RoAnn Destito At The DNC

New York Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito was a delegate to last week's Democratic National Convention and this photo from the Capitol Confidential blog helps demonstrate the kind of impression she made. The polyester casual wardrobe and raucous howls weren't totally out of place, but even the jaded crowd at the Pepsi Center was aghast when she literally devoured the unfortunate delegate from Astoria that was blocking her view of the stage.

RoAnn Destito: Cementing downstate's opinion of upstate one mouthful at a time. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.....

Ups And Downs

Big hits like ConMed, Canterbury Press, and A.C. Moore make headlines, but underneath those spikes is an overall downward trend in the area's employment levels :

"The region’s unemployment rate has grown a full percentage point in the past year, reflecting the economy’s importance in the upcoming election season.

Unemployment in the Utica-Rome metropolitan area rose from 4.2 percent from July 2007 to 5.2 percent in this July, according to state labor statistics released Thursday. Year-over-year figures are considered useful by economists for comparisons because seasonal factors can skew month-to-month numbers."

Rising unemployment and a falling average household income is a one-two punch that doesn't bode well for the area, particularly when our state politicians are making it increasingly clear they have no intention of actually cutting New York's bloated budget.

But it wasn’t all bad news.

There were job gains made in the educational and health sector -- a jump of 400 jobs from last year to this year.

That sure is some great news...until you realize that the educational and health fields are driven almost entirely by the expenditure of public dollars. It's not a coincidence that the unions representing those sectors are the ones howling the loudest about cutting state spending. Given their political power there's not a snowball's chance in hell that New York will do anything but continue to raise taxes for the foreseeable future.

The Green Conundrum

Even more green power could be coming to upstate New York:

Federal officials will talk about how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will handle the expected application for a fourth nuclear plant in Oswego County at 7 p.m. Aug. 21 at Sheldon Hall at the State University College at Oswego.

UniStar, a partnership including Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station owner Constellation, is expected to apply for a license next month to build and operate a new nuclear plant in Scriba.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants communities located near potential new reactor sites, such as Oswego, to know what's being proposed," David Matthews, director of the division of new reactor licensing, said in a news release.

The state's ever increasing demand for energy requires more plants like this, but it's a two-edged sword that, quite literally, will cut right through our area. Upstate is already home to a truly stunning amount of "green", or carbon-neutral, energy production- one of the largest hydroelectric facilities in the world, an ever growing number of wind installations, and the existing nuclear reactors northwest of Oneida County. The problem is that all that pure green energy needs to get to downstate, necessitating an expansion of the state's power grid with projects like NYRI.

And I think we all know how popular NYRI is.

One of the reason's I think the NYRI powerline is unstoppable is *because* of upstate's green power. Our state government has already mandated the purchase of carbon-neutral energy, but it's been amazingly lax in making sure that the plants generating that power are actually located near the centers of demand. In addition to being wasteful, requiring the construction of new power lines that just bleed off energy into the ether, that strategy places a rather undue burden on the residents of upstate. Advanced third and fourth generation nuclear reactors could meet all of downstate's power demands with only minor upgrades to the existing energy infrastructure, but the mere suggestion of siting a reactor there would trigger massive protests.

Unfortunately, the demographics of the state mean that protests downstate automatically drown out protests upstate. While upstate might be home to gigawatts of electrical capacity it's notably lacking in political power- and that's the kind of power that really matters.

Turn Out The Lights

Earlier this week I linked to the brand new SeeThroughNY website from the Empire Center. It collects thousands of pages of government documents and makes them available to the public, including records that include the salary of every public employee in the state. Predictably, the folks sucking at the public teat are horrified that taxpayers can actually see how much of that sweet, sweet milk they're slurping up:

Pushback, if not outright anger, against the Empire Center’s SeeThroughNY.net continued today on a number of fronts. At least one union was complaining that the site, which lists state employee salaries, may actually endanger some people as they can provide some idea of where people work, although addresses are not included.

And there seems to be lots of frustration about the fact that public employee salaries are public.

I got a call earlier in the day from a fellow at the State Education Department demanding that I take down any links to the dreaded site, or else I would be charged with harassment. When I replied that A) the site isn’t mine, and that b) the salaries are public information, this individual said that he and others were trying to launch a complaint campaign with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to get the AG to look into the matter.
(Makes one wonder how much work is getting done over at the Education Department with people spending all this time filing complaints and calling to complain about the website.)

If you click through to the website you may notice it's running a little slow. That's because it's been inundated with traffic...primarily from computers owned by the state.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

A hat tip to the Albany Times-Union's Capitol Confidential blog for the heads-up about the brand new SeeThroughNY website. Why is it worth a visit?

SeeThroughNY is a web portal -- and more. It's designed to become the hub of a statewide network through which taxpayers can share, analyze and compare data from counties, cities, towns, villages, school districts and public authorities throughout New York.

The information of this website comes from official government sources, but the Empire Center cannot guarantee data accuracy or completeness.

Click the buttons below to search government payrolls, contracts, expenditures, and links to additional information and supporting material on other websites.

Transparency like this is good, but it would be even better if fast and easy access to every government record via the internet was the law.

Energy Leadership, Clinton Style

Hillary Clinton, New York's junior Senator and former presidential candidate, was in Syracuse yesterday laying out her vision for making the United States less dependent on foreign oil. Amid the questionably useful displays of cooking oil recycling and cellulose-based skateboards, along with the genuinely promising technology of algael oil, she gave an excellent demonstration of what's holding us back:

In her speech to the public, Clinton said, "We are more dependent on foreign oil today than we were on 9/11. Shame on us that we let that happen."

She said President Bush and Congress should pass renewable energy production tax credits, require higher gas mileage for cars, tax windfall profits of oil companies, and crack down on market speculators who are causing the price of a barrel of oil to skyrocket.

"There's a lot that could be done, but unfortunately I don't see much indication that's going to happen in the remaining months of President Bush's term," she said. "I'm very disturbed by the lack of leadership coming out of the White House and the difficulties we have in the Senate passing something over the Republican opposition because of our rules."

Then Clinton climbed into the rear of a black Chevrolet Suburban that gets 16 miles per gallon and rode out of Syracuse.

A lack of leadership, indeed. 16 miles per gallon? I'd find it a lot easier to believe in Senator Clinton's solutions to the energy "crisis" if she was actually acting like it was, you know, a crisis.

The Pigs Have Taken Wing

After watching this video I'm not sure if I've slipped into some kind of Bizzaro world or ascended to heaven, but I obviously can't be in our reality. Head over to Capitol Confidential to check it out for yourself.

A quick summary: the Democratic Governor of New York State is convinced that high taxes are one of the main reasons people are fleeing the state. More importantly, he's going to fight both the Legislature and the Senate to get a property tax cap put into place.

See what I mean about waking up in Bizarro world?

If this isn't just political Kabuki, and there's certainly a chance he's just going through the motions, it looks like Gov. Paterson is going to go to the mat on this. If he follows through and starts making real changes, instead of cloaking himself in the mantle of "change" the way former Gov. Spitzer did, he could go a long way towards making New York a place people once again want to call home.

Update: Here's the embedded version of the video, but you should still head over to Capitol Confidential just because it's a great site.

Who Runs New York?

Three-quarters of New York's residents support a property tax cap, but this Albany Times-Union article points out that it's the state's public employee unions that are calling the shots:

A special study commission led by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi recommended a number of property tax fixes earlier this month, but both Suozzi and Paterson said the first priority should be to limit annual school property tax increases at 4 percent, or 120 percent of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. The CPI tracks the increase in prices paid by urban consumers for goods and services.

The cap is the only way to force schools to budget more prudently, they said.

Voters across the state clearly like the idea. A Siena Research Institute poll released Monday showed that 74 percent support a proposed 4 percent cap on school property taxes.

"When you get 74 percent agreeing on something it's amazing," said Siena spokesman Steven Greenberg.

But it's not that simple. Here's why: Big-money interest groups

The state's education establishment is squarely against a tax cap. That includes the powerful New York State United Teachers, a top campaign donor to incumbents -- Democrats and Republicans alike. NYSUT can also target lawmakers who cross it.

And the gravy train just keeps chugging along...

Tax Cap Dead, Unions Happy

Predictably, the public employee unions that benefit the most from New York's ever soaring tax load don't much like the proposed cap on local property taxes. And when they talk, Albany listens:

A proposed property tax cap supported by Gov. David Paterson, his expert tax-relief commission, and 72 percent of New Yorkers isn't likely to even reach the floor of the Legislature this session.

Powerful labor unions joined New York's teachers' unions Tuesday to kill the proposed limit on the growth of local property taxes. They say it would hurt schools despite record state aid increases, more than 70 percent of which pays for the salaries and benefits of those fighting the cap.

The school officials, advocates and union leaders say the cap would hurt classroom instruction and slow some recent progress improving student performance.

I'm not sure which is more disturbing- the fact that unions effectively control the state's legislative agenda or the disturbing way that no one even bothers to deny it anymore.

Another Big Nanotechnology Win!

The powers that be are spending close to $50 million dollars to convert a wooded parcel of land into a grassy lot in the vague hope it will become the Marcy Ultra-Mega-Super-Nanotech site. Mohawk Valley EDGE is simply delighted at all the "potential" the site has.

Meanwhile, the Albany Times-Union reports that the state's actual nanotechnology hub is about to receive another huge infusion of funding worth more than a billion dollars. That's billion, with a "b".

The Paterson administration is discussing a major economic development deal with IBM to enhance the global corporation's Fishkill chip manufacturing capabilities and expand research and development operations at the University at Albany's nanotechnology center, people close to the talks said Friday.

The deal, which could also include U Albany's east campus in Rensselaer County, is part of IBM's quest to develop its plant for the next generation of computer chip making.

It would come with heavy investments by the company and substantial support from the state, according to the sources. One of the sources pegged the overall investments well above $1 billion.

This move makes it abundantly clear that the state's investment in the Marcy site, such as it is, is nothing more than a sop tossed our way. Sure, politically connected construction firms will be able to enjoy a few years of pork-fueled success, but state government has clearly decided that the Albany area is, and will continue to be, the focus of real technological development. It's the same system of priorities that led to the disappointing Homeland Security Center at the airport and the incredible vanishing data center, both of which were supposed to generate hundreds of jobs using massive investments of tax dollars.

The real tragedy of the situation is that the millions of dollars earmarked for the Marcy site is desperately needed elsewhere in the area. Right now that money is being spent on the hope that someday a chip-fab company will need a lot with state-of-the-art sewer, water, and electrical infrastructure...and won't mind being isolated from the rest of the industrial and intellectual assets miles down the Thruway in the Albany area. For all the happy talk of a "nanotechnology corridor" stretching across upstate the truth is that any company with competent management is going to locate where the action is. And that ain't here, as the ol' timers would say.

In the meantime, area residents are asked to make due with crumbling sewer lines, a water system prone to running out of water, and a network of aging power lines draped from every available pole and building.

Dropping The Match

New York Governor David Paterson just dropped a lit match in a room filled with gasoline. He's directed state agencies to start recognizing same-sex unions.

Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.

In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses.

This is an important first step in finally getting government out of the marriage business. Paterson's move will, predictably, ignite a firestorm, but it is probably the only way to get the ossified power structures of the state to finally start dealing with the issue.

I know some of you reading this are probably agog at the idea of a Republican supporting the governor's actions. I can appreciate that intelligent people disagree with my point of view, but I think it's long overdue that we get rid of the whole idea of government approved marriages and replace it with civil unions. Why should the state have any role at all in what is, essentially, a religious ceremony? Transferring the traditional legal rights and obligations of marriage into the framework of civil unions would solve a multitude of problems while still allowing the faithful to enter into marriage via a simple checkbox. The important part is that individuals would be able to self-define the nature of their relationship instead of deferring to the state's power.

Does Governor Paterson Know Something We Don't?

There was some tough talk last month from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, but it's not a sure thing that the state is going to go to court over the Oneida's land into trust decision. The O-D offers up some details:

New York state Gov. David Paterson still hasn’t stated definitively whether the state will file suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior for its decision to place 13,004 acres of Oneida Indian Nation land into federal Indian trust.

The Interior Department issued its decision Tuesday.

Paterson encouraged the parties involved to negotiate.

“When it comes to matter concerning Native Americans the Bush administration has shown a pattern of acting in a manner that is detrimental to the interests of New York, its citizens and even the tribes,” Paterson said in a statement.

The statement continued: “The procedures the Department of the Interior – through the Bureau of Indian Affairs – followed were flawed, and its decision is decidedly harmful to ongoing efforts on the part of interested parties to resolve these matters locally. Unfortunately, any possible negotiations will now be conducted under the specter of the litigation that is sure to follow this decision. I continue to encourage all parties to negotiate.”

Riddle me this. If every politician involved in this mess so desperately wants to "negotiate", from the Mayor of Verona to the Governor of New York and right up to Congressman Arcuri, why haven't there been any negotiations? Every elected official involved has been issuing press release after press release praising themselves for all their hard work and dedication, but somehow they've accomplished absolutely nothing. It's amazing that so many have worked so hard for so long, yet we still don't seem to have any actual, you know, "negotiations" going on.

There's one other thing worthy of note in Gov. Paterson's actual press release, although the O-D's story doesn't mention it. The full text is available from the governor's website, and one particular line in the first paragraph jumped out at me:

Governor David A. Paterson sharply criticized the federal government’s recent decision to put 13,004 acres of land in Madison and Oneida Counties into trust for the Oneida Indian Nation. The land is scattered throughout the two counties, and a move to take all of it into trust would threaten the fiscal solvency of county and local governments. Governor Paterson is now working with federal and local officials and the Oneida Indian Nation to organize negotiations in an effort to reach a settlement that is satisfactory to all parties.

Bolding mine.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the governor of New York just said that Oneida county is facing insolvency if this decision stands. That's a pretty dire prediction, since the likelihood of the DOI's findings being overturned are slim at best. If the governor is correct, and I have no reason to suspect he's lying, the outlook for the area is looking more grim than ever before.