MAGGIE MORAN

PETER MAURIC

RICH BAMBERGER

LAURA MATOS

VINCENT CINIELLO

SUE MICELI

BAO-TRAN HUYNH

MICHAEL ORGAN

ELIE JACOBS

BEN RUBIN

JONATHAN SCHARFF

KAY GEHSHAN

JACLYN LA BARBERA

ZACH SILBER

ADAM STEINBERGER

KIRA SHUNK

ANNIE LYDGATE

ALEX LEWIS

NEW YORK

NEW JERSEY

30 Vandam Street, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10013 Phone: 212-929-0669 Fax: 212-929-0688

1700 Main Street, Suite 4 Lake Como, NJ 07719 Phone: 732-280-9600 Fax: 732-280-9609

city & state â&#x20AC;&#x201D; March 24, 2014

require innovative strategies

H E A LT H C A R E

year service obligation in a high-need area—a very enticing incentive for potential doctors who, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, are graduating with an average of about $170,000 in student debt. “I think by making someone have a five-year commitment in an area, the hope is that they get acclimated, that they enjoy it, they raise a family there, and all those social issues. That’s the hope, which is why they did it for five years,” Chorost said. “For some doctors, they didn’t want to commit for five years, so they didn’t even apply for it, because they thought [the commitment] was too long.” NYPIRG Legislative Director Blair Horner argues the Doctors Across New York program fails to retain doctors in the long run, however. “Historically, what the state has done, and what the federal government has done, is to try to create financial incentives to get doctors to practice in those areas, sort of a Northern Exposure approach to recruiting doctors,” Horner said, referencing the television program, in which a New York City

“We think we need to look at this beyond just pure financial incentives, and to try to attack the issues of the quality of life, which we think in many ways are the most important elements that doctors or any professional is looking at when they choose to locate

“THEY TEND TO WANT TO PRACTICE WHERE THEY WANT TO LIVE, AND IF THE AREAS ARE LACKING IN CULTURAL AMENITIES OR EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT, THOSE DOCTORS AREN’T GOING TO WANT TO MOVE THERE” Opponents of the Doctors Across New York program argue that it is not getting to the root of the problem causing the doctor shortage in rural areas in the first place.

their practice,” Horner said. “They tend to want to practice where they want to live, and if the areas are lacking in cultural amenities or educational achievement, those doctors aren’t

going to want to move there—and to just compensate by offering a financial incentive is inadequate.” Chorost said HANYS is aware of the shortcomings of the program, but contends that overall it has helped a lot of people. The organization is also looking at alternative solutions to the dilemma, she said, beyond just tapping into financial motivations. Nonetheless, all the parties involved admit there is no easy solution to the problem, which is exacerbated by a number of complications. For example, doctors are up against the prospect of longer hours, smaller salaries, and have pointed to isolation and even the colder weather as reasons they would not want to practice in rural areas. “Those are all the reasons people don’t want to go to those areas. Which is why I think one of the strategies we should try to employ is to get kids interested in an early age in these rural communities, because they’ve lived in these communities and they are much more likely … to return,” Chorost said. “But there’s a lot of changes that go into that. And it’s a lot easier said then done.”

SPONSORED CONTENT

ANTHONY W. CROWELL. DEAN AND PRESIDENT PROFESSOR OF LAW 1. HOW HAS YOUR GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE INFLUENCED YOUR VISION FOR NYLS?

city & state — September 29, 2014

doctor made a life in Alaska. “And to some extent, obviously, it must have some effect, but it clearly doesn’t have a long-term effect, because the same areas are still having shortages, and these programs have been around for a long time.”

I was a City attorney for 15 years, including nearly 11 years in City Hall, serving as Counselor to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. I know first-hand how lawyers are leaders in shaping public policy, advancing civil rights, ensuring access to justice, and managing government operations. Because of their unique knowledge and skills, lawyers are often the ones managing change, as well as leading the charge to create greater opportunity and innovation in all sectors. It’s a point of pride that our classes have always included students from law enforcement, the fire department, and all

areas of government. Early in my tenure, we celebrated this history by creating The Public Service Scholarship Program, which recognizes public servants for their commitment to the City by providing a number of full- and half- tuition scholarships to top candidates. NYLS also has one of the oldest evening programs in the country, and in January 2015 we are launching a new Two-Year Accelerated J.D. Honors Program. As an honors program, it comes with at least a $25,000 merit scholarship per year for each of the two years, making it cost no more than two-thirds of that of a traditional J.D. at NYLS. We are looking for people with strong credentials plus the drive it will take to reach the finish line in such a rigorous program. 2. YOU REINTRODUCED NYLS AS “NEW YORK’S LAW SCHOOL.” WHAT DOES THIS VISION ENTAIL? Our identity as “New York’s law school” was staring right at us. All we needed to do was grab hold of it. We did so because of our location, association, and leadership with the City’s most powerful institutions. And we did so because we proudly embody the qualities that make the City the indisputable capital of the world: diversity, talent, energy, and independence of spirit.

We are right in the heart of the City’s legal, financial, government, and emerging tech centers. My short-hand for it is: The City is Our Classroom. Last year, in partnership with municipal agencies and nonprofit organizations, we launched 13 new clinics, doubling our clinical offerings to 26; these clinics allow students to represent the City in matters such as child welfare, tort litigation, and criminal prosecutions; to work with the Legal Aid Society; and more. Our recent graduates are working as attorneys at the Law Department, each of the DA’s offices, the Administration for Children’s Services, the Police Department, and many other agencies. It is inspirational to see how our newly minted lawyers come away equipped not just with substantive legal knowledge and analytical skills, but also with the qualities that all employers are looking for: leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and the ability to manage and deliver on projects, communicate effectively, and make themselves indispensable. 3. YOU INTRODUCED A STRATEGIC PLAN LAST YEAR. CAN YOU SHARE SOME OF YOUR PROGRESS?

We recently released a one-year progress report that includes a scorecard. This is very important to me—I want us to be completely transparent and accountable as we carry out our plan. I’ll focus on a few things and invite you to check out the report at www.nyls.edu/strategy. In the last year, NYLS made a notable improvement in our overall rank in U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News also ranked our evening program in the top half of all law school part-time evening programs, and it ranked us in the top 30 law schools for Clinical Training. We were also recognized for Hispanic representation by Hispanic Outlook magazine and for overall community diversity by U.S. News. We revamped our bar prep initiatives and had the largest jump in bar pass rate in New York State for the July 2013 bar—up by nearly 14 percentage points to 83.4 percent. This last one is one I am most proud of: our student satisfaction rates have surged. It tells me that all we are doing to engage our students in their education and career planning is working, and that they feel the commitment that I, the faculty, and administration have made to helping them succeed.

Our entire community was engaged in coming up with a strategy for NYLS to innovate and stay ahead of the curve. cit yandstateny.com

Let

Plan Your Next Event

Whether you’re planning a half-day conference, cocktail reception, awards ceremony or industry panel discussion, City & State can offer all the services you’re looking for-- and all within reasonably priced packages to fit your budget. City & State Event Packages come with unique collateral advertising opportunities in City & State Newsmagazine, our First Read and Last Read e-newsletters and at www.cityandstateny.com

We Specialize In: • • • •

Promotion to our Engaged Audience Strategic Speaker Selection Securing Venues and Caterers On-Site Logistics

• • • •

Moderating Panel Discussions Photography and Videography Entertainment Packaged Event Takeaways & Much More!

city & state — March 24, 2014

For more information on our unique and customizable packages, please call Jasmin Freeman at 646.442.1662 or email jfreeman@cityandstateny.com

cit yandstateny.com

DEALER’S CHOICE

WHAT MATTERS MOST IN SELECTING NEW YORK’S CASINO BIDS? By WILDER FLEMING and JON LENTZ

city & state — September 29, 2014

STERLING FOREST RESORT

n early May of last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out his plan for siting new casinos in New York. Promising an influx of jobs for economically depressed upstate communities, the proposal also repeated the governor’s pledge that any new casinos would double as resort destinations in order to attract tourists and keep locals from flocking to places like Atlantic City and Connecticut. Under his plan, the governor said, the state would license several “gaming resorts” through an “independent, non-political process, to fairly and strategically capitalize on the enormous potential gaming has for growing our state’s economy.” Now, following the approval of casino gambling by state lawmakers and voters, the state’s siting board has 16 casino bids to pick from this fall—and it is becoming clear just how difficult it will be to winnow them down to no more than four winning projects. Officially, the winning applicants are supposted to be based 70 percent on “economic activity and business development,” 20 percent on “local impact and siting factors” and 10 percent on “workforce factors.” At least one casino can be chosen in each of the three designated regions of the state: the Capital District; the Hudson Valley and the Catskills; and the Southern Tier and part of the Finger Lakes region. A fourth casino can be sited in any one of the three regions. But the tidy-looking set of criteria belies a messier reality. In some cases, the governor’s goal of boosting financially strapped communities appears to be at odds with his desire to build lucrative attractions that

Genting’s $1.5 billion Sterling Forest Resort, shown here in an artist’s rendering, is the most expensive casino bid in the state. can compete with major out-of-state casinos. His aim to award licenses to projects with a quick turnaround time further complicates the equation, especially for developers whose projects could be delayed by legal or financial troubles. Even ranking the bids based on their projected revenues is a risky endeavor, since there is no guarantee that developers will live up to their own expectations. “It’s a question of, are you looking for the greatest financial return to the state, or is your primary focus the greatest local economic impact?” said

James Featherstonhaugh, an Albanybased lawyer and lobbyist who used to serve as president of the New York Gaming Association, and who holds a financial stake in two of the casino bids. “There are a couple of other things. But somebody has to decide to prioritize them in order for the board to be able to exercise its judgment.”

day after voters approved the legalization of casino gambling in New York this past November, Cuomo joined local

officials and residents in an auditorium in Sullivan County to revel in the victory. Stepping up to a podium that read “Funding for Schools, Jobs for the Catskills,” Cuomo touted the jobs and revenues that would soon come to the economically depressed region. “This is a huge, huge win for the state of New York,” Cuomo told the audience. “It’s especially a huge win for the Catskills, and for the Hudson Valley. … This is a game-changer. I think it’s going to fundamentally change the trajectory of the Catskills. I think it’s been a long time in coming, cit yandstateny.com

TIOGA DOWNS RACETRACK & CASINO

An artist’s depiction of the $880 million Caesars New York casino.

but it is finally here.” Yet placing a casino in the Catskills is a gamble. The region encompassing the Hudson Valley and the Catskills is easily the most competitive in terms of the number of proposals, a total of nine. Six developers submitted bids in Orange County alone. (The area, of all of the allowable sites for a casino, has the advantage of being the closest to New York City and of its huge, largely untapped market.) Among these six are some of the most expensive casino proposals of any in the state, and three of them would be located in southern Orange County, approximately a mere 50 miles from Manhattan. Speculation that New Jersey will allow casino development even closer to New York City, at the nearby Meadowlands sports complex, could persuade the state to award a license to one of the larger scale Orange County bidders—such as Genting’s Sterling Forest Resort & Casino or the Caesars New York proposal near the Woodbury Common outlet mall—to boost its competitiveness and keep New Yorkers gambling in their home state. Signs of market saturation in the Northeast and market stagnation across the country only heighten the concern that New York could get left behind. If the selections were based solely on the level of investment or anticipated revenue, the process would be relatively simple: Orange County would win one or even two casinos, cit yandstateny.com

leaving the Catskills out of the game. “If they were truly looking at what will make the state the most money, create the most secure jobs, and the casinos that will do the best—it’s open and shut: There is no doubt that the Orange County casinos, the closer ones to New York, will do better than a Sullivan or an Ulster County casino,” said Alan Woinski, president of Gaming USA Corp. and editor of a subscription-only gambling report for industry insiders. Mindful of this analysis, Catskills bidders and their backers are increasingly worried that an Orange County casino would make it difficult

if not impossible for them to secure financing. One would-be Catskills bidder, a partnership of Connecticut’s Foxwoods casino and Muss Development, has already dropped out, citing a lack of funding. “The legislative intent was definitely not to have a casino at the shopping mall in Orange County right off Exit 16 … that’s Woodbury, one of the proposals,” said Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, the chairman of the Assembly Racing and Wagering Committee, in a radio interview in September. “I mean, that would definitely hurt Sullivan County because … the market is New York City and Westchester

Tioga Downs Racetrack & Casino would expand on an existing racetrack casino.

city & state — September 29, 2014

09.09.14 NEW YORK STATE GAMING COMMISSION

and thereabouts, and people aren’t going to drive 45 miles past a casino to go to another casino unless there’s something really good happening in Sullivan County.” Still, many observers give the Catskills strong odds. Cuomo has paid particular attention to the area, where local officials have long wanted to use gambling to turn back the clock to the era when it was a bustling vacation destination. And this summer, the head of the state Gaming Commission shot down the idea that there would be any advantage given to Orange County, writing that it would be “inconsistent with both the statute authorizing the competition and the request for applications.” That dynamic could benefit the “northern” Orange County sites, including the Grand Hudson Resort & Casino proposed by Alabama-based Greenetrack at Stewart International Airport; the Hudson Valley Casino & Resort in Newburgh by Rush Street Gaming and Saratoga Casino and Raceway; and Resorts World Hudson Valley, Malaysian gambling giant Genting’s second proposal in the county. What sets apart these proposals—which range from $670 million to $1 billion—from the three southern Orange County bids, in terms of their relation to Sullivan and Ulster Counties, is their location some 20 miles north of Route 17—the main artery to the Catskills. Some analysts say this means that a northern Orange County casino could realistically co-exist with a Catskills casino, while one in the southern part of the county could effectively block New York Cityarea gamblers from visiting Ulster or

city & state — September 29, 2014

hat same tension between anticipated revenue and local revitalization could also come into play in the Capital Region, where four bids are on the table. Two— the Hard Rock Rensselaer, to be developed by Och-Ziff Real Estate, and the Capital View, a joint venture between Saratoga Casino and Raceway and national casino operator Churchill Downs—are planned within miles of each other across the Hudson River from Albany. The Hard Rock proposal anticipates generating the most gaming revenues of any of the four proposals—some $260 million per year. Another proposal in nearby Schenectady, Rivers Casino & Resort at Mohawk Harbor, is projected to rake in an estimated $223 million a year. Based on revenues alone, the most logical place in the region to site a casino would be in or around Albany, the largest population center in the region and a major transportation hub. However, the casino referendum received only tepid support at best from local voters. And the capital, despite pockets of poverty, also has a stable state workforce that keeps unemployment relatively low in its metropolitan area. Those factors could prompt the siting board to take a closer look at the Howe Caverns Resort and Casino, which expects to bring in just $131 million a year but could have more of an impact in Schoharie County, which is in worse shape economically. “I find in the Capital District that … when there are economic down times, it’s not affected as much,” said Gary Greenberg, a minority owner at Vernon Downs, a racetrack casino that is not among the competitors for a full commercial license. “Albany County voted against the referendum, and it passed in Rensselaer County, but not by much. Schoharie and Montgomery County, they passed it, but they need it. The need is in Howe Caverns, but

even though they have a good plan, I’m not sure it’s the right spot, because it’s away from everything. There’s no airports there, no train station. I think some of these are going to be knocked out because they are not in areas that are deprived.”

wo of the three Southern Tier proposals are relatively modest by comparison. One, from the owners of the racetrack casino Tioga Downs, is the only proposal in the state that would permanently add on to an existing gambling facility. That distinction could make it easier for the $187 million plan to move forward quickly, since it would not have to go through a time-consuming

“If they were truly looking at what will make the state the most money, create the most secure jobs, and the casinos that will do the best—it’s open and shut: There is no doubt that the Orange County casinos, the closer ones to New York, will do better than a Sullivan or Ulster County casino.”

from table games and from slots, then calculate a blended tax rate to assess Lago that would inevitably be lower than the current 68 percent. In the spirit of fairness, this new blended tax rate would then be retroactively applied to the racino at Tioga Downs. But it would not be applied to the Finger Lakes Gaming facility—which, though 30 miles from Lago’s proposed site, falls outside the Eastern Southern Tier by the Gaming Commission’s definition of the region’s boundaries. As it currently stands, this discrepancy would affect other established New York casinos as well, like Turning Stone in Oneida County and Batavia Downs in Genesee County. The proposed Rivers Casino & Resort at Mohawk Harbor in Schenectady would be incorporated into a 60-acre waterfront site featuring retail, office and residential properties.

environment review. Moreover, its owner, Jeff Gural, actively campaigned for the casino amendment and reportedly spent more than $400,000 to get it passed. Traditions at the Glen—a resort and conference center—is looking to break into the gambling business as well with a $212 million investment in a casino, new hotel rooms and an entertainment venue. Both Tioga Downs and Traditions are seeking to draw gamblers from northern Pennsylvania and to keep New Yorkers from leaving the state for places like Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. Up in Seneca County in the Finger Lakes Region, developers are seeking to build a more ambitious $425 million resort and casino called Lago in the Town of Tyre. The Lago Resort & Casino would have little impact on either Tioga Downs or

Traditions, but the region is widely expected to be awarded only one fullfledged casino. The three-way competition highlights another wrinkle that the siting board will have to deal with: cannibalization of existing gambling facilities. For instance, the Lago Resort & Casino would be located about 30 miles east of the existing Finger Lakes Gaming and Racetrack—which, like all of New York’s gambling venues, is currently taxed at 68 percent on gaming revenues, the highest rate in the nation. Should Lago win a license, it too would pay a 68 percent tax in its first year on slot machines, but Lago would also have table games—the element that makes these New York’s first “full” casinos—which are only taxed at 10 percent. After a year’s worth of play, the Gaming Commission would differentiate between revenue

esolving these complications is only the tip of the iceberg. Legal and financial issues could also play a central role, and some wonder how apolitical the process will actually be. Caesars, whose parent company is bogged down by massive debt, is embroiled in a legal battle with bondholders over the subsidiary that submitted the New York bid. Greenetrack, which is behind another Orange County proposal, has been investigated by the state attorney general in Alabama, where the company is based. The CEO of the Nevele, a proposed casino in Ulster County, temporarily left his role after the disclosure of a 2007 assault conviction. Genting’s lavish Sterling Forest proposal has prompted legal threats from locals concerned about the environmental impact on the adjacent state park, and some experts worry that other projects could get delayed during the environmental review process. cit yandstateny.com

RIVERS CASINO & RESORT AT MOHAWK HARBOR

Sullivan counties. “My gut feeling is that New York is going to end up approving one of the Concord casinos [in Sullivan County] and something like the Newburgh casino,” Woinski said. “It’s going to be a political move. They’re going to want one in Orange County because they know it will do better, but they’re going to be afraid to do the southern ones, for example— the Tuxedo one [Genting] or the Woodbury one [Caesars].”

city & state â&#x20AC;&#x201D; March 24, 2014

cit yandstateny.com

breakup with the governor in 2012 over a scuttled convention center that was to be built alongside the Resorts World site in Queens. And even a proposal that looks strong on paper might not be the best choice, experts say, since the bidders’ projections about revenues and profits could very well be overly optimistic. While some observers say that Empire Resorts’ Montreign Resort and Casino, which would be part of a larger complex called Adelaar, is a strong contender in the Catskills, others

there that has no competition at all and they lose money there,” Woinski said. “It tells you right away the market does not need anything that big.” Developers argue that such big investments are necessary to create true vacation destinations that will draw families and non-gamblers from afar. The risk, however, is that aiming too high could cause such a casino to wind up following in the footsteps of neighboring New Jersey, which has suffered a recent string of failed

The Lago Resort & Casino in Seneca County is one of three bids in the Southern Tier, but is geographically separated from the other two proposals.

Print. Mail. Win.

city & state — September 29, 2014

worry that none of the bids in Sullivan or Ulster counties—which also include Mohegan Sun at the Concord and the Nevele Resort, Casino and Spa, and range in scope from $500 million to the $1 billion Adelaar extravaganza— can live up to expectations. Indeed, Empire Resorts owns the only existing gambling operation in the region—the Monticello Raceway, which has been struggling for years. Woinski says a $200–300 million casino would be a better fit for the Catskills market. “They have a racetrack casino in

LAGO RESORT & CASINO

In the Southern Tier, Lago has been met with organized resistance in the form of two lawsuits brought against the project by Tyre residents, which have since been dismissed. As for the Hard Rock proposal in the Capital Region, the would-be owner’s parent company, New York Citybased Och-Ziff Capital Management, is under federal investigation for other parts of its business. Capital View has also met local opposition from residents of East Greenbush, the town in which it would be built. In each case, developers have shot down the allegations against them. Politically, some observers also wonder if Genting could end up being a victim of its own success. The company’s Resorts World New York racetrack casino in Queens has become the most lucrative gambling facility in the country since opening a few years ago, and awarding another casino to one of the three bids associated with Genting chairman K.T. Lim could prompt accusations of unfairness. (In addition to the two Genting bids, Kim’s family trust has a controlling stake in Empire Resorts, one of the Catskills bidders.) Another wild card for Genting is its public

# 1 S ’ K R O Y NEWrce for Union Sou . l i a M t c e r i D & t Prin

Now Offering A Full Line Of Promotional Items:

MAILERS • DOOR HANGERS • YARD SIGNS • LABELS • BUTTONS • LAPEL PINS

ALL PROUDLY UNION MADE FOR ALL INQUIRIES EMAIL: GSALZMAN@WPPRINTING.COM OR CALL: 718-370-8000 AND ASK FOR GREGG SALZMAN

www.WPPRINTING.com

cit yandstateny.com

TRADITIONS RESORT & CASINO

The proposed Traditions Resort & Casino would be built in Broome County in the Southern Tier.

casinos in Atlantic City. obody really knows which criteria the siting board will prioritize, of course, or to what degree politics will seep into the process, let alone who will emerge as the winners. Even after the licenses are awarded, the landscape may not be set in stone. In Massachusetts, which also legalized casino gambling

in recent years, voters will have a chance to halt expansion by reversing that decision at the polls in November. In New York, the racetrack casino at Aqueduct had to be put out for bid again after allegations of favoritism in the selection process. Some observers even speculate that the state will not award all four casino licenses that have been authorized,

given the risks involved. Jonathan Silverstein, a lawyer representing the City of Albany’s interests in the process, suggested that the siting board could take a pass on the question of an Orange County casino, noting that the state ultimately gave the Empire Raceway in Yonkers seven years to establish itself before siting another racetrack casino at nearby Aqueduct in Queens.

“It’s conceivable they might hold that fourth license, issue a license to a Catskill area facility, give that facility a period of time to build up a customer base, and then go back and look to whether to issue one in Orange County or not,” Silverstein said. “I haven’t heard anyone suggest that, but if you think about it that’s sort of the way the system was set up in the first place.”

TIOGA DOWNS IS PROUD

CLINTON

of its contributions to New York’s economy – statewide and regionally.

FRANKLIN ST. LAWRENCE

ESSEX

Our ongoing successes are based on genuine relationships, realistic promises kept, and broad-based local support.

JEFFERSON

LEWIS HAMILTON

ONEIDA

ORLEANS

FULTON ONONDAGA

GENESEE

WYOMING

ONTARIO

SENECA

ERIE

HERKIMER

WAYNE

MONROE

SARATOGA

MONTGOMERY

SCHENECTADY

MADISON CAYUGA

YATES

CORTLAND

WASHINGTON

NIAGARA

LIVINGSTON

Tioga Downs is committed to continuing its many contributions to our economy, and the well being of our neighbors in the Southern Tier. The past eight years have shown us to be a trusted community partner & casino operator, as demonstrated by the enthusiasm of those supporting expansion to a full gaming facility under the careful rules and regulations put in place by state officials and the voters of New York when they passed casino legislation and then Proposition One.

WARREN

OSWEGO

OTSEGO CHENANGO

RENSSELAER

ALBANY

SCHOHARIE

TOMPKINS SCHUYLER GREENE CHAUTAUQUA

CATTARAUGUS

ALLEGANY

STEUBEN

COLUMBIA

DELAWARE CHEMUNG

For more information on Tioga Downs’ application for a full gaming license, please visit:

www.tiogadowns.com/allin

TIOGA

BROOME ULSTER DUTCHESS SULLIVAN

PUTNAM

ORANGE ROCKLAND

WESTCHESTER

BRONX

TIOGA DOWNS

NEW YORK

Rt. 17, EXIT 62, Nichols NY 13812 • 888-WIN-TIOGA (888-946-8464)

cit yandstateny.com

NASSAU

KINGS

RICHMOND

QUEENS

city & state — September 29, 2014

SUFFOLK

NEW YORK

AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO NEW YORK STATE’S AGENCIES AND AUTHORITIES

AGENCY FOCUS SPOTLIGHT ON:

NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

city & state — September 29, 2014

oads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure are in poor shape all across the country, and the U.S. Congress’ reluctance to commit more funding for upgrades to highways and bridges has put more responsibility on New York and other states to pay for much-needed new projects, repairs, and improvements without the help of the federal government. New York has taken some steps to revitalize and rehabilitate its aging transportation network, most notably through Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New York Works initiative, but more than half of the state’s roads are still rated to be in poor or mediocre condition. Charged with the mammoth responsibility of maintaining and improving many of the state’s highways and bridges is the New York State Department of Transportation. The agency’s duties include forming a comprehensive statewide transportation policy—covering everything from mass transit and railroads to ports and waterways to highway, roads and bridges—and carrying out that master plan. DOT also oversees transportation safety, regulates shipping and makes sure the snow is plowed after a blizzard. City & State’s comprehensive “user’s guide” to DOT gives our readers a snapshot of how the agency gets things done. This portrait includes an interview with New York State Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald, as well as a rundown of the key players in the state agency and an analysis of the agency by the Citizens Budget Commission.

cit yandstateny.com

AG E N C Y FO C U S : N Y S D OT

COMMISSIONER Q&A

JOAN McDONALD Commissioner New York State Department of Transportation

C&S: New York has the highest gas tax of any state, at 50.6 cents per gallon. Is that sufficient? JM: The Department’s main funding issue is with federal aid, which constitutes 70 percent of our capital program funding. Continued uncertainty regarding federal transportation dollars makes it a challenge to engage in longterm planning. C&S: What have you been hearing from residents and commuters about the planning to replace the aging Interstate 81 viaduct in Syracuse? When will more details cit yandstateny.com

on options and cost estimates be available? JM: The Syracuse community has been very engaged in the I-81 debate—in June more than 400 people attended the most recent public meeting on the project, and we’ve received more than 1,200 responses. There are varying opinions on which alternative is preferred, but in general people want a transportation solution that is safe, efficient, better connects the community, improves on accommodations for pedestrians and bicyclists, and closely aligns with the economic goals of the city and the region. As to the process, we are nearing completion of the first phase of the environmental review, called “scoping.” This phase allows the community to comment on the goals and objectives, and helps us identify the factors that need to be considered during creation of the Environmental Impact Statement. We’ve outlined 16 concepts for the viaduct replacement, and incorporated a handful of other ideas proposed by the public. By the end of this year we will narrow those concepts down to those that meet the purpose and need of the project, and our review of the public comments will assist in making that decision. The chosen concepts will then move forward to the next stage, during which we will perform detailed preliminary design work, which allows us to study the impacts of each alternative. Those preliminary designs and impacts will be detailed in the draft Environmental Impact Statement. C&S: The state Thruway Authority is overseeing the project to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge.

What role is the Department of Transportation playing? JM: At this point we do not have a direct role in construction. We assisted with creation of the Environmental Impact Statement. I co-chaired the Tappan Zee’s Mass Transit Task Force, which issued its final report in February. C&S: What other key transportation projects are in the works? JM: Our largest project ever is getting under way in New York City—the $555 million replacement of the Kosciuszko Bridge. The new bridge will be a major improvement and will help ease congestion in the I-278 corridor between Brooklyn and Queens. It’s also the second-largest project under the governor’s NY Works program. Resiliency is another major effort we are engaged in. We are working with the governor to secure federal funding to strengthen 105 bridges statewide that could be susceptible to damage from flooding. It’s part of the governor’s efforts to prepare for our “new normal” of frequent severe storms. The strengthening will include stronger bridge foundations that will resist “scour”—when fast-flowing water creates erosion around bridge piers. C&S: Has New York’s design-build law helped reduce construction costs for transportation projects? Is the state still looking to pass more comprehensive publicprivate partnership legislation? JM: Design-build is a tool that allows design and construction of a project to happen concurrently, which reduces a project’s timeline significantly from

the traditional process, in which we would design the project and then put it out to bid to be constructed. We can accelerate schedules and reduce cost increase due to inflation. Design-build also allows us to tap into the creativity of our contractors, allowing them to be innovative in their designs and construction methods, which is where significant cost savings can be realized. We will have to see if the state decides to move forward with public-private partnerships—it’s an issue that needs to be worked out with the Legislature. C&S: GPS mapping technology in cars and smartphones has become widespread. Does it help traffic flow more efficiently? Has DOT explored ways to utilize such technology? JM: GPS can be helpful to motorists who are trying to find their way around congested routes. NYSDOT does use technology to aid drivers: Our 511NY service offers real-time traffic information, weather conditions, emergency information and access to our statewide network of traffic cameras statewide. 511NY can be accessed by dialing 511, by visiting the website at www.511ny.org, or on smartphones via a downloadable app. 511NY is now undergoing a significant upgrade, including a hands-free option that will allow drivers to listen to live traffic reports along their route as they drive. NYSDOT also employs technology to estimate travel times, which are posted on electronic boards along the major commuting routes statewide. The technology gives drivers a sense of travel times and gives them the opportunity to adjust their route if there is major congestion.

city & state — September 29, 2014

City & State: A report from the American Society of Civil Engineers last year gave a poor but slightly improved grade to the U.S. for the condition of its infrastructure, citing increased efforts at the state and local level. Is New York picking up the slack for the federal government? Joan McDonald: One of our largest issues is that federal transportation aid to New York has been essentially flat since 2009. This puts a strain on resources, as needs are ever increasing. We’ve attacked this with a preservation-first strategy, which focuses the majority of resources on preserving our infrastructure in good condition, and makes construction of new highways a lesser priority. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has also invested more than $1.2 billion in transportation improvements through his NY Works program. As a result of that investment, we’ve repaired or replaced more than 120 bridges, and paved more than 2,100 miles of roadways statewide.

AG E N C Y FO C U S : N Y S D OT

One major technology initiative involves our efforts to keep trucks off downstate parkways. Trucks are banned from the parkways, which were designed for cars and have very low bridge heights. We’ve managed to reduce bridge hits by about 30 percent in the past couple of years by improving signage and using pavement markings to warn truckers. We have now developed systems which employ infrared sensors that can detect if a truck is entering a parkway. Once the threat is detected, the sensors trigger a large message board that warns the truck driver not to proceed, and to pull over and wait for police. The sensor also electronically sends a

notification to police and our traffic management center as well. We have one system installed at an entrance to the Northern State Parkway in Long Island, and we’ll also be testing the systems along key entrance points to other parkways in Long Island, New York City and the Hudson Valley. Another piece of technology we are testing on Long Island is a radar system that can sense a speeding car and change the timing of traffic lights along the corridor to slow drivers down. C&S: In New York City, the de Blasio administration has prioritized its “Vision Zero” initiative to eliminate traffic

fatalities. How effective is the state on this front? JM: Safety of all roadway users is our No. 1 priority. We’ve changed our approach to safety by looking at system-driven solutions. When we address a specific issue, we study the larger transportation system to look at the impacts and design solutions. We did just that on Hempstead Turnpike on Long Island, to address accidents involving pedestrians. We looked at the entire 16-mile corridor in Nassau County, analyzed vehicle and pedestrian traffic and crash data, transit use, and pedestrian safety accommodations. The result was a number of upgrades that

improved safety for motorists and pedestrians. There are three E’s for safety: engineering, education and enforcement. So another part of our effort was to engage police and the community at large to make sure laws are being enforced and that people understand: Safety is everyone’s responsibility. Drivers need to stay within speed limits and watch for pedestrians, and pedestrians need to use crosswalks and signals. These actions, combined with our engineering upgrades, make the road safer for everyone. It’s an approach that we’ve expanded to other parts of the state.

LEADERSHIP

city & state — September 29, 2014

30 PHILLIP ENG, P.E. Executive Deputy Commissioner / Chief Engineer

RODERIC SECHRIST, P.E. Assistant Commissioner, Operations and Asset Management Division

RONALD L. EPSTEIN Chief Financial Officer

PETE SNYDER Assistant Commissioner, Administrative Services

DIANE C. LOMBARDI Director, Office of External Relations

Phillip Eng was recently appointed executive deputy commissioner of the Department of Transportation, where he functions as the department’s chief operating officer. His leadership is focused on supporting Commissioner McDonald in all aspects of the department, including engineering, operations and capital planning. Eng also continues to serve as chief engineer, overseeing the design and construction of the department’s $1.7 billion annual capital construction letting program and assuring the safety of the 17,000 publicly-owned bridges in the state. Eng has been with NYSDOT for more than 31 years. He is a licensed professional engineer in New York State. He received his Bachelor of Engineering Degree from Cooper Union.

Roderic Sechrist, P.E., is assistant commissioner for the Operations and Asset Management Division of the Department of Transportation. He is responsible for the department’s Transportation Maintenance, Traffic Safety and Mobility, Modal Safety and Security and Fleet Administration and Support. He also oversees the department’s 11 regional directors. Sechrist is co-chair of the Comprehensive Program Team that oversees the development of the Comprehensive Program Update, including the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, a list of all highway and transit projects that propose to use Federal funds. He is responsible for the Department’s Asset Management Program.

In January 2009, Ronald L. Epstein was named chief financial officer for the Department of Transportation. As CFO, Epstein is responsible for developing, directing and implementing the department’s annual budget; developing resource estimates in support of multi-year capital financing plans; managing personal and non-personal resource allocations within the department; providing financial and policy advice to the commissioner; and ensuring fiscal accountability within the department. Previously he was director of the department’s Public Transportation Bureau. In that capacity, Epstein was and continues to be responsible for developing, analyzing, and coordinating state and federal transportation policy initiatives, funding proposals, legislation, and regulations.

Pete Snyder is the assistant commissioner for administrative services at the Department of Transportation, overseeing human resources, contracts, purchase, facilities management, audit and employee safety and health. Pete has had a wide-ranging career with the Department, having spent 20 years working in intergovernmental and public relations on the staffs of five different Commissioners of Transportation. He served 12 years in Traffic and Safety, performing a variety of administrative functions and working on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) projects, with particular emphasis on interagency coalitions and Rural ITS, and he also managed human resources for the Operations Division statewide for four years.

Diane C. Lombardi brings to the Department of Transportation over 25 years of experience in state government. As director of the Office of External Relations, Lombardi is responsible for communications, interfacing with federal, state and local governments, managing community relations and marketing, as well as interacting with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the Northeast Association of State Transportation Officials and the Northeast Corridor Commission. Prior to NYSDOT, Diane served as executive director to the State Comptroller, responsible for all aspects of the Executive Division of the office of the State Comptroller.

cit yandstateny.com

city & state â&#x20AC;&#x201D; March 24, 2014

cit yandstateny.com

AG E N C Y FO C U S : N Y S D OT

PROJECTS

INITIATIVES HIGH-SPEED RAIL—EMPIRE CORRIDOR PROJECT

When Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, it not only included funding for high-speed passenger rail projects but also served notice that states needed to have plans in place to be eligible for future funding for faster trains. A year later New York launched a study of the Empire Corridor, a 463-mile train line the stretches north from New York City’s Penn Station to Albany and then west to Buffalo and Niagara Falls. The goals of the review are to improve reliability and to pave the way for more trains and higher speeds. On stretches between New York City and Albany, passenger trains already reach 110 miles per hour, which is the target speed for as many additional sections of the corridor as possible. Earlier this year the state held public hearings on the environmental impact statement for the project, which includes several alternatives that range from simply upgrading existing tracks to adding new tracks. The environmental review is expected to be completed in the next six to 12 months. At the same time, the state has been using federal high-speed rail funds on various related projects, including upgrading signals and moving them underground between Albany and Poughkeepsie to reduce weather-related delays. Another project in the works is adding a second track between Albany and Poughkeepsie, an area with a lot of freight and passenger rail traffic, in order to ease congestion and reduce delays.

NY WORKS Gov. Andrew Cuomo committed over $1.2 billion to his NY Works program, an effort to accelerate infrastructure projects all over the state. It has resulted in the reconstruction or replacement of more than 120 bridges and the repaving of 2,100 miles of roadways. Most of the projects are done, but a few others, including the Kosciuszko Bridge and Albany’s Patroon Island Bridge project, are still under way.

REPLACEMENT OF THE KOSCIUSZKO BRIDGE

The New York State Thruway Authority’s replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge is getting far more attention, but the state Department of Transportation is undertaking its own major bridge replacement: a new Kosciuszko Bridge. The current bridge, which carries 160,00 vehicles over Newtown Creek on New York City’s Brooklyn-Queens Expressway each day, is an aging 75-year-old span that is outdated and inefficient, with steep inclines that slow down trucks in particular. A new cablestayed eastbound bridge will be built alongside the current span, and will feature wider lanes, new shoulders and less of a steep grade. In May Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the team that would carry out the $555 million project, a price tag that makes it the agency’s largest single contract ever. Preliminary construction work is already under way, and the completion date is set for early 2018. The westbound portion of the bridge will be built at some point in the future. The project also utilizes a design-build project delivery method, which state officials say should save money and expedite construction. The state’s design-build law, which allows for a single contractor to carry out both the design and construction steps of a project, will expire at the end of the year; it will be up to state lawmakers whether to renew it.

TRAFFIC SAFETY The state DOT has taken steps to improve pedestrian safety by undertaking more comprehensive reviews of dangerous roads and highways. In the past the agency would focus on specific locations with a high number of accidents. Now it is studying entire corridors. For example, after a yearlong review, the DOT this month announced planned improvements along Route 5 from Albany to Schenectady, including the use of medians and crosswalk lights to better protect pedestrians, and targeted enforcement and education campaigns.

city & state — September 29, 2014

INTERSTATE 81 VIADUCT IN SYRACUSE Interstate 81 is a key transportation link in Syracuse, carrying 100,000 vehicles a day and serving as a major commuter route through the city. Built in the 1950s and 1960s, the highway is falling into disrepair in places and is seeing more accidents, especially on the raised 1.4-mile viaduct near downtown Syracuse. Following the conclusion of a planning study for the 12-mile corridor, state and federal transportation officials are now conducting an environmental review, and public meetings were held this past summer to gather input. The project’s goals include addressing the viaduct’s structural problems while also adding pedestrian access and improving the look of the interstate’s infrastructure. Residents are split over whether to repair the highway or tear it down and replace it with a boulevard, and it will take years before either option moves forward. Among the options under review are building a new viaduct, replacing it with a tunnel, constructing a below-grade depressed highway or simply running the highway through the city at street level.

COMPLETE STREETS In 2011 lawmakers passed the Complete Streets Act, which requires state and local agencies to take into account bicyclists, pedestrians and people with disabilities when designing capital projects. The legislation envisions roadways with sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks and other safety features. cit yandstateny.com

By MARIA DOULIS from the CITIZENS BUDGET COMMISSION

he New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) develops the state’s policy for public and private transportation infrastructure, including 113,000 miles of highways, 17,400 bridges, a 3,500-mile rail network, 130 mass transit operators, 485 aviation-related facilities and 12 ports. With a Fiscal Year 2015 operating budget of $6 billion, a capital budget of $4 billion and a staff of 8,450, DOT is directly responsible for maintaining 38,650 miles of highways and 7,600 bridges. The biggest challenges for managing New York’s transportation infrastructure are: • Undertaking a comprehensive asset assessment to identify and prioritize capital needs. This needs assessment should be used to shape the next statewide capital plan. • Identifying resources for the DOT capital program. There are fewer pay-as-you-go resources available in the Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund (DHBTF), and the state has little room under its debt cap to issue new debt. DOT can use innovative procurement methods to make state dollars go further.

AG E N C Y FO C U S : N Y S D OT

NYS DOT BUDGET ANALYSIS

INFORMING FUTURE PRIORITIES

n June 2013 Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New York Works Task Force released the state’s firstever statewide capital plan, a compilation of the 10-year spending plans of all major state agencies and public authorities. The plan identified $175 billion in capital spending, including $113 billion by transportation-related entities. Judging the plan’s adequacy is difficult because it is not accompanied by any information on the condition of the state’s assets. The data that are available show significant

transportation needs statewide. For example, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) reported $52.2 billion in “continuing needs” in the next 10 years. Data from the Federal Highway Administration show that almost 40 percent of bridges statewide are functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. DOT reports the condition of stateowned or -maintained highways and bridges in the state’s annual financial report. Highways are rated annually on a scale of 1 to 10 and bridges biennially on a scale of 1 to 7, with

1 indicating very poor condition. In 2013 the average rating was 6.99 for highways and 5.34 for bridges, with DOT reporting preservation and maintenance costs of $1.3 billion. This meets the state’s performance targets, but many state assets will require rehabilitation in coming years. Fully 40 percent of lane miles are in fair to poor condition and 291 bridges are flagged, indicating potentially hazardous structural conditions. The magnitude of spending needed to bring these assets to a state of good repair is not reported.

As the coordinator of transportation policy statewide, DOT should lead other transportation agencies and authorities in establishing a system for regular reporting on the condition of assets. This system should quantify the cost of repairing assets, maintaining them in a state of good repair, and replacing them when necessary. The condition and performance of assets should inform how priorities are established in the next statewide capital plan.

apital funding for stateowned and -managed highways and bridges has grown from $2.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2005 to $4.5 billion in Fiscal Year 2015, thanks to bond proceeds from the Transportation Bond Act of 2005, the last voter-approved bond measure. Between Fiscal Years 2015 and 2019, DOT spending will account for $19.1 billion of the state’s $43.4 billion capital plan. The DOT capital plan will be funded with a mix of pay-as-you-go resources and debt, including: federal aid; taxes and fees collected in DHBTF; bond proceeds; and general fund resources. As reported by the state comptroller, the DHBTF has been transformed from a source of pay-as-you-go

cit yandstateny.com

revenues for capital repairs on highways and bridges to a debt-financing vehicle and funding source for operations. In Fiscal Year 2013, only 22 percent of disbursements from the fund were for capital projects; 40 percent were for transportation-related operations, such as snow removal, and 37 percent were for debt service. The increasing reliance on debt presents a problem for DOT because New York State has a statutory debt limit of 4 percent of personal income for all debt that it issues directly and subsidizes for borrowing by public authorities. The state’s capacity to issue new debt is projected to diminish steadily through Fiscal Year 2017, at which point personal income is expected to grow more quickly to allow

for about $1 billion in additional debt. In contrast, transportation authorities, such as the MTA and the Thruway Authority, issue their own bonds, which are backed by tolls, fares and/ or dedicated taxes; restrictions on this revenue-backed debt are determined by the Legislature for individual authorities. Scarce transportation dollars should be used effectively. One way to get more value-for-money is to use more flexible procurement and construction methods, such as design-build and other public-private partnerships (PPPs). PPPs are not “new money”; however, they can be more costeffective and more nimble, allowing for

projects to be completed more cheaply or quickly. For example, DOT has successfully completed rehabilitation of 32 bridges using design-build, reducing costs by 27 percent. Planned repairs on the Kosciuszko Bridge have been accelerated by 42 months under a design-build contract. The Port Authority is also operating a successful PPP at Terminal 4 at JFK International Airport. The state legislation authorizing design-build is set to expire at the end of the year; it is imperative that lawmakers reauthorize design-build and expand the scope of legislation to include other public-private partnerships so DOT and other agencies can benefit from these approaches.

Maria Doulis is the director of New York City Studies at the Citizens Budget Commission.

city & state — September 29, 2014

MAKING STATE DOLLARS GO FURTHER

THE ROAD TO SOMOS / EL C A MINO A SOMOS

BEYOND THE DREAM ACT

LATINO LEADERS LACK LEGISLATIVE IMAGINATION AT THE MOMENT THEY MUST THINK BIG

ANGELO FALCÓN

city & state — September 29, 2014

n light of the extreme discontent with President Obama among Latinos over his latest delay and broken promises in addressing the issue of deportation relief, how New York State approaches immigrant issues from a legislative standpoint has become more important and urgent than ever. It was from that perspective that I tuned in with great interest to WABC-TV’s Tiempo Latino public affairs program last Sunday, which featured as its guests State Sens. José Peralta of Queens and José Serrano, who represents parts of both the Bronx and Manhattan. Together Peralta and Serrano have served over a quarter of a century in elected office and, as prominent Democratic legislators in New York, they struck me as a good barometer to gauge the mood of the Latino political class in regard to Obama’s standing as “Deporter-in-Chief.” In many ways, on the national level the Latino community and immigrant advocates now find themselves at a major crossroads, as they come to terms with the limits of their reform efforts and grapple with whether there needs to be a fundamental reassessment of

their political strategy. Surely Peralta and Serrano, two leaders with the power to help shape this discourse, would have some useful things to say on the subject. However, as the show’s host, Joe Torres, probed them on these issues, it became clear that both senators were clueless. Fully captive to the Democratic Party’s narrow narrative, they made excuses for the president and blamed the Republicans for everything. Asked if Obama’s current problems with Latinos over his deportation policies would put pressure on New York State to act on immigration issues, they didn’t seem to grasp the connection. They also didn’t appear to draw any correlation between the current impasse on immigration reform in Congress and the crisis of unaccompanied children at the border. It was almost as if they had undergone some sort of political lobotomy. As for what they intended to do, the senators focused the conversation on the financial aid portion of the New York DREAM Act, which they expressed confidence the Legislature would finally pass when it returns to session in January. While this portion of the DREAM Act is unquestionably important, the problem with making it the centerpiece of a reform agenda in Albany is that it is too limited and uninspired. Even if it does pass—an outcome the state’s Latino legislators have repeatedly failed to achieve— it would affect a relatively small portion of New York’s undocumented residents and not address the needs of the vast majority of this population, most of whom are in far greater need of financial, legal and other assistance. As Serrano, Peralta and New York’s other 17 Latino state legislators

prepare for the upcoming session and assemble in Puerto Rico in November for the winter SOMOS El Futuro conference of their Puerto Rican/ Hispanic Legislative Task Force, one hopes that they can collectively come up with a legislative agenda that can excite and mobilize the more than 3 million Latinos in the state. New York has the great potential of leading the nation in developing pro-immigrant policies that can help move the needle on the type of reforms needed in our federal system. Now is the time for Latinos and immigrant advocates to raise the ante with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature on immigration reform. Let us not settle for a nap when we can have the full dream. With the governor running for re-election, Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr. as his campaign co-chair and Democrats fretting about whether they will control the state Senate, Latino elected officials and community leaders must seize the moment and leverage this confluence of interests to develop an aggressive, comprehensive reform agenda, and pressure the governor and the Democratic Party to embrace it. On the immigration reform issue alone, there is a great need at the state level to go well beyond the DREAM Act. There is, first of all, the intriguing proposal by State Sen. Gustavo Rivera to extend a “state citizenship” status to the undocumented, which would provide eligible noncitizens with a number of significant rights and responsibilities, like the ability to vote and hold civil office. In addition to Rivera’s bill, there is an

urgency for other measures that would: • Provide immigrants access to driver’s licenses and state IDs • Increase resources for the enforcement of labor standards for low-wage immigrant workers, ESL classes, job training, naturalization services and legal services to the undocumented • Protect immigrant communities by limiting the state’s cooperation with the federal Secure Communities program, which enables local police abuse of immigration enforcement • Enact a farmworkers fair labor practices act that would grant collective bargaining rights to farm laborers and provide for an 8-hour workday, along with other basic labor protections • Ensure that the undocumented have access to healthcare to the fullest extent permitted under federal law • Eliminate unnecessary barriers in the way of immigrants receiving professional licenses and certification • Adopt humane approaches to addressing the influx of unaccompanied minors to New York State. Peralta’s and Serrano’s failure to even bring up any of these myriad reform proposals reveals a serious lack of legislative imagination on their parts and exposes a disconnect between themselves and the communities they serve, which is, well, frightening. Perhaps somewhere along City & State’s Road to SOMOS they may find some enlightenment. If not, City & State may have to change the name of its series to “The Latino Road to Perdition.”

Angelo Falcón is the president of the National Institute for Latino Policy. cit yandstateny.com

here are many rich ties between Puerto Rico and New York City. Members of the Diaspora have had a lasting impact on the Big Apple and on the fight for freedom on the Isle of Enchantment. Here are a few short items from the “Extras” section of City & State’s Road to Somos/El Camino a Somos weekly email.

LIBRARIAN, PIONEER

cit yandstateny.com

figures such as the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Belpré continued these efforts at the 110th Street branch, a.k.a. the Aguilar Library. Belpré was also a writer, collector of folktales and puppeteer.

SHADES OF BLUE

A REPUBLICAN TALE You may not know who Oscar García Rivera, Sr. was—and some Democrats want to keep it that way. It was this native of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico who in 1937 made history by becoming the first puertorriqueño to be elected to public office in the continental United States—as a Republican. That’s right, Oscar García Rivera, Sr., a politician, lawyer and activist, was elected as a Republican to represent Manhattan’s East Harlem, a.k.a. El Barrio, as a member of the New York State Assembly with the support of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Manhattan D.A. Thomas Dewey, among others. In June 1938, Rivera was refused renomination by the Republican Party, but was re-elected on the American Labor ticket and served in the Assembly through 1940. During Rivera’s term in office, he emphasized issues of child labor, protective laws for workers, labor services, and anti-discrimination legislation. Puertorriqueño y republicano.

America and La Liga Puertorriqueña e Hispana. Through Belpré’s work, the 115th Street branch became an important cultural center for the Latino residents of New York, even hosting important Latin American

Pura Belpré (1899-1982) never ran or held elective office. However, she is part of Latino history in New York City. In 1921 the Santurce, Puerto Rico native was hired by the New York Public Library (NYPL). Pura Belpré pioneered the library’s outreach within the Puerto Rican community. Her Spanish language, community and literary skills soon earned her a position as Hispanic assistant in a branch of the public library at 135th Street in Harlem, having been recruited and mentored by Ernestine Rose, head of the Harlem library. Belpré became the first Puerto Rican to be hired by the NYPL. In 1925 she began her formal studies in the Library School of the New York Public Library. In 1929, owing to the increasing numbers of Puerto Ricans settling in southwest Harlem, Belpré was transferred to a branch of the NYPL at 115th Street. She quickly became an active advocate for the Spanish-speaking community by instituting bilingual story hours, buying Spanish language books, and implementing programs based on traditional holidays like the celebration of Three Kings Day. In her outreach efforts, she attended meetings of civic organizations such as the Puerto Rican Brotherhood of

You’ve probably seen thousands of Puerto Rico’s single star flag being proudly waved on Fifth Avenue every June during the National Puerto Rican Day Parade. The flag plays center stage as Puerto Ricans celebrate their culture, heritage, music, artists and history. What most people don’t know is the history of the flag. The Puerto Rican flag was first used on December 22, 1895 by a group of 59 Puerto Ricans, led by Dr. Julio J. Henna, who gathered at “Chimney Corner Hall” in Manhattan to organize a political group affiliated with the Cuban Revolutionary Party, which advocated for the independence of Puerto Rico

and Cuba from Spanish rule. The flag was soon adopted as a national symbol. In 1898, the flag became the mark of resistance to the U.S. invasion, and in the 1930s it was adopted by the Nationalist Party. When Puerto Rico became a Commonwealth of the United States on July 25, 1952, it was officially adopted as the national flag. Despite the flag’s ubiquity, the blue triangle that surrounds the lone white star often varies in its shade and tone, and does not match the lighter sky blue color of the flags flown at La Fortaleza, the official residence of the governor of Puerto Rico, and other governmental buildings on the island.

THE ROAD TO SOMOS / EL C A MINO A SOMOS

By GERSON BORRERO

city & state — September 29, 2014

ISLAND TO ISLAND

THE ROAD TO SOMOS / EL C A MINO A SOMOS city & state — September 29, 2014

POWER IS IN THE STREETS A Q&A with CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ SOTO

hen Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto was elected mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2012, her victory shocked many observers. Supported by numerous politicians from the mainland, including New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Yulín defeated three-term incumbent Jorge Santini. City & State Editor Morgan Pehme and Road to SOMOS editor Gerson Borrero sat down with Yulín in her office for a lengthy Q&A on Sept. 5. The following interview has been edited for space and clarity. City & State: If anyone in public life can speak to the importance of connecting Puerto Ricans from the Diaspora with those on the island, it is you, because you spent a long time in the States. Carmen Yulín: Altogether I spent 12 years in the States. I enjoyed every moment of it. I liked living in the States, but [what you call] diaspora is something you can partially be part of or continually part of. I was partially part of that for 12 years. I often say to my friends that I felt too Puerto Rican to live in the States; then I felt too American to live in Puerto Rico. So when I settled back in Puerto Rico in 1992, I had to come to terms with all of that. There are certain things … you always miss and things that you have to remember. I’ve come to understand—I don’t know who said it—but we are really one nation divided by one ocean. Those that are there, that are first generation Puerto Rican, are as much Puerto Rican as I am, [even if they] haven’t been born here, brought up here, and haven’t moved back and forth. That is something as a nation that we have to come to terms with. We are Latinos, we are Centroamericanos, and we have a place there as we have a place here. These are not situations that have to

explains why more women are in positions of power in Puerto Rico than in New York State? CY: I don’t think so. Again, with all due respect, it depends what you think power is. You go to PTA meetings in the States—I lived in Bethel Park in Pittsburgh, Pa.—you go to community meetings, it’s mostly women that are on the front of those fights. You take, for example, Oscar López Rivera. Oscar López has been in [federal] prison for 33 years. He often speaks of all the women he worked with in Chicago to help provide for that heightened awareness of social justice needed to prevail. So if power is holding the higher office, maybe. People are people. Their struggles may be harder or more or less, but we all struggle for the same [purpose].

fight one against each other. They complement each other. C&S: To defeat a 12-year incumbent, you not only took on the power structure of your own party, you really included everyone in your coalition. What is your understanding of how to be inclusive? CY: I think it has to do with a perspective of what you think government is for and what you think power is for and what is power. … In the end, political relationships are people relationships. So it had nothing to do with power. It has everything to do with people and how people come together. If you look at churches, if you look at Little League teams, if you look at unions, if you look at any organizations of any kind, people come together for one purpose only, and they forget about their differences. I was a member of the House [of Representatives of Puerto Rico] four years ago; that power truly, truly is the power of the

people. In fact I wrote a book, El Poder Está en la Calle: The Power Is in the Streets. People don’t realize they have the power; people don’t realize that if they come together, there are more of them than those who occupy the seat that I’m in right now. One was the LGBT community; [another] one was the student community. There was a community of Dominican immigrants. One interesting alliance I had was with taxi drivers. So we redefined community in our campaign, and we do it in our government now. Not as a geographic location only, but as a group of people coming together for a common purpose, which seems to be the oldest definition in the book, but somehow it wasn’t. C&S: The United States has never had a female president, New York State has never had a female governor, New York City has never had a female mayor. You are the third female mayor of San Juan. Is there a cultural difference that

C&S: Is Puerto Rico more liberal or progressive than New York City? CY: I don’t know. I’m not qualified to [say] … because I was never involved in [the] structure [of] politics in the United States; I can’t say in terms of political power whether that is different. In Puerto Rico there is a difference. My party, the popular Democratic Party, the party that I belong to, had the first [female] mayor of anywhere in Puerto Rico, had the first [female] secretary of state, had the first [female] president of the party, had the first [female] governor—and still the amount of women that are holding the highest office are not enough. Politics is a rough game, and sometimes as females we are taught that you have to play nice. Sometimes you can’t play nice, and that zealous [passion] for life, that hunger and thirst for justice that people have at the most basic levels of democratic structure, tends to get lost as people go up the ladder.

To watch a video of this interview in its entirety and read a transcript of it, go to cityandstateny.com.

cit yandstateny.com

NICOLE GELINAS

lop, clop, clop. Neigh. The only conclusion to draw about Mayor Bill de Blasio is that his nine-months-old mayoralty could still go either way. In three years, he could be a success and on his way to a second term—or he could be a failure for new-wave progressivism. One indication of which path the mayor will take is whether he follows through with his pre-election promise to get rid of Central Park’s horse carriages. De Blasio has made mistakes. But they fall into the category of “things that could make his life miserable in the

UPGRADING OUR LAWS

BEN KALLOS

ode runs our world. Whether legal or software lines of code, we live by rules that dictate what can and cannot be done. While software code has grown exponentially more advanced in recent years, our legal code lags behind. Courts struggle to resuscitate laws as living by applying them to facts and technologies that were not possible when those laws were written. The Legislature must stand up to the challenge of upgrading our legal code and systems to keep pace with our software code—to build a cit yandstateny.com

before re-election. And even if Wall Street craters, it’s doubtful the average voter will have the time and energy to figure out that what de Blasio did back in 2014 matters a lot in 2016 or 2017. Third, there’s pre-K. The first day of school resembled the evacuation of Dunkirk. The idea was to get any 4-year-old into any rickety classroom, no matter what the future cost in fraud from unvetted financial contracts, among other risks. Yet the mayor said he’d launch pre-K, and he did it. Nobody remembers now his fight with the governor over how to pay, either. Last, there’s de Blasio’s “Vision Zero” plan to cut traffic deaths and improve life for pedestrians and bicyclists. As with crime, worrisome signs lurk. Will the mayor stand up to powerful interests who don’t want their parking spaces taken away for Citi Bike expansion? (Fewer bikes mean more speeding cars.) Will he be able to protect funding for street redesigns— when social services advocates and public sector unions would rather see finite money elsewhere? And will the mayor make his NYPD take traffic violence seriously? All solid concerns. But pedestrian deaths, like murders, are down. There is a piece of unfinished business, though, that could trip de Blasio up politically and practically—

and right now: the horse carriages. During the 2013 primary season, de Blasio said that the first thing he’d do as mayor would be to ban the horse carriages. Yet the horses and the 300 families they help employ are still plying their trade around Central Park. In this case, failure to keep a promise (so far) is a good thing. There’s no policy reason to get rid of the horse carriages. Drivers and animals live good lives. Nor is there a political reason: The latest Quinnipiac poll shows New Yorkers want to keep the horses, 61 to 25 percent. Nor is there a special interest reason. Sure, he’ll anger the tiny core of anti-horse activists if he leaves the horses alone. But the horses have the Teamsters and the Working Families Party. Does de Blasio want to cap off a “so far, so good” year with a fight that makes no sense from any angle—and on a topic that the public can grasp in the here and now? Clop, clop, clop. Here’s betting the horses will still be helping people get engaged next Valentine’s Day.

government as modern and innovative as the rest of the world we live in. New York City— the largest in the country—is in a unique position to lead on the most exciting developments in technology and transparency:

service to recipients of incomequalifying public benefits.

meetings, land use matters and city contracts, must go online. To unlock 50 years of past City Records, the city partnered with civic developers. We must still streamline public information. Open FOIL legislation I’ve introduced with Borough President Gale Brewer and Councilman Jimmy Vacca creates a centralized tracker for FOIL requests, encouraging agencies to be more responsive. The Public Online Information Act and eNotices legislation would mandate information be online and easily accessible. To save money and share ingenuity between legislatures and agencies, my Free and Open Source Software act and Civic Commons legislation would require the city to give priority to free and open source licenses software. In this spirit, I started the Free Law Founders with San Francisco Supervisor Mark Farrell to share laws between local legislative bodies and spread a digital democracy platform to legislatures throughout the nation. In this era of vast opportunity, we have the opportunity to upgrade our legislative codes to make them as innovative as our software.

The push for universal broadband access to a free and open Internet Knowledge is power, and the Internet has become a library of the world’s knowledge—except that it’s restricted to those on one side of the ever-broadening digital divide. New York City must fulfill its mandate to provide universal broadband by treating internet providers like public utilities that must provide free and affordable high speed internet to our city’s working families. We have particular leverage when renegotiating existing monopolies and for our state when negotiating approval for national mergers. Seven Council members joined me in a joint letter to the Public Service Commission arguing that if Time Warner Cable and Comcast were to merge, it would only be in the public interest were they to make a commitment to net neutrality and free high speed internet to NYCHA residents, the unemployed, public schools, libraries, as well as a vast expansion of free or affordable

Rules Reform Rules reform, long sought in Albany, happened nearly immediately in the New York City Council under the leadership of Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. Upgrading our body’s public information is a crucial part of this reform. Legislative information will soon be “machine-readable”— in a form a computer can process— with an open API, so third parties can analyze the government information or utilize it for apps or sites that make it easier for the public to understand. Transparency in government New York City continues to build on Gale Brewer’s landmark 2012 Open Data law to use technology to build better run and more accountable cities. Recently Mayor de Blasio signed into law two bills to transform the way the public receives information: Open Law, authored by Councilman Brad Lander, requires that the city post the full legislative code and charter on nyc. gov. Previously New Yorkers had to pay for reliable versions of the law—a broken model. City Record Online mandates that crucial information in the paper City Record, including public

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.

Ben Kallos represents the Upper East Side in the New York City Council.

PERSPEC TIVES

future if he’s unlucky, incompetent, and dumb,” not “things that mark him off as an irrevocably bad mayor now.” Take crime—the mayor’s No. 1 job. It’s worrisome that de Blasio has embraced federal oversight of the NYPD. And it is reasonable to fret that the fewer stops, questions and frisks the NYPD do, the fewer guns police officers will catch—and the fewer violent crimes officers will prevent. Still, though, the only number that counts is the body count—and murders are down. With 199 murders through late August, the city has seen a 13.1 percent decline in killings— remarkable, considering that New York saw a record-low year last year, too. Yes, shootings are up—but nothing beyond a normal year-toyear fluctuation. They’re still down 20 percent in two years. You can bet that if murders were up, the critics would be screaming—well, bloody murder. Second, there’s the budget. De Blasio “balanced” his first budget by kicking billions of dollars’ worth of retroactive raises for teachers into the future. Terrible, terrible fiscal policy. But if Wall Street continues to do well, nobody will notice for a long time. There’s a sporting chance de Blasio will be able to run out the clock on this one

city & state — September 29, 2014

HORSE SENSE FOR DE BLASIO

MARCHING ON D

city & state — September 29, 2014

The following interview has been edited for space and clarity. City & State: Environmental issues have been front and center lately, with the United Nations Climate Summit taking place in New York City this month, and the People’s Climate March in Manhattan, which you attended. What was it like? Josh Fox: It was incredible to see hundreds of thousands of people marching on the climate, including a huge contingent of fracking activists as well. It was really evidence of how widespread and how diverse and how passionate the movement has become. There was a special section of fracktivists in the march that was several blocks long, but throughout the entire march you had anti-fracking signs and warnings to Gov. Cuomo to make sure that he bans fracking and “Fracking = Climate Change”—because that’s what it is. When we’re talking about fracking, we’re talking about oil and new natural gas. What we know now is that fracked gas is the worst possible fuel that has been developed with respect to climate change, especially if that fracked gas is

A Q&A WITH

JOSH FOX

going toward liquefied natural gas ports. This has one of the highest emissions profiles of any fuel that we have. We’re talking about carbon dioxide, but we’re also talking about methane, the raw natural gas that leaks out of the pipelines, out of the well pads, out of the delivery systems, out of the LNG terminals. That contributes to overall greenhouse gas emissions, which makes it the worst fuel source that you can develop, because methane is a hundred times more powerful than CO2 is in the atmosphere. Currently President Obama and Hillary Clinton are not paying attention to this fact. It’s incredibly ironic, because you have two people campaigning for science on climate, but they’re completely ignoring the science on fracking.

C&S: In New York, thousands of residents raised concerns about hydrofracking, which has been on hold and under review for years. Is that a success? JF: I think it’s a hugely influential place. Six years ago when they said to us, “You’ll never stop this train,” we didn’t believe [them]. We said, “No way, we’re not going to have fracking in New York State. We’re not going to have fracking in the Delaware River basin.” Six years later that’s still true, and we’ve won that battle. In New York, the activism here, specifically around the watershed, you saw that influence go worldwide. There’s a ban on fracking in France. There’s a ban on fracking in Germany, in Italy, the Netherlands, in South Africa

C&S: Cuomo’s opponent, Republican Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, supports fracking, while Cuomo has yet to come down on one side or the other. How will this affect the governor’s race this fall? JF: If Cuomo is smart, he’ll pay attention to what just happened. The citizens are calling on him to listen to the science. People are freaked out. When fracking comes to your town, this is one of the most terrifying possibilities you can face. The fact that property values will go down, the fact that you’ll be living in an industrialized nightmare of a landscape, the fact that you could have contaminated groundwater and air pollution—these are things that right now Gov. Cuomo has to stand up for New Yorkers and say, “This isn’t coming here.” If he continues to ignore this, I think he does this at great possible harm.

To read the full text of this interview, including Fox’s criticism of the Obama administration and his defense of his films, go to cityandstateny.com.

cit yandstateny.com

JOSHUA B. PRIBANIC

and parts of Australia. There are many local bans via referendum in Colorado, an oil- and gas-producing state. You have ban movements in California and Pennsylvania. But New York State, no question, is one of the places that is really leading the charge. You had 204,000 people submit comments on the Department of Environmental Conservation’s environmental impact statement. That’s insane. The previous record was a thousand. That’s amazing organizing. This is the primary fight for environmental justice in New York State, and people know it. You look at the voting turnout for Zephyr Teachout, who was at 35 percent—that looks like a fracking mass to me. So it’s time for Gov. Cuomo to pay attention to the science on this.

ocumentary filmmaker Josh Fox broke onto the scene in 2010 with the Oscar-nominated film Gasland, a damning portrait of high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Fox, who last year released a sequel, Gasland 2, has become a hero to foes of hydrofracking, the controversial method of drilling for natural gas, while drawing the ire of the energy industry. After an anti-fracking rally outside President Barack Obama’s speech at the Clinton Global Initiative this month, Fox spoke with City & State Albany Bureau Chief Jon Lentz about climate change, the fracking battle in New York and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s re-election bid.

The Must-Read in NY Politics Since 2006 See how it all started.

launches in 2008

City Hall + The Capitol

merge in Dec. 2011 to become

2011

City & State

The Way To Reach Elected Officials For advertising information, please contact Jim Katocin at 212.284.9714 or Jkatocin@cityandstateny.com

2008

The Capitol

2009

2006

launches in 2006

After the success of City Hall News,

2010

City Hall News

Jan. 2014: magazine arrives!