. . .A Lesson To Be Learned By All Of Us
The rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer.
The saga, from the heights of power to the depths of disgrace, reads like a classic Greek tragedy -- only with more sex.
Maybe he deserved what he got -- the arrogance, the holier than thou, the do as I say, not as I do. Certainly his family, and all New Yorkers who believed in the ideals this man espoused, deserved better.
Then again, none of us is here to sit in judgment. And perhaps, just perhaps, there is a lesson to be learned here that every one of us could benefit from.
If its not, "people who live in glass houses shoudn't throw stones," then maybe its, "to err is human. To really screw up takes extraordinary effort."
- - -
What I Couldn't Teach Spitzer at Harvard Law
By Susan Estrich
I met Eliot Spitzer during his first semester in law school, my first year teaching criminal law at Harvard. He was smart and ambitious, which certainly didn't set him apart from the rest of his classmates at Harvard. What did, and what brought him to my door, was that he was interested in a career in politics.
I myself was fresh from four years in Washington, the last two working in the Kennedy and Carter campaigns, and while I was barely four years older than my students, I had already learned some important lessons about how Democrats lose. So I had advice for Eliot. Go be a prosecutor, I told him. Democrats need to prove what side they're on when it comes to crime.
Being a prosecutor is the way to prove you're tough.
He went to the Manhattan district attorney's office when he graduated, and later ran for attorney general. I used to joke, as I watched my former student make a name for himself, that rarely did anyone take my advice so much to heart.
Maybe he was absent the day we discussed the Mann Act. But I don't think so. I don't think this is about what he didn't know. He knew better. He just didn't think it would happen to him.
My old roommate used to call it "getting stupid." In the beginning of the story, the guy might be smart, thoughtful, good-looking and funny. But when it came to sex, she'd just shake her head. Lord, could guys get stupid or what?
That's the phrase that kept running through my head as I listened to the reports, read the affidavits and plowed through the details of the mess surrounding my very smart former student Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
How could one smart guy get that stupid?
He used his own cell phone to arrange for a prostitute to go from New York to Washington, D.C., to have sex with him. Didn't he remember the stuff I taught him about how crossing state lines and using phone wires turn things into federal crimes, about the aptly named Mann Act, which makes prostitution a federal offense when you cross state lines to do it? Eight years of prosecuting Wall Street as attorney general of New York, and he was still clumsy enough in pulling money from his own accounts that his bank noted it and alerted the authorities to suspicious transactions on his account.
The easy answer, the one I heard frequently as the story was breaking, is that men just get stupid about sex. But prostitution is -- from my vantage point as a woman and a mother -- a particularly unattractive and offensive kind of extramarital activity. I really believe it is none of my business, as a member of the public or the media, if a political or business leader has an affair. I don't sit in judgment of other people's marriages or their private lives. But prostitution isn't just sex. Prostitution objectifies the women who engage in it, dehumanizes sex and sexuality, and turns both into commodities with a price tag.
Rich, powerful men don't need to pay women to have sex; there are plenty who will do it for nothing, save the expectation that they be treated as people. I have never understood why such men prefer to pay for it. Or, more accurately, I have understood, and I think less of them for their choice. What does it say about a man that he'd rather pay for sex? That he is willing to offer nothing but money? It is the cheapest sex a man can have, a friend of mine says, which is why I find it so offensive. Both Eliot and I are big believers in personal responsibility.
Of course, the real issue isn't sex, but judgment. Ruining a career you've spent decades building, ruining your future, making yourself vulnerable to criminal punishment, humiliating yourself and your family literally in the eyes of the world, all for a few nights in the sack with a whore? Insane. Just insane.
There is only one obvious explanation for why a smart man would commit such a totally self-destructive act: He didn't think he would be caught. It wasn't worth it, and he knew that then as well as he does now. He just didn't think he'd be forced to pay the price.
One of the hardest things for parents to teach their children is that actions have consequences.
Kids think they're immortal. Parents know better, which is why we hound them about not smoking, about not drinking and driving, about seatbelts and drugs and punch at parties. We want our children to grow up feeling that they are special, but not so special that they assume the rules don't apply and the odds won't catch up to them.
To run for high office, you have to view yourself a little differently than most of us view ourselves. You need to believe you have something special; you need to be able to hear your own voice all day long, see your own image, be in your own face in a way that most of us couldn't, at least not comfortably. But you also need to remember not to buy into the idea that you really are different. You have to resist the almost irresistible intoxication of power, the part of it that might leave a mere mortal believing, as 16-year-olds do, that they are something more.
Eliot Spitzer knew better, but he clearly forgot that the rules apply to everyone. Especially him. Now, the face in the mirror is the one that did him in. Poor Eliot. I do feel sorry for him. But there are some things you can't teach, some things that can only be learned through painful experience. Hubris is what it's called.
Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate Inc.
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Misquote of the Week:
"David Paterson wouldn't be where he is today if he wasn't Black, er, blind, ah, Black."
--Geraldine Ferraro
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
"I Love This Job"
State of Nassau County Boils Down to Taxes, Taxes, Taxes
Click HERE to read Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi's State of the County Address, and to view the video.
Among the great lines -- and challenges -- offered by Mr. Suozzi:
"...create "cool downtowns" that foster ideas, culture and education to attract young people and empty nesters. If we build it, they will come."
"...our greatest success will come if we get a Nassau Coliseum HUB plan approved by the Town of Hempstead and off the ground before the Islanders lose another season and the people begin to lose heart."
"Let’s make America’s first suburb, America’s first green suburb and then let’s green all of Long Island."
"Closer to home, people are worried about Nassau County’s future, too. Worried about those property taxes, worried about our high LIPA and KeySpan bills, about young families finding affordable housing in Nassau County and about seniors finding the money to stay in their homes."
"We are a stone’s throw from the center of the world…" [And we thought Nassau County was the center of the world!]
"Together, we will tame our runaway property taxes."
"I still believe in Nassau County." [I do, I do, I do.]
"We’re not satisfied. We’re not finished. And we never will be finished until we make our own future what we want it to be."
"...you ain't seen nothin' yet."
And the best line of the evening -- the opener -- "I love this job!"
Now its time to put those words into action, Mr. County Executive. The Debbie Downers (read as Peter Schmitt & Company) and naysayers notwithstanding, Nassau County's best days are, indeed, yet to come!
Click HERE to read Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi's State of the County Address, and to view the video.
Among the great lines -- and challenges -- offered by Mr. Suozzi:
"...create "cool downtowns" that foster ideas, culture and education to attract young people and empty nesters. If we build it, they will come."
"...our greatest success will come if we get a Nassau Coliseum HUB plan approved by the Town of Hempstead and off the ground before the Islanders lose another season and the people begin to lose heart."
"Let’s make America’s first suburb, America’s first green suburb and then let’s green all of Long Island."
"Closer to home, people are worried about Nassau County’s future, too. Worried about those property taxes, worried about our high LIPA and KeySpan bills, about young families finding affordable housing in Nassau County and about seniors finding the money to stay in their homes."
"We are a stone’s throw from the center of the world…" [And we thought Nassau County was the center of the world!]
"Together, we will tame our runaway property taxes."
"I still believe in Nassau County." [I do, I do, I do.]
"We’re not satisfied. We’re not finished. And we never will be finished until we make our own future what we want it to be."
"...you ain't seen nothin' yet."
And the best line of the evening -- the opener -- "I love this job!"
Now its time to put those words into action, Mr. County Executive. The Debbie Downers (read as Peter Schmitt & Company) and naysayers notwithstanding, Nassau County's best days are, indeed, yet to come!
Con Ed: A Plan To Lower School Costs On Long Island
Suozzi Suggests The Consolidation Of Educational Services To Save Taxpayer $$
Call it Con Ed -- The consolidation of services common to Long Island's all too many school districts.
Transportation. Insurance. Legal. A host of noninstructional matters that can be handled -- and negotiated -- by a single administrative body, rather than by dozens (56 in Nassau alone) separate school districts.
Could a centralized system do it more effectively, reducing costs and streamlining processes?
Yes.
Would it?
That remains to be seen.
Just as bigger is not always better, one out of many, while sounding true in theory and looking good on paper, doesn't always equate with either efficiency or savings.
Still, Suozzi has put an idea, whose time has come and gone and come again over the years, out there for consideration, and consider we must.
Surely, there is greater bargaining power in the marketplace when one represents the many. Then, too, there is greater opportunity for massive blunder, if not bureaucratic malaise, having removed at least some aspects of the decision-making process from -- dare we say it -- local control.
In any case, doing nothing -- tantamount to getting less while paying more and more and more -- is not an option.
Time to put those thinking caps (if not budget caps) on, and ponder a future where taxpayers get more for their school dollars by being both efficient and effective locally. At the same time, we need the folks in Albany to begin to think more globally -- or at least on a uniform state-wide basis -- vis-a-vis the allocation of aid to schools, fully funding the education of all of our children, without bankrupting their parents.
- - -
Editorial: Take Suozzi school-services consolidation seriously
Local governance of the public school is a canon law of suburbia. But to keep this firm control of their classrooms and their fields, Long Islanders must consider changing the way their districts go about doing business. Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, whose second nature is to mine for bold ideas to solve problems, outlined a very worthwhile proposal to centralize some costly school services last night in his annual State of the County message. Suozzi is targeting such services as legal representation, transportation, purchasing and payroll, all of which hold ample promise for cost-cutting.
A recent report by the Suffolk County Legislature also finds the potential for significant savings from consolidation of services. The case for each county to have a single law office to handle routine legal work and contract negotiations seems already to have been made by recent disclosures in this newspaper of how millions of dollars in fees are being paid to a few firms specializing in education law.
One of Suozzi's first steps in developing a model for centralization is to determine whether the existing BOCES operation, which has never fulfilled its mission to provide substantial shared services, is up to the job.
Just last week, a state audit of Nassau BOCES found lax oversight and money misspent on meals, travel and cars. So the structure may be useful, but its governance should be overhauled before an experimental program can start.
Consolidation of an estimated $1.9 billion in the business operations of Nassau's 56 school districts will require changes in state law and regulations, as well as deft political leadership.
School superintendents and their boards need to buy into the plan, and so do the people who complain about their taxes but are reluctant to change anything about their schools.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
Call it Con Ed -- The consolidation of services common to Long Island's all too many school districts.
Transportation. Insurance. Legal. A host of noninstructional matters that can be handled -- and negotiated -- by a single administrative body, rather than by dozens (56 in Nassau alone) separate school districts.
Could a centralized system do it more effectively, reducing costs and streamlining processes?
Yes.
Would it?
That remains to be seen.
Just as bigger is not always better, one out of many, while sounding true in theory and looking good on paper, doesn't always equate with either efficiency or savings.
Still, Suozzi has put an idea, whose time has come and gone and come again over the years, out there for consideration, and consider we must.
Surely, there is greater bargaining power in the marketplace when one represents the many. Then, too, there is greater opportunity for massive blunder, if not bureaucratic malaise, having removed at least some aspects of the decision-making process from -- dare we say it -- local control.
In any case, doing nothing -- tantamount to getting less while paying more and more and more -- is not an option.
Time to put those thinking caps (if not budget caps) on, and ponder a future where taxpayers get more for their school dollars by being both efficient and effective locally. At the same time, we need the folks in Albany to begin to think more globally -- or at least on a uniform state-wide basis -- vis-a-vis the allocation of aid to schools, fully funding the education of all of our children, without bankrupting their parents.
- - -
Editorial: Take Suozzi school-services consolidation seriously
Local governance of the public school is a canon law of suburbia. But to keep this firm control of their classrooms and their fields, Long Islanders must consider changing the way their districts go about doing business. Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, whose second nature is to mine for bold ideas to solve problems, outlined a very worthwhile proposal to centralize some costly school services last night in his annual State of the County message. Suozzi is targeting such services as legal representation, transportation, purchasing and payroll, all of which hold ample promise for cost-cutting.
A recent report by the Suffolk County Legislature also finds the potential for significant savings from consolidation of services. The case for each county to have a single law office to handle routine legal work and contract negotiations seems already to have been made by recent disclosures in this newspaper of how millions of dollars in fees are being paid to a few firms specializing in education law.
One of Suozzi's first steps in developing a model for centralization is to determine whether the existing BOCES operation, which has never fulfilled its mission to provide substantial shared services, is up to the job.
Just last week, a state audit of Nassau BOCES found lax oversight and money misspent on meals, travel and cars. So the structure may be useful, but its governance should be overhauled before an experimental program can start.
Consolidation of an estimated $1.9 billion in the business operations of Nassau's 56 school districts will require changes in state law and regulations, as well as deft political leadership.
School superintendents and their boards need to buy into the plan, and so do the people who complain about their taxes but are reluctant to change anything about their schools.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Day 436. . .
. . .And The Steamroller Runs Into A Brick Wall
Talk about a fall from grace. The Spitz hits the fan!
Not only sex for money -- and lots of it -- but allegations of money laundering, tax evasion, and transit across state lines for who knows what purposes.
The Governor -- or perhaps, by this hour, former Governor -- of New York would have likely survived Troopergate, best efforts of Joe Bruno to condemn aside. Even the foible of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants -- the right thing to do in the wrong political climate -- would not have derailed Eliot Spitzer.
But this?
Client 9 from Mr. Clean?
Politically, there's little likelihood that the Gov can survive the fallout. No "I did not have sex with that woman" lines here, disingenuous or not.
Personally, Mr. Spitzer has relationships to mend -- if such a thing is possible after transgressions that transcend the Governor's private life -- and no time to squander the opportunity to save his family with a long, drawn out mea culpa in an attempt to salvage his crumbling political career.
This whole affair (no pun intended) is a tragedy. All too often repeated across the great political landscape of America -- with New Jersey, Connecticut, and now New York having created the perfect storm -- but a tragedy none the less.
One cannot help but feel for the Spitzer family, and to lament that a public servant who held the ethical bar so high -- and the public trust so inviolate -- has come to this sad end.
David Paterson, the man who serves quietly as New York's Leiutenant Governor, little known outside of political circles (in which he is well liked and highly regarded), awaits the call.
Now is the time for Eliot to phone home.
- - -
From The Albany Times Union:
Mr. Spitzer's shame
It would have been a cowardly performance by anyone, really. The boilerplate apology to the humiliated family. The acknowledgment that the public that employs him deserves better. And then the hasty exit, no questions and no explanations.
But this was Gov. Eliot Spitzer, chosen by an already disgusted electorate to clean up state government, not to further diminish it.
"I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family."
So went the parting words of a once-promising leader on Monday as he went off into what had all the signs of self-exile.
It was the last thing the people of New York needed to see and hear. If the governor has violated the public trust, as it appears he may have, he must resign. If he thinks otherwise, he has to make the case for how he can lead this state, particularly in such daunting times. He has to address the public's profound anger and sense of betrayal.
He can't think, even for a New York minute, that his appearance before the press for those few minutes in Manhattan on Monday afternoon suffices for an accounting of how he's embarrassed himself and quite possibly lost the moral authority necessary to govern.
A prostitution ring, Mr. Spitzer? "Client 9" of the Emperors Club VIP?
Explain yourself, quickly and completely.
For Mr. Spitzer to have even a chance at surviving such a scandal will require a sense of humility, self-examination and, yes, candor that might be beyond him at this point.
Forthrightness is now required for someone more used to zealously demanding an accounting for the weaknesses and failings of others.
This is not the "private matter" Mr. Spitzer says it is. Such a desperate suggestion, in fact, is painfully indicative of the hubris that complicates his fate.
These are the words of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, announcing the breakup of a high-priced prostitution racket in Staten Island in 2004:
"This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure," he said. "It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring."
It's nothing short of sickening to realize that this man somehow could be part of something like that.
Unsettling, too, is the realization that Mr. Spitzer's supposed involvement with a prostitution ring has been captured on a federal wiretap.
A brilliant lawyer needs an equally brilliant lawyer. A once-triumphant state needs an able leader.
Excelsior?
Perhaps not today and perhaps not for a very long time.
THE ISSUE: The governor is linked to a prostitution scandal.
THE STAKES: He needs to level with the people, whatever his future.
- - -
From Newsday:
Pride goes before a fall
Irreparably damaged, Gov. Eliot Spitzer must resign
What a stunner. The last time Eliot Spitzer and "prostitution ring" were mentioned in the same sentence, the reformist governor was enacting a new felony statute to punish human trafficking.
Before that, it was Spitzer the crusading attorney general, busting call girl businesses on Staten Island.
And now all the promise that rested on this leader with the wide vocabulary and the pugnacious jaw comes to this: a tawdry rendezvous - in fact, probably many of them - with a hooker, this time at Washington's Mayflower Hotel.
Of course, the governor has to resign. Fifteen months ago, he was the chief legal officer of the state. Hiring a call girl was not only against the law, but procuring her to cross state lines turned the $4,300 evening into a federal crime. Spitzer, 48, is either viciously self-destructive or pathologically arrogant, believing he wouldn't be caught.
He cannot stay and play the odds, as he has with the Troopergate investigation, in which his aides were accused of misusing the State Police to embarrass a political rival. Spitzer can't blame an underling for this one. Federal investigators caught him in a wiretap, red-handed, in a series of telephone calls to the Emperors Club VIP to negotiate payment details.
Here is the busy governor of New York, on the phone, working out who pays for the prostitute's use of the hotel minibar. The decorum of the office can't withstand this man's abuse of it. From the moment of yesterday's shocking, sordid revelation - and his pitiful apology - no more state business can be done with Spitzer at the helm.
The governor's job would pass to the hands of David Paterson, 53, the former State Senate Democratic leader from Harlem. Paterson is respected on both sides of the aisle, but the state's business has suffered a grave setback. Paterson is smart and likable, but the question will be whether he's up to the task of righting this seriously listing ship.
The story of Eliot Spitzer's demise would be Shakespearean in its tragedy, had he really been the man we thought he was. When New York State Democrats rallied for him at their holiday party in 2005, Spitzer strode through the gala like a man at a coronation. Admirers formed a column behind him. He promised to reform the most dysfunctional legislature in the nation and to kick off the dust of the do-nothing latter years of Gov. George Pataki's administration.
All the momentum he amassed as he collected 69.6 percent of the vote in a landslide has been wasted. New York needed his push for higher ethics and campaign finance reform. We needed to focus on education, the environment, the soaring cost of health care and unmanageable tax burdens. The momentum is utterly lost, but the causes themselves should not also die.
As Spitzer said yesterday, he has violated his obligation to the people around him. Many gave up private-sector jobs to follow him into government. His wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, put her legal career on hold when he chose to run for public office. For all of them, his paying a hooker for sex is a betrayal. And the Spitzers have three teenage daughters who must now grow up living with this knowledge.
Should we have seen the real Spitzer more clearly? He lied about taking a loan from his father, Bernard, to fund his 1994 campaign for attorney general. His Wall Street and insurance targets, such as John Whitehead, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and Richard Grasso, warned about the man's temper and bullying tactics. This page endorsed Spitzer for governor. After all, as Rep. Charles Rangel quipped derisively, Spitzer was the smartest man in the room. Until he wasn't.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
Talk about a fall from grace. The Spitz hits the fan!
Not only sex for money -- and lots of it -- but allegations of money laundering, tax evasion, and transit across state lines for who knows what purposes.
The Governor -- or perhaps, by this hour, former Governor -- of New York would have likely survived Troopergate, best efforts of Joe Bruno to condemn aside. Even the foible of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants -- the right thing to do in the wrong political climate -- would not have derailed Eliot Spitzer.
But this?
Client 9 from Mr. Clean?
Politically, there's little likelihood that the Gov can survive the fallout. No "I did not have sex with that woman" lines here, disingenuous or not.
Personally, Mr. Spitzer has relationships to mend -- if such a thing is possible after transgressions that transcend the Governor's private life -- and no time to squander the opportunity to save his family with a long, drawn out mea culpa in an attempt to salvage his crumbling political career.
This whole affair (no pun intended) is a tragedy. All too often repeated across the great political landscape of America -- with New Jersey, Connecticut, and now New York having created the perfect storm -- but a tragedy none the less.
One cannot help but feel for the Spitzer family, and to lament that a public servant who held the ethical bar so high -- and the public trust so inviolate -- has come to this sad end.
David Paterson, the man who serves quietly as New York's Leiutenant Governor, little known outside of political circles (in which he is well liked and highly regarded), awaits the call.
Now is the time for Eliot to phone home.
- - -
From The Albany Times Union:
Mr. Spitzer's shame
It would have been a cowardly performance by anyone, really. The boilerplate apology to the humiliated family. The acknowledgment that the public that employs him deserves better. And then the hasty exit, no questions and no explanations.
But this was Gov. Eliot Spitzer, chosen by an already disgusted electorate to clean up state government, not to further diminish it.
"I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family."
So went the parting words of a once-promising leader on Monday as he went off into what had all the signs of self-exile.
It was the last thing the people of New York needed to see and hear. If the governor has violated the public trust, as it appears he may have, he must resign. If he thinks otherwise, he has to make the case for how he can lead this state, particularly in such daunting times. He has to address the public's profound anger and sense of betrayal.
He can't think, even for a New York minute, that his appearance before the press for those few minutes in Manhattan on Monday afternoon suffices for an accounting of how he's embarrassed himself and quite possibly lost the moral authority necessary to govern.
A prostitution ring, Mr. Spitzer? "Client 9" of the Emperors Club VIP?
Explain yourself, quickly and completely.
For Mr. Spitzer to have even a chance at surviving such a scandal will require a sense of humility, self-examination and, yes, candor that might be beyond him at this point.
Forthrightness is now required for someone more used to zealously demanding an accounting for the weaknesses and failings of others.
This is not the "private matter" Mr. Spitzer says it is. Such a desperate suggestion, in fact, is painfully indicative of the hubris that complicates his fate.
These are the words of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, announcing the breakup of a high-priced prostitution racket in Staten Island in 2004:
"This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure," he said. "It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring."
It's nothing short of sickening to realize that this man somehow could be part of something like that.
Unsettling, too, is the realization that Mr. Spitzer's supposed involvement with a prostitution ring has been captured on a federal wiretap.
A brilliant lawyer needs an equally brilliant lawyer. A once-triumphant state needs an able leader.
Excelsior?
Perhaps not today and perhaps not for a very long time.
THE ISSUE: The governor is linked to a prostitution scandal.
THE STAKES: He needs to level with the people, whatever his future.
- - -
From Newsday:
Pride goes before a fall
Irreparably damaged, Gov. Eliot Spitzer must resign
What a stunner. The last time Eliot Spitzer and "prostitution ring" were mentioned in the same sentence, the reformist governor was enacting a new felony statute to punish human trafficking.
Before that, it was Spitzer the crusading attorney general, busting call girl businesses on Staten Island.
And now all the promise that rested on this leader with the wide vocabulary and the pugnacious jaw comes to this: a tawdry rendezvous - in fact, probably many of them - with a hooker, this time at Washington's Mayflower Hotel.
Of course, the governor has to resign. Fifteen months ago, he was the chief legal officer of the state. Hiring a call girl was not only against the law, but procuring her to cross state lines turned the $4,300 evening into a federal crime. Spitzer, 48, is either viciously self-destructive or pathologically arrogant, believing he wouldn't be caught.
He cannot stay and play the odds, as he has with the Troopergate investigation, in which his aides were accused of misusing the State Police to embarrass a political rival. Spitzer can't blame an underling for this one. Federal investigators caught him in a wiretap, red-handed, in a series of telephone calls to the Emperors Club VIP to negotiate payment details.
Here is the busy governor of New York, on the phone, working out who pays for the prostitute's use of the hotel minibar. The decorum of the office can't withstand this man's abuse of it. From the moment of yesterday's shocking, sordid revelation - and his pitiful apology - no more state business can be done with Spitzer at the helm.
The governor's job would pass to the hands of David Paterson, 53, the former State Senate Democratic leader from Harlem. Paterson is respected on both sides of the aisle, but the state's business has suffered a grave setback. Paterson is smart and likable, but the question will be whether he's up to the task of righting this seriously listing ship.
The story of Eliot Spitzer's demise would be Shakespearean in its tragedy, had he really been the man we thought he was. When New York State Democrats rallied for him at their holiday party in 2005, Spitzer strode through the gala like a man at a coronation. Admirers formed a column behind him. He promised to reform the most dysfunctional legislature in the nation and to kick off the dust of the do-nothing latter years of Gov. George Pataki's administration.
All the momentum he amassed as he collected 69.6 percent of the vote in a landslide has been wasted. New York needed his push for higher ethics and campaign finance reform. We needed to focus on education, the environment, the soaring cost of health care and unmanageable tax burdens. The momentum is utterly lost, but the causes themselves should not also die.
As Spitzer said yesterday, he has violated his obligation to the people around him. Many gave up private-sector jobs to follow him into government. His wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, put her legal career on hold when he chose to run for public office. For all of them, his paying a hooker for sex is a betrayal. And the Spitzers have three teenage daughters who must now grow up living with this knowledge.
Should we have seen the real Spitzer more clearly? He lied about taking a loan from his father, Bernard, to fund his 1994 campaign for attorney general. His Wall Street and insurance targets, such as John Whitehead, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and Richard Grasso, warned about the man's temper and bullying tactics. This page endorsed Spitzer for governor. After all, as Rep. Charles Rangel quipped derisively, Spitzer was the smartest man in the room. Until he wasn't.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Rallying For The Cause Of Education On Long Island
LIers Hit The Streets For "Fair Share" Of School Aid
Budget time in Albany. An election year in the State legislature. Prospects of cutbacks and deficits loom.
Time to rally the troops, stir the pot, and shout from the mountain top -- or at least from the street corner -- "show Long Island the money!"
Here's one Long Islander's take on the issue of school finance, followed by the local coverage of the recent "fare share" rally, sponsored by Long Island's Senate delegation, and most notably, the Dean of the New York State Senate, Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos.
We welcome your opinions, and offer you the opportunity to share your thoughts, on this and other topics of community concern, with your neighbors and fellow Long Islanders, by posting comments and submitting guest blogs.
Write to The Community Alliance at thecommunityalliance@yahoo.com.
- - -
How Will "Fair Share" Play in Buffalo, NYC?
It will be interesting to see how Long Island and the rest of the State will fare if New York City takes the position that it ought to get its fair share of the taxes it pays to the State. School District expenditures are based upon three factors (with some reasonable flexibility built in to cover otherwise unanticipated but inevitable contingencies).
1. Expenditures that are reasonably based upon State mandated educational requirements;
2. Expenditures that are within the scope of discretionary additional services offered by the District;
3. Payment of principle and interest on School District debt, which may have originated as a mandated expense or a discretionary expense or a combination of both.
Under the NY State Constitution, education is the responsibility of the State and that is why Boards of Education are State agencies, not subject to the control of the County or of local governments. Local Boards of Education are responsible to the Commissioner of Education. When a local School District budget is defeated, that defeat does not, in any way, lessen the District's obligation to fund mandated educational requirements. Thus, the kinds of things that are cut are only discretionary programs, such as athletics and various extra-curricular activities, transportation for distances less than State mandates, etc.
The quality of education mandated by the State for each child should be roughly the same, allowing, of course, for special educational services that may be required for children with special needs. Variances in State aid to School Districts should be expected for three primary reasons:
1) Economies of scale that can be realized by school districts that have relatively dense populations are not realized by school districts that have small or widely spread populations;
2) Some areas of the State are, comparably, in financial distress. When the residents are taxed to an extent that is proportionally equivalent, based upon their financial circumstances, the State may reasonably fund more of those District's mandatory budgets;
3) Some Districts will go into financial emergency because of the need to build or repair or to attract adequate personnel.
It should also be noted that quite a few students who live on Long Island go to private schools. A part of the local Board of Education budget is required to be expended to provide transportation and educational materials for private school students. My impression is that private school attendance in most of the rest of the State is not as great as on Long Island.
In addition, some school districts have substantial commercial properties and others have very little commercial property. Commercial properties tend to lessen the tax impact on residential property owners. Upstate cow pastures tend not to have the same beneficial result. Of course, if agricultural areas get hit with heavier taxes, that cost will, eventually find its way down to the wallets of Nassau County food shoppers.
A discussion of "fair share" is a mockery of sound education unless it takes all of this into account. None of the talk I have heard gets down to that level of analysis, and much of the talk is simply what you might hear at a pep rally.
It will be interesting to see how State Senator Skelos' upstate Republican colleagues react to his "fair share" contentions. If Long Island is not getting its fair share, then it should be. It should also be kept in mind that the State may have to fund "fair shares" by increasing income tax and other taxes.
The signs are growing that the United States is falling behind some formerly second and third world countries in the education race. It may well be that we are not getting full value for our education dollar; however getting us to full and effective education will likely mean that, for every dollar saved, a dollar or more will have to be spent on something else.
The two greatest potential areas of savings are probably: a) regionalization of school districts, i.e, consolidation, and b) decrease in discretionary spendings, such as athletics and other extracurricular activities. Proposal of either one of those would likely raise a considerably negative howl amongst most Long Island school districts. Regionalization increases the opportunity for putting out to bid larger, combined, orders for goods and services. The result will be that large suppliers will provide better prices. Great, right? Well, there are many local suppliers who are dependent upon school district orders for things like art supplies, sporting goods, food, etc. Cutting the local stores out of the loop may be a downturn in local jobs and rents and the taxes they were paying.
The issues are not easy to fully understand or resolve. In the absence of outright waste or larceny, there is always a price to pay for saving money, and it means making a clear choice as to priorities.
Henry Boitel
Rockville Centre, New York
- - -
From The East Meadow Herald:
Taking it to the streets
By JUDY RATTNER and ANDREW HACKMACK
Braving a blustery March wind and a passing snow shower, more than 1,500 taxpayers, educators, students, parents and business and labor leaders from Nassau and Suffolk counties converged on Ellsworth W. Allen Park in Farmingdale last Saturday, imploring Gov. Eliot Spitzer to restore funding he cut to Long Island schools in his proposed 2008-09 education budget.
The rally was organized by Long Island-s Senate majority delegation, and spearheaded by Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre). Dr. William Johnson, superintendent of Rockville Centre schools, and Mark Masin and Lorrie Brady from the Board of Education were among those representing the district at the demonstration.
We want our fair share, many chanted as they held up signs that read, Underfunded overtaxed, LI Schools a Smart Investment, SOS Save Our Schools, Fair Share for LI Schools and Gov. Spitzer: Cut Taxes, Not School Funds.
As music blasted from speakers mounted on a truck, the event got under way. Skelos took to a microphone and introduced the fair share message that became the protest-s oft-repeated refrain. He thanked the crowd for attending and pledged to work to maintain the quality education our students deserve, and get the real property tax relief their parents deserve.
This is about our kids, and we want to make sure they have all the opportunities we had, Skelos said.
He promised that local elected officials would partner with the regional groups at the rally. Calling it a united team effort, Skelos said that, together, Long Islanders would overcome the slashed state school aid that eventually would result in property tax increases which already overburdened taxpayers cannot afford. This is a critical battle with the politicians and the governor, he told the crowd.
Sen. Kemp Hannon offered some disturbing numbers. He pointed out that while 17 percent of New York State-s school-age children are enrolled in Long Island schools, the region has traditionally received less than 13 percent of state school aid. Next year, Long Island schools are slated to receive only 8.2 percent of overall state aid. Those figures drew loud boos from the crowd.
Skelos noted that Long Island's business community understands that today-s students are that community-s future. When we educate our kids and when we send them to college, he said, we want them to come back.
John Durso, president of the 250,000-member Long Island Federation of Labor, spoke on behalf of working men and women who are already burdened by high taxes. How many millionaires are out there today? Durso asked. No one responded. That-s what I thought.
This is not about downstate, upstate, it's about our communities and our kids and our fair share, he said.
Matt Crosson, president of the Long Island Association, a business and civic organization, noted that 60 percent of the school districts whose state funding was cut are on Long Island, and that two-thirds of the districts on the Island received funding increases of only 2 percent. He disputed Spitzer-s recent remark about interest-driven sectionalism, saying it wasn-t selfish for Long Island to ask for its fair share.
Gracemarie Rozea, director of the Nassau Region PTA, made one of the most passionate speeches. She praised the high quality of education that students on Long Island already receive, but said that schools must be funded properly for such achievement to continue.
Rozea said that local leaders have gone to bat for Long Island in the past, and she has no doubt they will do so again this year as they finalize the 2008-09 state budget. Together, Rozea explained, Long Island-s lawmakers and citizens must call on the disconnected statewide leader in Albany to do what-s right. We must make sure our children are not left behind, she said, and we will do so by getting our fair share. Our children are relying on us.
Long Island is not a cash cow to be used to supplement the rest of the state, Rozea continued, urging the audience to get the word out and to call, write and e-mail their local leaders and state officials in Albany. Please listen to us, Governor Spitzer, we are strong, she said. We are telling [you] loud and clear that we demand and deserve our fair share.
Zuha Gazi, a high school student in Half Hollow Hills, said that there is a misconception in Albany that everyone on Long Island is wealthy. People-s wealth, she said, is in the equity of their homes, not in cash. That makes it especially difficult for Long Islanders to pay their property tax bills, which average $16,000.
Craig Workman, another Half Hollow Hills senior who is a member of his school's Legislative Committee, said, It-s not our intention to take funding away from New York City or upstate. He said there was a warped perception of Long Island-s school districts and that it was time that regional costs, which are 50 percent higher on Long Island than in the rest of the state, were taken into account.
Sachem School District teacher Diane Hettrich, representing New York State United Teachers, said the governor has proposed a record $1.5 billion increase in funding for education throughout the state, yet many Long Island districts are seeing cuts.
There is still a month until the April 1 state budget deadline, Hettrich told the crowd, so there is time to make their voices heard. It is imperative that the Legislature and governor achieve a budget that supports children, she said.
Skelos said he was extremely pleased by the turnout at the rally, and that it shows Long Islanders care about their schools. It may be cold out here today, he said, but we-re going to turn the heat up on our governor.
And Johnson said, It's hard to argue with the senators. We need our fair share.
Budget time in Albany. An election year in the State legislature. Prospects of cutbacks and deficits loom.
Time to rally the troops, stir the pot, and shout from the mountain top -- or at least from the street corner -- "show Long Island the money!"
Here's one Long Islander's take on the issue of school finance, followed by the local coverage of the recent "fare share" rally, sponsored by Long Island's Senate delegation, and most notably, the Dean of the New York State Senate, Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos.
We welcome your opinions, and offer you the opportunity to share your thoughts, on this and other topics of community concern, with your neighbors and fellow Long Islanders, by posting comments and submitting guest blogs.
Write to The Community Alliance at thecommunityalliance@yahoo.com.
- - -
How Will "Fair Share" Play in Buffalo, NYC?
It will be interesting to see how Long Island and the rest of the State will fare if New York City takes the position that it ought to get its fair share of the taxes it pays to the State. School District expenditures are based upon three factors (with some reasonable flexibility built in to cover otherwise unanticipated but inevitable contingencies).
1. Expenditures that are reasonably based upon State mandated educational requirements;
2. Expenditures that are within the scope of discretionary additional services offered by the District;
3. Payment of principle and interest on School District debt, which may have originated as a mandated expense or a discretionary expense or a combination of both.
Under the NY State Constitution, education is the responsibility of the State and that is why Boards of Education are State agencies, not subject to the control of the County or of local governments. Local Boards of Education are responsible to the Commissioner of Education. When a local School District budget is defeated, that defeat does not, in any way, lessen the District's obligation to fund mandated educational requirements. Thus, the kinds of things that are cut are only discretionary programs, such as athletics and various extra-curricular activities, transportation for distances less than State mandates, etc.
The quality of education mandated by the State for each child should be roughly the same, allowing, of course, for special educational services that may be required for children with special needs. Variances in State aid to School Districts should be expected for three primary reasons:
1) Economies of scale that can be realized by school districts that have relatively dense populations are not realized by school districts that have small or widely spread populations;
2) Some areas of the State are, comparably, in financial distress. When the residents are taxed to an extent that is proportionally equivalent, based upon their financial circumstances, the State may reasonably fund more of those District's mandatory budgets;
3) Some Districts will go into financial emergency because of the need to build or repair or to attract adequate personnel.
It should also be noted that quite a few students who live on Long Island go to private schools. A part of the local Board of Education budget is required to be expended to provide transportation and educational materials for private school students. My impression is that private school attendance in most of the rest of the State is not as great as on Long Island.
In addition, some school districts have substantial commercial properties and others have very little commercial property. Commercial properties tend to lessen the tax impact on residential property owners. Upstate cow pastures tend not to have the same beneficial result. Of course, if agricultural areas get hit with heavier taxes, that cost will, eventually find its way down to the wallets of Nassau County food shoppers.
A discussion of "fair share" is a mockery of sound education unless it takes all of this into account. None of the talk I have heard gets down to that level of analysis, and much of the talk is simply what you might hear at a pep rally.
It will be interesting to see how State Senator Skelos' upstate Republican colleagues react to his "fair share" contentions. If Long Island is not getting its fair share, then it should be. It should also be kept in mind that the State may have to fund "fair shares" by increasing income tax and other taxes.
The signs are growing that the United States is falling behind some formerly second and third world countries in the education race. It may well be that we are not getting full value for our education dollar; however getting us to full and effective education will likely mean that, for every dollar saved, a dollar or more will have to be spent on something else.
The two greatest potential areas of savings are probably: a) regionalization of school districts, i.e, consolidation, and b) decrease in discretionary spendings, such as athletics and other extracurricular activities. Proposal of either one of those would likely raise a considerably negative howl amongst most Long Island school districts. Regionalization increases the opportunity for putting out to bid larger, combined, orders for goods and services. The result will be that large suppliers will provide better prices. Great, right? Well, there are many local suppliers who are dependent upon school district orders for things like art supplies, sporting goods, food, etc. Cutting the local stores out of the loop may be a downturn in local jobs and rents and the taxes they were paying.
The issues are not easy to fully understand or resolve. In the absence of outright waste or larceny, there is always a price to pay for saving money, and it means making a clear choice as to priorities.
Henry Boitel
Rockville Centre, New York
- - -
From The East Meadow Herald:
Taking it to the streets
By JUDY RATTNER and ANDREW HACKMACK
Braving a blustery March wind and a passing snow shower, more than 1,500 taxpayers, educators, students, parents and business and labor leaders from Nassau and Suffolk counties converged on Ellsworth W. Allen Park in Farmingdale last Saturday, imploring Gov. Eliot Spitzer to restore funding he cut to Long Island schools in his proposed 2008-09 education budget.
The rally was organized by Long Island-s Senate majority delegation, and spearheaded by Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre). Dr. William Johnson, superintendent of Rockville Centre schools, and Mark Masin and Lorrie Brady from the Board of Education were among those representing the district at the demonstration.
We want our fair share, many chanted as they held up signs that read, Underfunded overtaxed, LI Schools a Smart Investment, SOS Save Our Schools, Fair Share for LI Schools and Gov. Spitzer: Cut Taxes, Not School Funds.
As music blasted from speakers mounted on a truck, the event got under way. Skelos took to a microphone and introduced the fair share message that became the protest-s oft-repeated refrain. He thanked the crowd for attending and pledged to work to maintain the quality education our students deserve, and get the real property tax relief their parents deserve.
This is about our kids, and we want to make sure they have all the opportunities we had, Skelos said.
He promised that local elected officials would partner with the regional groups at the rally. Calling it a united team effort, Skelos said that, together, Long Islanders would overcome the slashed state school aid that eventually would result in property tax increases which already overburdened taxpayers cannot afford. This is a critical battle with the politicians and the governor, he told the crowd.
Sen. Kemp Hannon offered some disturbing numbers. He pointed out that while 17 percent of New York State-s school-age children are enrolled in Long Island schools, the region has traditionally received less than 13 percent of state school aid. Next year, Long Island schools are slated to receive only 8.2 percent of overall state aid. Those figures drew loud boos from the crowd.
Skelos noted that Long Island's business community understands that today-s students are that community-s future. When we educate our kids and when we send them to college, he said, we want them to come back.
John Durso, president of the 250,000-member Long Island Federation of Labor, spoke on behalf of working men and women who are already burdened by high taxes. How many millionaires are out there today? Durso asked. No one responded. That-s what I thought.
This is not about downstate, upstate, it's about our communities and our kids and our fair share, he said.
Matt Crosson, president of the Long Island Association, a business and civic organization, noted that 60 percent of the school districts whose state funding was cut are on Long Island, and that two-thirds of the districts on the Island received funding increases of only 2 percent. He disputed Spitzer-s recent remark about interest-driven sectionalism, saying it wasn-t selfish for Long Island to ask for its fair share.
Gracemarie Rozea, director of the Nassau Region PTA, made one of the most passionate speeches. She praised the high quality of education that students on Long Island already receive, but said that schools must be funded properly for such achievement to continue.
Rozea said that local leaders have gone to bat for Long Island in the past, and she has no doubt they will do so again this year as they finalize the 2008-09 state budget. Together, Rozea explained, Long Island-s lawmakers and citizens must call on the disconnected statewide leader in Albany to do what-s right. We must make sure our children are not left behind, she said, and we will do so by getting our fair share. Our children are relying on us.
Long Island is not a cash cow to be used to supplement the rest of the state, Rozea continued, urging the audience to get the word out and to call, write and e-mail their local leaders and state officials in Albany. Please listen to us, Governor Spitzer, we are strong, she said. We are telling [you] loud and clear that we demand and deserve our fair share.
Zuha Gazi, a high school student in Half Hollow Hills, said that there is a misconception in Albany that everyone on Long Island is wealthy. People-s wealth, she said, is in the equity of their homes, not in cash. That makes it especially difficult for Long Islanders to pay their property tax bills, which average $16,000.
Craig Workman, another Half Hollow Hills senior who is a member of his school's Legislative Committee, said, It-s not our intention to take funding away from New York City or upstate. He said there was a warped perception of Long Island-s school districts and that it was time that regional costs, which are 50 percent higher on Long Island than in the rest of the state, were taken into account.
Sachem School District teacher Diane Hettrich, representing New York State United Teachers, said the governor has proposed a record $1.5 billion increase in funding for education throughout the state, yet many Long Island districts are seeing cuts.
There is still a month until the April 1 state budget deadline, Hettrich told the crowd, so there is time to make their voices heard. It is imperative that the Legislature and governor achieve a budget that supports children, she said.
Skelos said he was extremely pleased by the turnout at the rally, and that it shows Long Islanders care about their schools. It may be cold out here today, he said, but we-re going to turn the heat up on our governor.
And Johnson said, It's hard to argue with the senators. We need our fair share.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Dowling For Dollars
Plan Calls For "Three C's" To Reduce Property Taxes: Consolidation, Capping, And Control
Dowling College Long Island Economic & Social Policy Presents Roadmap for Permanent Property Tax Relief At State Commission On Property Tax Relief
OAKDALE, NY - “It’s time to tear down parochial interests,” said Martin Cantor, Director of the Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute at Dowling College, upon releasing LIESP’s “Three C’s” for permanent property tax relief for New York’s beleaguered homeowners. The plan was presented at the March 5, 2008 hearing of the State Commission on Property Tax Relief.
Cantor said that, “the ‘Three C’s’ call for consolidation of teacher salaries, pension costs and fringe benefits by economic regions financed by the New York State Department of Education, thus cutting homeowner property taxes by nearly 47%; capping the remaining local school budgets to annual increases of the greater of the increase in Consumer Price Index or 3%; and, controlling remaining budgets and classroom educational improvement.” Cantor said, “only the financing of teacher costs will be consolidated, not local control of education and administration, which will remain the responsibility of local school boards.”
The “Three C’s” have other benefits, Cantor said, including “equity to underfunded school districts by leveling the playingfield between wealthy and poor school districts, thus allowing for competition for the best teachers; making housing affordable to young people by lowering the carrying costs from property taxes and stretching household budgets; and, bringing billions of dollars of new economic activity from the saved property taxes to every part of New York State.”
Cantor concluded, “the money to do this is already in the state budget. It makes no sense to have New Yorkers pay an income tax to the state, which once collected, is transferred back to regions in the form of education subsidies and STAR payments, which get absorbed by local school district spending.”
- - -
Check out the website of the NYS Commission on Property Tax Relief for testimony, transcripts, webcasts, and updates
Dowling College Long Island Economic & Social Policy Presents Roadmap for Permanent Property Tax Relief At State Commission On Property Tax Relief
OAKDALE, NY - “It’s time to tear down parochial interests,” said Martin Cantor, Director of the Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute at Dowling College, upon releasing LIESP’s “Three C’s” for permanent property tax relief for New York’s beleaguered homeowners. The plan was presented at the March 5, 2008 hearing of the State Commission on Property Tax Relief.
Cantor said that, “the ‘Three C’s’ call for consolidation of teacher salaries, pension costs and fringe benefits by economic regions financed by the New York State Department of Education, thus cutting homeowner property taxes by nearly 47%; capping the remaining local school budgets to annual increases of the greater of the increase in Consumer Price Index or 3%; and, controlling remaining budgets and classroom educational improvement.” Cantor said, “only the financing of teacher costs will be consolidated, not local control of education and administration, which will remain the responsibility of local school boards.”
The “Three C’s” have other benefits, Cantor said, including “equity to underfunded school districts by leveling the playingfield between wealthy and poor school districts, thus allowing for competition for the best teachers; making housing affordable to young people by lowering the carrying costs from property taxes and stretching household budgets; and, bringing billions of dollars of new economic activity from the saved property taxes to every part of New York State.”
Cantor concluded, “the money to do this is already in the state budget. It makes no sense to have New Yorkers pay an income tax to the state, which once collected, is transferred back to regions in the form of education subsidies and STAR payments, which get absorbed by local school district spending.”
- - -
Check out the website of the NYS Commission on Property Tax Relief for testimony, transcripts, webcasts, and updates
If Only We Could All Be This Efficient
Speak (To Your Legislator) And You Will Be Heard!
From our friends -- and yours -- at Residents for Efficient Special Districts (RESD):
WRITE YOUR ELECTED OFFICIAL
RESD has developed a form letter to send to your elected officials in Albany to urge them to support Governor Spitzer's proposal to eliminate compensation and benefits for special taxing district commissioners. By removing pay and benefits, commissioners of special taxing districts will be on par with commissioners in fire districts and members of local school boards. If fire districts and school boards can operate effectively with volunteers who receive neither pay nor benefits, there is no reason to believe that special taxing districts can’t either.
Please copy and paste the text of the letter below into an email and then send to your elected official in Albany. We have provided the email addresses of all of the State Assemblymen and Senators below. It's time to let the people in Albany know that enough is enough.
<<>> <<>>, 2008
Dear Assemblyman or Senator <<>>,
I am writing to urge you to support Governor Spitzer’s recent proposal to eliminate pay and benefits for commissioners of special taxing districts on Long Island. By doing so, you will be helping to lower taxes for your constituents. By removing pay and benefits, commissioners of special taxing districts will be on par with commissioners in fire districts and members of local school boards. If fire districts and school boards can operate effectively with volunteers who receive neither pay nor benefits, there is no reason to believe that special taxing districts can’t either. You have fought on behalf of taxpayers before and I believe this is an excellent opportunity to again show voters that keeping the cost of living at an affordable level on Long Island is a priority of yours. As someone who believes in efficient public service delivered in a cost effective manner, I am confident that you believe, as I do, that Governor Spitzer’s proposal is logical and reasonable. Thank you for your support on this critical issue to residents of your district.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME
NEW YORK STATE SENATE
Senator John Flanagan - flanagan@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Charles Fuschillo - fuschill@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Kemp Hannon - hannon@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Craig Johnson - johnson@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Owen Johnson - ojohnson@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Kenneth La Valle - lavalle@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Carl Marcellino - marcelli@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Dean Skelos- skelos@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Caesar Trunzo - trunzo@senate.state.ny.us
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
Assemblyman Marc S. Alessi - alessim@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Tom Alfano - alfanot@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Bob Barra - barrar@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Philip Boyle - boylep@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman James D. Conte - contej@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington - eddingp@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Steve Englebright - engles@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman Ginny Fields - fieldsg@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Michael J. Fitzpatrick - fitzpatrickm@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman Earlene Hooper - No e-mail
Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine - lavinec@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman David G. Mc Donough - McDonoD@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Tom McKevitt - mckevit@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Andrew P. Raia - raiaa@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Phil Ramos - ramosp@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Joseph S. Saladino - saladij@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel - schimelm@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Robert K. Sweeney - sweeney@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. - thielef@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Rob Walker - walkerr2@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg - weisenh@assembly.state.ny.us
From our friends -- and yours -- at Residents for Efficient Special Districts (RESD):
WRITE YOUR ELECTED OFFICIAL
RESD has developed a form letter to send to your elected officials in Albany to urge them to support Governor Spitzer's proposal to eliminate compensation and benefits for special taxing district commissioners. By removing pay and benefits, commissioners of special taxing districts will be on par with commissioners in fire districts and members of local school boards. If fire districts and school boards can operate effectively with volunteers who receive neither pay nor benefits, there is no reason to believe that special taxing districts can’t either.
Please copy and paste the text of the letter below into an email and then send to your elected official in Albany. We have provided the email addresses of all of the State Assemblymen and Senators below. It's time to let the people in Albany know that enough is enough.
<<>> <<>>, 2008
Dear Assemblyman or Senator <<>>,
I am writing to urge you to support Governor Spitzer’s recent proposal to eliminate pay and benefits for commissioners of special taxing districts on Long Island. By doing so, you will be helping to lower taxes for your constituents. By removing pay and benefits, commissioners of special taxing districts will be on par with commissioners in fire districts and members of local school boards. If fire districts and school boards can operate effectively with volunteers who receive neither pay nor benefits, there is no reason to believe that special taxing districts can’t either. You have fought on behalf of taxpayers before and I believe this is an excellent opportunity to again show voters that keeping the cost of living at an affordable level on Long Island is a priority of yours. As someone who believes in efficient public service delivered in a cost effective manner, I am confident that you believe, as I do, that Governor Spitzer’s proposal is logical and reasonable. Thank you for your support on this critical issue to residents of your district.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME
NEW YORK STATE SENATE
Senator John Flanagan - flanagan@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Charles Fuschillo - fuschill@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Kemp Hannon - hannon@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Craig Johnson - johnson@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Owen Johnson - ojohnson@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Kenneth La Valle - lavalle@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Carl Marcellino - marcelli@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Dean Skelos- skelos@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Caesar Trunzo - trunzo@senate.state.ny.us
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
Assemblyman Marc S. Alessi - alessim@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Tom Alfano - alfanot@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Bob Barra - barrar@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Philip Boyle - boylep@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman James D. Conte - contej@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington - eddingp@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Steve Englebright - engles@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman Ginny Fields - fieldsg@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Michael J. Fitzpatrick - fitzpatrickm@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman Earlene Hooper - No e-mail
Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine - lavinec@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman David G. Mc Donough - McDonoD@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Tom McKevitt - mckevit@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Andrew P. Raia - raiaa@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Phil Ramos - ramosp@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Joseph S. Saladino - saladij@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel - schimelm@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Robert K. Sweeney - sweeney@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. - thielef@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Rob Walker - walkerr2@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg - weisenh@assembly.state.ny.us
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Its The Property Tax, Stupid
Or Was That The Stupid Property Tax?
The NYS Commission on Property Tax Reform held its first (and perhaps last) public hearing on Long Island.
Hearing, yes, but are they listening?
Among those testifying, Nassau County Assessor Harvey Levinson, who again proposed replacing (not supplementing) the regressive school property tax (based solely on the market value of one's real estate) with a progressive income tax (based on one's ability to pay).
Sticking to the plan first aired before the public in 2005, Levinson suggested a local (county) income tax in the place of the school portion of the property tax, a proposal that has met with mounting resistence, both from elected officials and John Q.
School funding by way of an income tax would, of course, cure a multitude of ills, not the least of which is relieving homeowners who are house rich but cash/income poor owing from the onerous financial burden imposed by the property tax.
Further, an income tax would capture both homeowners and renters (legal and illegal), as well as business and commercial entities (provided they pay income taxes) that have not, in recent years, borne their fair share of the school property tax.
Financing public education through an income tax would not only create a more equitable means of levy -- those who have the financial wherewithal shouldering more of the cost than the have nots (generally, seniors, college grads, young workforce, and, of late, the struggling middle class) -- it would also enable (and must envision) a more equitable across the board distribution of monies to local school districts, ending, once and for all, the upstate/downstate disparity.
Fund our schools through an income tax -- and make that a supplement to the existing NYS income tax, not a new local/county income tax -- and you eliminate the hand in one pocket while picking the other of STAR, dramatically reducing -- perhaps by as much as several thousand dollars per household -- a recurring and ever-increasing expense of homeownership, while still preserving the tax deduction (this time for income taxes rather than real estate taxes).
At the same time, administrative expenses,bureaucratic red tape, and the astronomical costs related to maintaining a property tax based system -- from assessment review to the tracking and mailing of rebate checks -- are either greatly reduced or, better still, eliminated altogether.
An income tax to take the place of the school property tax? Commission Chair, Tom Suozzi, calls it a "non-starter."
Well, we say, "start." Start to think about an income tax, logically rather than by your gut. Start to crunch the numbers, both short term and long. Start to reduce the real cost of homeownership, and shift the burden from value of the home to ability to pay.
It makes sense, and would be a win-win for anyone who has been paying that hefty property tax bill, year in and year out.
- - -
Panel hears plea for income tax
BY WILLIAM MURPHY
william.murphy@newsday.com
The Nassau County tax assessor urged a state panel Wednesday to eliminate residential property taxes to fund schools -- and replace them with a local income tax.
Assessor Harvey Levinson told the panel, which is examining ways to reduce the property tax burden, that the current system of property taxation is inherently unfair and can not be fixed.
"The assessed value of a home is not an indicator of a family's ability to pay school taxes," Levinson said at a meeting of the New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief Wednesday in Hauppauge.
William Lindsay, presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, also suggested implementing an income tax to replace property taxes -- but recommended it be a surcharge on the state income tax, rather than on local income.
The chairman of the commission, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, had previously dismissed the potential for income tax to replace property taxes as a "non-starter." However, he gave no indication Wednesday about which way he might lean, asking Levinson to present the panel with more information on the idea.
Earlier in the meeting, E.J. McMahon, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, suggested a cap on property taxes as a way of reining in their growth.McMahon said the best model to follow was in Massachusetts, where Proposition 2 1/2 is working relatively well. "There were not Draconian impacts," McMahon said.
The hearing was the third of eight scheduled around New York before the commission makes its recommendations to Gov. Eliot Spitzer in mid-May.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
The NYS Commission on Property Tax Reform held its first (and perhaps last) public hearing on Long Island.
Hearing, yes, but are they listening?
Among those testifying, Nassau County Assessor Harvey Levinson, who again proposed replacing (not supplementing) the regressive school property tax (based solely on the market value of one's real estate) with a progressive income tax (based on one's ability to pay).
Sticking to the plan first aired before the public in 2005, Levinson suggested a local (county) income tax in the place of the school portion of the property tax, a proposal that has met with mounting resistence, both from elected officials and John Q.
School funding by way of an income tax would, of course, cure a multitude of ills, not the least of which is relieving homeowners who are house rich but cash/income poor owing from the onerous financial burden imposed by the property tax.
Further, an income tax would capture both homeowners and renters (legal and illegal), as well as business and commercial entities (provided they pay income taxes) that have not, in recent years, borne their fair share of the school property tax.
Financing public education through an income tax would not only create a more equitable means of levy -- those who have the financial wherewithal shouldering more of the cost than the have nots (generally, seniors, college grads, young workforce, and, of late, the struggling middle class) -- it would also enable (and must envision) a more equitable across the board distribution of monies to local school districts, ending, once and for all, the upstate/downstate disparity.
Fund our schools through an income tax -- and make that a supplement to the existing NYS income tax, not a new local/county income tax -- and you eliminate the hand in one pocket while picking the other of STAR, dramatically reducing -- perhaps by as much as several thousand dollars per household -- a recurring and ever-increasing expense of homeownership, while still preserving the tax deduction (this time for income taxes rather than real estate taxes).
At the same time, administrative expenses,bureaucratic red tape, and the astronomical costs related to maintaining a property tax based system -- from assessment review to the tracking and mailing of rebate checks -- are either greatly reduced or, better still, eliminated altogether.
An income tax to take the place of the school property tax? Commission Chair, Tom Suozzi, calls it a "non-starter."
Well, we say, "start." Start to think about an income tax, logically rather than by your gut. Start to crunch the numbers, both short term and long. Start to reduce the real cost of homeownership, and shift the burden from value of the home to ability to pay.
It makes sense, and would be a win-win for anyone who has been paying that hefty property tax bill, year in and year out.
- - -
Panel hears plea for income tax
BY WILLIAM MURPHY
william.murphy@newsday.com
The Nassau County tax assessor urged a state panel Wednesday to eliminate residential property taxes to fund schools -- and replace them with a local income tax.
Assessor Harvey Levinson told the panel, which is examining ways to reduce the property tax burden, that the current system of property taxation is inherently unfair and can not be fixed.
"The assessed value of a home is not an indicator of a family's ability to pay school taxes," Levinson said at a meeting of the New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief Wednesday in Hauppauge.
William Lindsay, presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, also suggested implementing an income tax to replace property taxes -- but recommended it be a surcharge on the state income tax, rather than on local income.
The chairman of the commission, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, had previously dismissed the potential for income tax to replace property taxes as a "non-starter." However, he gave no indication Wednesday about which way he might lean, asking Levinson to present the panel with more information on the idea.
Earlier in the meeting, E.J. McMahon, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, suggested a cap on property taxes as a way of reining in their growth.McMahon said the best model to follow was in Massachusetts, where Proposition 2 1/2 is working relatively well. "There were not Draconian impacts," McMahon said.
The hearing was the third of eight scheduled around New York before the commission makes its recommendations to Gov. Eliot Spitzer in mid-May.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Dems Fighting Words!
GOP Declares “War” To Hold On To State Senate
Does anyone get the feeling that no longer is it what the constituents want (was it ever?), but, “what can one party or the other do – in desperation or otherwise – to hold on to power?”
Oh, the games they play in Albany – and in their own districts back home – pretending they care about anything more than the next election.
Loyalty to State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno?
Humph! How about showing some loyalty to the people who elected our State Senators in the first place? [Most, here on Long Island, anyway, would say to cut Bruno loose.]
Frankly, we owe no more allegiance to the aging icon of the Senate chamber than we do his silver-tongued counterpart in the Assembly.
Neither have done much more than to maintain a stagnant status quo, throwing mere table scraps to Long Islanders, when they allow us “downstaters” to dine at the table at all.
If it seems, at times, that our elected representatives are delusional, perhaps its not really them, but us. [As in, “we’ve seen the enemy, and he is us!”]
After all, we’ve been sending them back to Albany, to the County Seat, and to Town Hall, year after year, to do the very same jobs, and yet, somehow, we expect the results to be different.
Maybe its not delusion, but illusion. The illusion that we can maintain a democracy when only 20% of the electorate think it important enough to vote, or that by keeping the same people and/or party in office, ad nauseum, we can maintain control over the outcome.
If a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, then it is the fool who believes that an object not in motion (read as, your state or local legislator) can be moved to action by any other object not in motion (read as, the electorate).
The partisan bickering has to stop, as does the inbreeding of political dynasty.
If they, the elected, won’t cut it out, then we, the electors, must.
Can anyone say, “term limits?”
- - -
Support for Bruno despite loss in 48th District
BY JAMES T. MADORE
james.madore@newsday.com
ALBANY - There will be no coup d'etat against Joseph Bruno - at least not for now.
That was the message Senate Republicans sought to convey yesterday after suffering a stunning special-election defeat in northern New York that cut their majority to one seat.
Bruno's rivals for Senate leader, Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre and Thomas Libous of Binghamton, pledged loyalty to him.
Standing shoulder to shoulder at a news conference with Bruno, they stressed the importance of unity after Tuesday's election of a Democrat in the 48th District for the first time in at least 128 years. Both acknowledged "losing a battle in the war" for control of the Senate - dominated by Republicans since 1965 - but predicted a comeback.
"There's been a lot of speculation over the years concerning my relationship with Joe," said Skelos, deputy majority leader. "The bottom line is we feel a responsibility ... to Joe as our leader, but most important, to the constituents we represent."
He praised Bruno, of upstate Brunswick, for recognizing the needs of Long Island. They've been partners since late 1994 when Skelos was instrumental in a coup that replaced then-Senate leader Ralph Marino of Syosset with Bruno.
Citing his first failed bid for the Senate 26 years ago, Skelos said yesterday that "you lose a battle but I ultimately won the war and this [Republican] conference is going to win the war."
Still, the GOP faces an uphill fight to maintain its one-seat edge over Democrats. Many incumbents are elderly or represent districts where Democrats now outnumber Republicans, political observers said. The 48th seat fell vacant with the retirement of Sen. James Wright (R-Watertown), and another Republican from Buffalo plans to leave at year-end. Bruno said he doesn't anticipate more departures. Like the 48th District in the state's northwest corner, Nassau's 7th District elected its first Democrat in decades, Craig Johnson of Port Washington, in a special election. That race a year ago was sparked by Gov. Eliot Spitzer's selection of Sen. Michael Balboni (R-Mineola) to be homeland security czar.
Skelos yesterday vowed to win back the 7th."We've always been known as 'The Long Island Nine,' " he said of the area's GOP senators who now number eight. "We're going to be back as The Long Island Nine and Craig Johnson is not going to be a senator after November."
Johnson shot back, "My response to Dean is what I tell my 3-year-old and my 6-year-old when they are having a temper tantrum, 'Take a timeout.' "
Bruno accused Spitzer of attempting to wipe out the Senate Republican majority by offering jobs and favors to incumbents.
Two targets - Sen. Joseph Robach, a Democrat-turned-Republican from Rochester, and Sen. John Bonacic (R-Mount Hope) - said yesterday they wouldn't defect. The sincerity of Bonacic's pledge, however, was questioned by some after he was seen later warmly congratulating Democrat Darrel Aubertine on his victory in the 48th.
Aubertine, a former assemblyman, credited his election in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 31,000 to economic concerns - "the issues that are on the ground, that's what caused the voters to support me."
Told of Bruno's comment that a "war" was being waged for control of the Senate, Democratic leader Malcolm Smith of Queens replied, "It's not war for us."
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
- - -
Next Up: A satirical review of the Academy Award-nominated film about an old man whose sole objective in life is to take brilliant ideas that would advance the causes of community and shoot them down like pregnant mosquitoes -- Bruno.
Would you believe, Bruno vs. Carrie Ann?
Does anyone get the feeling that no longer is it what the constituents want (was it ever?), but, “what can one party or the other do – in desperation or otherwise – to hold on to power?”
Oh, the games they play in Albany – and in their own districts back home – pretending they care about anything more than the next election.
Loyalty to State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno?
Humph! How about showing some loyalty to the people who elected our State Senators in the first place? [Most, here on Long Island, anyway, would say to cut Bruno loose.]
Frankly, we owe no more allegiance to the aging icon of the Senate chamber than we do his silver-tongued counterpart in the Assembly.
Neither have done much more than to maintain a stagnant status quo, throwing mere table scraps to Long Islanders, when they allow us “downstaters” to dine at the table at all.
If it seems, at times, that our elected representatives are delusional, perhaps its not really them, but us. [As in, “we’ve seen the enemy, and he is us!”]
After all, we’ve been sending them back to Albany, to the County Seat, and to Town Hall, year after year, to do the very same jobs, and yet, somehow, we expect the results to be different.
Maybe its not delusion, but illusion. The illusion that we can maintain a democracy when only 20% of the electorate think it important enough to vote, or that by keeping the same people and/or party in office, ad nauseum, we can maintain control over the outcome.
If a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, then it is the fool who believes that an object not in motion (read as, your state or local legislator) can be moved to action by any other object not in motion (read as, the electorate).
The partisan bickering has to stop, as does the inbreeding of political dynasty.
If they, the elected, won’t cut it out, then we, the electors, must.
Can anyone say, “term limits?”
- - -
Support for Bruno despite loss in 48th District
BY JAMES T. MADORE
james.madore@newsday.com
ALBANY - There will be no coup d'etat against Joseph Bruno - at least not for now.
That was the message Senate Republicans sought to convey yesterday after suffering a stunning special-election defeat in northern New York that cut their majority to one seat.
Bruno's rivals for Senate leader, Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre and Thomas Libous of Binghamton, pledged loyalty to him.
Standing shoulder to shoulder at a news conference with Bruno, they stressed the importance of unity after Tuesday's election of a Democrat in the 48th District for the first time in at least 128 years. Both acknowledged "losing a battle in the war" for control of the Senate - dominated by Republicans since 1965 - but predicted a comeback.
"There's been a lot of speculation over the years concerning my relationship with Joe," said Skelos, deputy majority leader. "The bottom line is we feel a responsibility ... to Joe as our leader, but most important, to the constituents we represent."
He praised Bruno, of upstate Brunswick, for recognizing the needs of Long Island. They've been partners since late 1994 when Skelos was instrumental in a coup that replaced then-Senate leader Ralph Marino of Syosset with Bruno.
Citing his first failed bid for the Senate 26 years ago, Skelos said yesterday that "you lose a battle but I ultimately won the war and this [Republican] conference is going to win the war."
Still, the GOP faces an uphill fight to maintain its one-seat edge over Democrats. Many incumbents are elderly or represent districts where Democrats now outnumber Republicans, political observers said. The 48th seat fell vacant with the retirement of Sen. James Wright (R-Watertown), and another Republican from Buffalo plans to leave at year-end. Bruno said he doesn't anticipate more departures. Like the 48th District in the state's northwest corner, Nassau's 7th District elected its first Democrat in decades, Craig Johnson of Port Washington, in a special election. That race a year ago was sparked by Gov. Eliot Spitzer's selection of Sen. Michael Balboni (R-Mineola) to be homeland security czar.
Skelos yesterday vowed to win back the 7th."We've always been known as 'The Long Island Nine,' " he said of the area's GOP senators who now number eight. "We're going to be back as The Long Island Nine and Craig Johnson is not going to be a senator after November."
Johnson shot back, "My response to Dean is what I tell my 3-year-old and my 6-year-old when they are having a temper tantrum, 'Take a timeout.' "
Bruno accused Spitzer of attempting to wipe out the Senate Republican majority by offering jobs and favors to incumbents.
Two targets - Sen. Joseph Robach, a Democrat-turned-Republican from Rochester, and Sen. John Bonacic (R-Mount Hope) - said yesterday they wouldn't defect. The sincerity of Bonacic's pledge, however, was questioned by some after he was seen later warmly congratulating Democrat Darrel Aubertine on his victory in the 48th.
Aubertine, a former assemblyman, credited his election in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 31,000 to economic concerns - "the issues that are on the ground, that's what caused the voters to support me."
Told of Bruno's comment that a "war" was being waged for control of the Senate, Democratic leader Malcolm Smith of Queens replied, "It's not war for us."
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
- - -
Next Up: A satirical review of the Academy Award-nominated film about an old man whose sole objective in life is to take brilliant ideas that would advance the causes of community and shoot them down like pregnant mosquitoes -- Bruno.
Would you believe, Bruno vs. Carrie Ann?
Monday, March 03, 2008
Is That Raw Sewage We Smell?
Nah. Its The Stench Of Politics As Usual At Hempstead Town Hall
“Bay Park shouldn’t be the toilet bowl for the entire South Shore.”
--Town of Hempstead Councilman Tony Santino
And why not, Tony?
After all, much of Long Island’s long-forgotten South Shore, particularly that which lies deep in the dark, stinking abyss of Hempstead Town (America’s most blighted township), has become little more than an open sewer. And we’ve got the sewer districts, water districts, sanitary districts, and refuse disposal districts (to name but a few) to prove it!
Odd how Hempstead Town Supervisor, Kate Murray, and her partner in grime, Tony “they enjoy paying more” Santino, place so much import on the rally and Petition, as if they are somehow beholden to the voice of the people. [Kate & Kompany asked residents to sign Petitions and attend a Town Hall orchestrated rally to protest the County Legislature’s recent vote to consolidate several of Nassau’s local sewer districts].
Understand, we share the pain of Bay Park residents (not to mention their acute sense of smell). Still, there's something foul in the air in the sewer district, and its not just what's spewing into the bay through the pipeline.
Rallies and Petition drives never seemed to hold much sway over the decision-making process at Hempstead Town Hall in the past, the motivation being more of self-interest and party preservation, than the needs, wants, or pocket books of the masses.
Could it be that Kate, Tony, and the others beholden to a despotic regime in Hempstead Town are really concerned about the sewage overflow at Bay Park and the negative impact upon residents’ quality of life?
Strange. The acrid stench emanating from the sewage plant – among other environmental hazards that threaten the public’s health, welfare and quality of life – never seemed to raise an eyebrow at Town Hall before.
Perhaps Kate has found her nose at Bay Park (much in the same way Hillary found her voice in New Hampshire), and Tony figured out that, if the County takes over the sewer districts, taxpayers may no longer enjoy paying more while getting less.
Of course, the concern over losing dozens, if not hundreds, of patronage plums at the sewer districts – not to mention the chance to lob spit balls at the County Dems, who championed the consolidation (albeit without much needed debate, and for reasons far from altruistic), may play a small part in raising Kate and Tony’s ire.
Do ya think?
But wait. According to published reports, more than 800 signatures now appear on Petitions against the consolidation plan.
Shouldn’t that count for something?
Of course. Community groups, and residents directly downwind and upstream, should be heard, with grievances fully aired before the Nassau County Legislature and the Hempstead Town Board. The folks footing the bill, and paying the price in terms of habitability and sustainability, should be the final arbiters here, for better (as we believe consolidation will be, in the long run) or for worse (if NIMBYism and shortsightedness win out).
And yet, we think that Kate Murray and Tony Santino doth protest too much.
Should they be listening to the folks at greenbayparkers.org, who, if not opposing consolidation outright, certainly have a legitimate beef?
Absolutely. The gripes about the dumping of sewage are legitimate, even if the opposition to consolidation begs many of the important questions, and fails to assuage concerns about or address the realities of an aging and poorly run sewage plant.
But as our friends and neighbors in the West Hempstead community point out, without taking a position on Bay Park, how can the cries and Petitions in one hamlet be sacrosanct and adopted without further, while the pleas and Petitions of another are ignored and disregarded in the entirety?
Rosalie Norton, President of the West Hempstead Civic Association, points out – and with much validity – that well over 2000 signatures were collected from West Hempstead residents to close the notorious Courtesy Hotel, and to raise in the place of prostitution, drug deals, and myriad assaults (a stench upon West Hempstead), luxury rental units serving as the cornerstone for a revitalized downtown. The Petitions went for naught at Hempstead Town Hall, the Board adopting instead the much maligned Urban Renewal Plan, which itself, has gone nowhere.
Then, too, the West Hempstead community held a Mother’s Day Rally last May across from the Courtesy, demanding that the Town take immediate action to close down the no-tell hotel.
Kate Murray was there (in body, at least). The Supervisor promised closure by year’s end. To this day, residents lament that they did not ask Kate, “which year?”
There’s something terribly wrong – and oh so transparent in its overt deceit – when government portends to take up the cause of some of the people (or as many of the people as it can fool on any given day), while wholly neglecting the people it has either written off (read as, “we don’t need their votes to get re-elected”) or who can no longer be fooled by the smoke and mirrors of phony freezes, broken promises, and an “up yours” arrogance that has become as pervasive at Town Hall as it appears invasive in the unincorporated areas of the township that time and government forgot.
Let’s face reality. From the Argo in Elmont (officially blighted) to the Courtesy in West Hempstead (officially blighted), the blight (yes, its official) in Baldwin to Moldstone in Westbury (no official designation of “blight” yet, but you can be sure they’re working on it), we have witnessed failure piled high upon failure. Local government consumed not with the future of the residents it purports to serve, but rather, with perpetuating the reign of the chosen few, with all attendant pompousness that accompanies the monolithic majesty, who are anointed to serve.
Frankly, its not the raw sewage you smell from Bay Park or Glen Cove. It’s the stench of a decaying carcass that passes itself off as representative government at Hempstead Town Hall.
Yes, the Nassau County Legislature is holed up in what looks much like an abandoned sewer, partisan politics and personal vendetta having displaced even the rats that once dwelled there.
But the Legislature’s ineptitude and tolerance for the inane pale by comparison to Town Hall’s seemingly innate ability to hang in there – year after year, decade after decade, century after century – despite its best efforts to alienate the electorate, and defecate on the taxpayer.
While we have come to endure the hardships of Town Hall’s indifference – too often ambivalent in deference to our own – the time has come (actually, it came years ago, but we were largely oblivious to it) to supplant Hempstead Town’s self indulgent arrogance with a new mindset: Failure in government is no longer an option.
Failure in government, from top to bottom.
Wars without end or merit. A father who doesn’t know the price of tube socks, and a son who hasn’t heard about the rising cost of gas. A Building Department that never met a code violator it didn’t like. Zoning Board/Planning Board, devoid of the capacity to do either. A Supervisor and a Town Board that says it hears the voices of community (or are they only the voices in their own heads?), but steadfastly refuses to listen.
Whether on the streets of Washington, D.C., or on Washington Street in Hempstead, the failure and foibles, follies and fantasies, must be brought to an end.
Tony Santino may take umbrage to the toilet bowl that Bay Park has become.
Take note, Tony. The rest of us are none too happy with the festering sewer that you guys at Town Hall have permitted to overflow in Hempstead Town.
- - -
Residents protest South Shore sewage proposal
BY TIMOTHY ROBERTSON
Special to Newsday
For many Bay Park and East Rockaway residents, Nassau County's sewage plant just plain stinks.
With a toilet on the park's grass, colorful protest signs in their hands and masks covering their faces, more than 300 of them Saturday called for Nassau to flush its new .sewage plan.
The county legislature on Jan. 14 approved the takeover of the Glen Cove, Cedarhurst and Lawrence sewer districts in a move that Democrats praised for its environmental benefits and Republicans criticized as a bailout for financially strapped Glen Cove. The move would close the antiquated plants in Cedarhurst and Lawrence and redirect at least 2 million gallons of waste water a day to the Bay Park plant.
"Instead of spending $15 million to build a pipe to bring that waste water here to Bay Park, use that money to rebuild the plant in Lawrence, rebuild the plant in Cedarhurst," Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony Santino said to vigorous applause.
Members of the grassroots organization against the plan, greenbayparkers.org, reported 300 new signatures on its anti-sewage plan petition, which already had 800 names.
Residents said the 2 million gallons would contribute not just to the horrid smell emanating from the plant, but the additional waste would threaten fishing and swimming in the bay.
"It would be unbearable," said Stanley Lombardo, 54, of East Rockaway. "If they come in with more sewage, who's going to even bother [to fish]?"
Many of the handmade signs and crowd's chants criticized Legis. Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), whose district covers both Bay Park and East Rockaway and who voted in favor of the sewage plan.
Toback said by phone Saturday that any plan to upgrade the two smaller plants would be "counterintuitive to the consolidation plan." The county's sewage system needs consolidation so that it can become eligible for federal funding for piping that would deposit the waste further out in the ocean, instead of the bay, he said.
In addition, the Bay Park plant can hold 70 million gallons of waste a day, he said, and another 2 million won't "affect the quality of life." The plant, according to both residents and Toback, processes around 56 million gallons of waste a day.
"I challenge anyone to show me that adding 2 million gallons, plus or minus, will change the impact the plant has on the community," said Toback, who will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. March 19 at East Rockaway High School.
Despite passage of the plan in January, Santino said the deal isn't set, as any funding for the construction of a pipe would require a bond vote, which needs a two-thirds majority to get on the ballot.
"Bay Park shouldn't be the toilet bowl for the entire South Shore," Santino said.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
“Bay Park shouldn’t be the toilet bowl for the entire South Shore.”
--Town of Hempstead Councilman Tony Santino
And why not, Tony?
After all, much of Long Island’s long-forgotten South Shore, particularly that which lies deep in the dark, stinking abyss of Hempstead Town (America’s most blighted township), has become little more than an open sewer. And we’ve got the sewer districts, water districts, sanitary districts, and refuse disposal districts (to name but a few) to prove it!
Odd how Hempstead Town Supervisor, Kate Murray, and her partner in grime, Tony “they enjoy paying more” Santino, place so much import on the rally and Petition, as if they are somehow beholden to the voice of the people. [Kate & Kompany asked residents to sign Petitions and attend a Town Hall orchestrated rally to protest the County Legislature’s recent vote to consolidate several of Nassau’s local sewer districts].
Understand, we share the pain of Bay Park residents (not to mention their acute sense of smell). Still, there's something foul in the air in the sewer district, and its not just what's spewing into the bay through the pipeline.
Rallies and Petition drives never seemed to hold much sway over the decision-making process at Hempstead Town Hall in the past, the motivation being more of self-interest and party preservation, than the needs, wants, or pocket books of the masses.
Could it be that Kate, Tony, and the others beholden to a despotic regime in Hempstead Town are really concerned about the sewage overflow at Bay Park and the negative impact upon residents’ quality of life?
Strange. The acrid stench emanating from the sewage plant – among other environmental hazards that threaten the public’s health, welfare and quality of life – never seemed to raise an eyebrow at Town Hall before.
Perhaps Kate has found her nose at Bay Park (much in the same way Hillary found her voice in New Hampshire), and Tony figured out that, if the County takes over the sewer districts, taxpayers may no longer enjoy paying more while getting less.
Of course, the concern over losing dozens, if not hundreds, of patronage plums at the sewer districts – not to mention the chance to lob spit balls at the County Dems, who championed the consolidation (albeit without much needed debate, and for reasons far from altruistic), may play a small part in raising Kate and Tony’s ire.
Do ya think?
But wait. According to published reports, more than 800 signatures now appear on Petitions against the consolidation plan.
Shouldn’t that count for something?
Of course. Community groups, and residents directly downwind and upstream, should be heard, with grievances fully aired before the Nassau County Legislature and the Hempstead Town Board. The folks footing the bill, and paying the price in terms of habitability and sustainability, should be the final arbiters here, for better (as we believe consolidation will be, in the long run) or for worse (if NIMBYism and shortsightedness win out).
And yet, we think that Kate Murray and Tony Santino doth protest too much.
Should they be listening to the folks at greenbayparkers.org, who, if not opposing consolidation outright, certainly have a legitimate beef?
Absolutely. The gripes about the dumping of sewage are legitimate, even if the opposition to consolidation begs many of the important questions, and fails to assuage concerns about or address the realities of an aging and poorly run sewage plant.
But as our friends and neighbors in the West Hempstead community point out, without taking a position on Bay Park, how can the cries and Petitions in one hamlet be sacrosanct and adopted without further, while the pleas and Petitions of another are ignored and disregarded in the entirety?
Rosalie Norton, President of the West Hempstead Civic Association, points out – and with much validity – that well over 2000 signatures were collected from West Hempstead residents to close the notorious Courtesy Hotel, and to raise in the place of prostitution, drug deals, and myriad assaults (a stench upon West Hempstead), luxury rental units serving as the cornerstone for a revitalized downtown. The Petitions went for naught at Hempstead Town Hall, the Board adopting instead the much maligned Urban Renewal Plan, which itself, has gone nowhere.
Then, too, the West Hempstead community held a Mother’s Day Rally last May across from the Courtesy, demanding that the Town take immediate action to close down the no-tell hotel.
Kate Murray was there (in body, at least). The Supervisor promised closure by year’s end. To this day, residents lament that they did not ask Kate, “which year?”
There’s something terribly wrong – and oh so transparent in its overt deceit – when government portends to take up the cause of some of the people (or as many of the people as it can fool on any given day), while wholly neglecting the people it has either written off (read as, “we don’t need their votes to get re-elected”) or who can no longer be fooled by the smoke and mirrors of phony freezes, broken promises, and an “up yours” arrogance that has become as pervasive at Town Hall as it appears invasive in the unincorporated areas of the township that time and government forgot.
Let’s face reality. From the Argo in Elmont (officially blighted) to the Courtesy in West Hempstead (officially blighted), the blight (yes, its official) in Baldwin to Moldstone in Westbury (no official designation of “blight” yet, but you can be sure they’re working on it), we have witnessed failure piled high upon failure. Local government consumed not with the future of the residents it purports to serve, but rather, with perpetuating the reign of the chosen few, with all attendant pompousness that accompanies the monolithic majesty, who are anointed to serve.
Frankly, its not the raw sewage you smell from Bay Park or Glen Cove. It’s the stench of a decaying carcass that passes itself off as representative government at Hempstead Town Hall.
Yes, the Nassau County Legislature is holed up in what looks much like an abandoned sewer, partisan politics and personal vendetta having displaced even the rats that once dwelled there.
But the Legislature’s ineptitude and tolerance for the inane pale by comparison to Town Hall’s seemingly innate ability to hang in there – year after year, decade after decade, century after century – despite its best efforts to alienate the electorate, and defecate on the taxpayer.
While we have come to endure the hardships of Town Hall’s indifference – too often ambivalent in deference to our own – the time has come (actually, it came years ago, but we were largely oblivious to it) to supplant Hempstead Town’s self indulgent arrogance with a new mindset: Failure in government is no longer an option.
Failure in government, from top to bottom.
Wars without end or merit. A father who doesn’t know the price of tube socks, and a son who hasn’t heard about the rising cost of gas. A Building Department that never met a code violator it didn’t like. Zoning Board/Planning Board, devoid of the capacity to do either. A Supervisor and a Town Board that says it hears the voices of community (or are they only the voices in their own heads?), but steadfastly refuses to listen.
Whether on the streets of Washington, D.C., or on Washington Street in Hempstead, the failure and foibles, follies and fantasies, must be brought to an end.
Tony Santino may take umbrage to the toilet bowl that Bay Park has become.
Take note, Tony. The rest of us are none too happy with the festering sewer that you guys at Town Hall have permitted to overflow in Hempstead Town.
- - -
Residents protest South Shore sewage proposal
BY TIMOTHY ROBERTSON
Special to Newsday
For many Bay Park and East Rockaway residents, Nassau County's sewage plant just plain stinks.
With a toilet on the park's grass, colorful protest signs in their hands and masks covering their faces, more than 300 of them Saturday called for Nassau to flush its new .sewage plan.
The county legislature on Jan. 14 approved the takeover of the Glen Cove, Cedarhurst and Lawrence sewer districts in a move that Democrats praised for its environmental benefits and Republicans criticized as a bailout for financially strapped Glen Cove. The move would close the antiquated plants in Cedarhurst and Lawrence and redirect at least 2 million gallons of waste water a day to the Bay Park plant.
"Instead of spending $15 million to build a pipe to bring that waste water here to Bay Park, use that money to rebuild the plant in Lawrence, rebuild the plant in Cedarhurst," Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony Santino said to vigorous applause.
Members of the grassroots organization against the plan, greenbayparkers.org, reported 300 new signatures on its anti-sewage plan petition, which already had 800 names.
Residents said the 2 million gallons would contribute not just to the horrid smell emanating from the plant, but the additional waste would threaten fishing and swimming in the bay.
"It would be unbearable," said Stanley Lombardo, 54, of East Rockaway. "If they come in with more sewage, who's going to even bother [to fish]?"
Many of the handmade signs and crowd's chants criticized Legis. Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), whose district covers both Bay Park and East Rockaway and who voted in favor of the sewage plan.
Toback said by phone Saturday that any plan to upgrade the two smaller plants would be "counterintuitive to the consolidation plan." The county's sewage system needs consolidation so that it can become eligible for federal funding for piping that would deposit the waste further out in the ocean, instead of the bay, he said.
In addition, the Bay Park plant can hold 70 million gallons of waste a day, he said, and another 2 million won't "affect the quality of life." The plant, according to both residents and Toback, processes around 56 million gallons of waste a day.
"I challenge anyone to show me that adding 2 million gallons, plus or minus, will change the impact the plant has on the community," said Toback, who will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. March 19 at East Rockaway High School.
Despite passage of the plan in January, Santino said the deal isn't set, as any funding for the construction of a pipe would require a bond vote, which needs a two-thirds majority to get on the ballot.
"Bay Park shouldn't be the toilet bowl for the entire South Shore," Santino said.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
The Long March
From Property Taxes To Special Districts, Time Marches On [And With It, Our Money]
In just a few short weeks, Spring officially arrives. In less than a week, in fact, we usher in that long-awaited passage into spring as Daylight Savings Time goes into effect (2 AM on Sunday, March 9].
And yet, even as we gleefully say so long to this relatively mild Winter -- weatherwise -- that annual breath of fresh air, the presumptive season of renewal, brings with it the same old problems we faced last year, the year before that, and the year before the year before.
Special taxing districts dotting the landscape, safe harbors of political patronage that sponge off of our tax dollars. Property taxes, going nowhere but up, serving as political foils and the stuff of commission-based follies, fueled, in part, by the proliferation of special district feifdoms, but more so, by school districts bound to burgeoning contractual obligations, suffocated by unfunded mandates, and crippled by far too little aid from state coffers, and little more than small talk from those who are obligated by the state constitution to provide that free education to all of New York's children.
The New York State Commission On Property Tax Relief holds its first public hearing this week -- Wednesday, March 5th, 9 AM to 12 Noon, William H. Rogers Legislative Office Building, North County Complex, Building #20, Veterans Memorial Highway, Hauppague.
Did someone say Will Rogers?
A public hearing on a monumental imperative, taking place in the middle of the day, in the middle of nowhere.
Could it be that the public, though invited, isn't really the main show here? A mere window dressing of a hearing, as perhaps those to come across New York State will also be?
After all, what is the public's 2-cents worth, on top of the millions we pay annually in property taxes?
Of course, even if you can't attend the Hauppague hearing, or any other forum as may be stealthily scheduled on short, if not sadly inconspicuous notice (surely, there is little on the Commission's website to hang a hat on), you can -- and should -- still offer comment to the Commission on ways to cut the property tax.
Click HERE to submit your ideas to the Commission. Not that they will pay any heed, as if minds were not already made up as to property tax caps, which have proven themselves detrimental to education, and of limited value in keeping down taxes.
Still, its your opportunity -- and perhaps the only chance you'll get -- to have your say, so, speak now, or forever hold your hand on your wallet.
Ah yes, spring is in the air. The NYS Commission on Local Government Efficiency & Competitiveness is expected to have its official report out in April. The Commission's preliminary recommendations have, more or less, unfolded as one would predict.
Will the Commission and the State Legislature -- or better put, will we, as taxpayers and voters -- "summon the political will to face the reality that 4,200 taxing jurisdictions are simply too many, too expensive and too burdensome," as Governor Spitzer opined in this year's State of the State Address?
The Commission on Property Tax Relief will posit its intial findings in May. Maybe there will actually be something relevant posted on the Commission's website by then.
Spring. A time of hope, of renewal, when the earth comes to life signaling a fresh beginning, a new start.
Hmmm.
Something tells us its going to be a long, hot summer, even now, as March Madness and the springing ahead of the clocks are just barely at hand.
In just a few short weeks, Spring officially arrives. In less than a week, in fact, we usher in that long-awaited passage into spring as Daylight Savings Time goes into effect (2 AM on Sunday, March 9].
And yet, even as we gleefully say so long to this relatively mild Winter -- weatherwise -- that annual breath of fresh air, the presumptive season of renewal, brings with it the same old problems we faced last year, the year before that, and the year before the year before.
Special taxing districts dotting the landscape, safe harbors of political patronage that sponge off of our tax dollars. Property taxes, going nowhere but up, serving as political foils and the stuff of commission-based follies, fueled, in part, by the proliferation of special district feifdoms, but more so, by school districts bound to burgeoning contractual obligations, suffocated by unfunded mandates, and crippled by far too little aid from state coffers, and little more than small talk from those who are obligated by the state constitution to provide that free education to all of New York's children.
The New York State Commission On Property Tax Relief holds its first public hearing this week -- Wednesday, March 5th, 9 AM to 12 Noon, William H. Rogers Legislative Office Building, North County Complex, Building #20, Veterans Memorial Highway, Hauppague.
Did someone say Will Rogers?
A public hearing on a monumental imperative, taking place in the middle of the day, in the middle of nowhere.
Could it be that the public, though invited, isn't really the main show here? A mere window dressing of a hearing, as perhaps those to come across New York State will also be?
After all, what is the public's 2-cents worth, on top of the millions we pay annually in property taxes?
Of course, even if you can't attend the Hauppague hearing, or any other forum as may be stealthily scheduled on short, if not sadly inconspicuous notice (surely, there is little on the Commission's website to hang a hat on), you can -- and should -- still offer comment to the Commission on ways to cut the property tax.
Click HERE to submit your ideas to the Commission. Not that they will pay any heed, as if minds were not already made up as to property tax caps, which have proven themselves detrimental to education, and of limited value in keeping down taxes.
Still, its your opportunity -- and perhaps the only chance you'll get -- to have your say, so, speak now, or forever hold your hand on your wallet.
Ah yes, spring is in the air. The NYS Commission on Local Government Efficiency & Competitiveness is expected to have its official report out in April. The Commission's preliminary recommendations have, more or less, unfolded as one would predict.
Will the Commission and the State Legislature -- or better put, will we, as taxpayers and voters -- "summon the political will to face the reality that 4,200 taxing jurisdictions are simply too many, too expensive and too burdensome," as Governor Spitzer opined in this year's State of the State Address?
The Commission on Property Tax Relief will posit its intial findings in May. Maybe there will actually be something relevant posted on the Commission's website by then.
Spring. A time of hope, of renewal, when the earth comes to life signaling a fresh beginning, a new start.
Hmmm.
Something tells us its going to be a long, hot summer, even now, as March Madness and the springing ahead of the clocks are just barely at hand.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Slip Sliding Away
GOP Loses Grip On NYS Senate
They're down to one in Albany.
After a special election in a heavily Republican upstate Senate District, the Democrat emerged victorious, and the GOP majority had been cut to a single vote. This in a district that hasn't elected a Democrat in more than a century.
Not exactly the news Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno was hoping for, as he attempts to stave off the feds with one hand, and the old men in the flannel leisure suits with the other.
Come November, with every seat in the Legislature up for grabs, Dems will look to throw the GOP out of the box -- or at least out of power in the Senate chambers, where Republicans have maintained control since the 60s.
The GOP has been losing ground in the State Senate over the last few election cycles, and with a record-breaking Democratic turnout expected at the polls this presidential election year, the balance may just tip in favor of the Dems, who already have a lock on the Assembly.
Of course, giddiness of Democrats aside, all of this may not bode well for Long Islanders, who, if they have benefited at all from Albany's graces, owe much to the predeominantly Republican Long Island Senate delegation, led by the venerable Dean Skelos, the Senate's Deputy Majority Leader.
Should the Democrats wrestle the reigns from the Republicans, with Long Island's GOP hanging on to the rafters, Long Island may well become that proverbial boat without a paddle -- Ignored by all, championed by none.
Its a quandry for all of us on Long Island, especially those who crave for a change from the stagnant status quo.
For the moment, Democrats revel in their North Country victory. What tomorrow will bring to our Long Island remains anybody's guess.
- - -
From Newsday:
Dems' win in State Senate race shrinks GOP edge
BY JAMES T. MADORE
james.madore@newsday.com
ALBANY - Republicans' longtime control of the Senate weakened last night as their majority shrank to a single seat with the upset victory of Democrat Darrel Aubertine in a special election in northern New York.
With all precincts reporting, Aubertine had 52 percent, compared with 48 percent for Republican Will Barclay.
The 62-member Senate is the GOP's sole remaining Capitol power base, with Democrats holding the Assembly and governor's office. The Senate traditionally has fought the hardest for Long Island.
Aubertine and Barclay, both assemblymen, were vying to represent the 48th District, which encompasses Oswego, Jefferson and half of St. Lawrence counties in the state's northwest corner.
But the contest was far from a local affair, with Democrats hoping to capture the Senate for the first time since 1965.
"This is potentially significant because there's a sense now that the Senate could flip in terms of which party holds the majority," government professor Calvin F. Exoo of St. Lawrence University said, adding the result "could be a bellwether for the fall" when all lawmakers face re-election.
The monthlong race cost an estimated $3 million, most coming from the state parties. Hundreds of political activists, including several busloads from Long Island, spent weeks campaigning upstate.
The 48th has always elected a Republican. The seat fell vacant with last month's retirement of Sen. James Wright (R- Watertown) after 15 years. Campaigning intensified last week when a poll showed a dead heat, surprising given Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 31,000.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, has been clear about his desire to wipe out Senate Republicans, led by his nemesis Joseph Bruno of Brunswick. Last night's loss was sure to intensify speculation about Bruno's ouster, or a possible GOP defection, which would give Democrats the upper hand.
With a 32-30 breakdown presently, it would take only one senator to turn to give Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, the casting vote.
Spitzer said last night, "Darrel will be a powerful advocate for the North Country and I look forward to working together on the people's business."
Spitzer cut Bruno's majority a year ago when he tapped then-Sen. Michael Balboni (R-Mineola) for homeland security secretary. A special election to fill the seat in Nassau's 7th District was won by Democrat Craig Johnson of Port Washington.
In the battle for the 48th, issues were largely cast aside in favor of class warfare as Barclay, 39, was painted as a rich lawyer from a powerful family and Aubertine, 54, a dairy farmer and former county legislator, beholden to downstate interests.
Reacting last night, Bruno said: "We remain the majority party in the State Senate. ... The November election is little more than eight months away and we intend to redouble our efforts to regain seats."
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
They're down to one in Albany.
After a special election in a heavily Republican upstate Senate District, the Democrat emerged victorious, and the GOP majority had been cut to a single vote. This in a district that hasn't elected a Democrat in more than a century.
Not exactly the news Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno was hoping for, as he attempts to stave off the feds with one hand, and the old men in the flannel leisure suits with the other.
Come November, with every seat in the Legislature up for grabs, Dems will look to throw the GOP out of the box -- or at least out of power in the Senate chambers, where Republicans have maintained control since the 60s.
The GOP has been losing ground in the State Senate over the last few election cycles, and with a record-breaking Democratic turnout expected at the polls this presidential election year, the balance may just tip in favor of the Dems, who already have a lock on the Assembly.
Of course, giddiness of Democrats aside, all of this may not bode well for Long Islanders, who, if they have benefited at all from Albany's graces, owe much to the predeominantly Republican Long Island Senate delegation, led by the venerable Dean Skelos, the Senate's Deputy Majority Leader.
Should the Democrats wrestle the reigns from the Republicans, with Long Island's GOP hanging on to the rafters, Long Island may well become that proverbial boat without a paddle -- Ignored by all, championed by none.
Its a quandry for all of us on Long Island, especially those who crave for a change from the stagnant status quo.
For the moment, Democrats revel in their North Country victory. What tomorrow will bring to our Long Island remains anybody's guess.
- - -
From Newsday:
Dems' win in State Senate race shrinks GOP edge
BY JAMES T. MADORE
james.madore@newsday.com
ALBANY - Republicans' longtime control of the Senate weakened last night as their majority shrank to a single seat with the upset victory of Democrat Darrel Aubertine in a special election in northern New York.
With all precincts reporting, Aubertine had 52 percent, compared with 48 percent for Republican Will Barclay.
The 62-member Senate is the GOP's sole remaining Capitol power base, with Democrats holding the Assembly and governor's office. The Senate traditionally has fought the hardest for Long Island.
Aubertine and Barclay, both assemblymen, were vying to represent the 48th District, which encompasses Oswego, Jefferson and half of St. Lawrence counties in the state's northwest corner.
But the contest was far from a local affair, with Democrats hoping to capture the Senate for the first time since 1965.
"This is potentially significant because there's a sense now that the Senate could flip in terms of which party holds the majority," government professor Calvin F. Exoo of St. Lawrence University said, adding the result "could be a bellwether for the fall" when all lawmakers face re-election.
The monthlong race cost an estimated $3 million, most coming from the state parties. Hundreds of political activists, including several busloads from Long Island, spent weeks campaigning upstate.
The 48th has always elected a Republican. The seat fell vacant with last month's retirement of Sen. James Wright (R- Watertown) after 15 years. Campaigning intensified last week when a poll showed a dead heat, surprising given Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 31,000.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, has been clear about his desire to wipe out Senate Republicans, led by his nemesis Joseph Bruno of Brunswick. Last night's loss was sure to intensify speculation about Bruno's ouster, or a possible GOP defection, which would give Democrats the upper hand.
With a 32-30 breakdown presently, it would take only one senator to turn to give Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, the casting vote.
Spitzer said last night, "Darrel will be a powerful advocate for the North Country and I look forward to working together on the people's business."
Spitzer cut Bruno's majority a year ago when he tapped then-Sen. Michael Balboni (R-Mineola) for homeland security secretary. A special election to fill the seat in Nassau's 7th District was won by Democrat Craig Johnson of Port Washington.
In the battle for the 48th, issues were largely cast aside in favor of class warfare as Barclay, 39, was painted as a rich lawyer from a powerful family and Aubertine, 54, a dairy farmer and former county legislator, beholden to downstate interests.
Reacting last night, Bruno said: "We remain the majority party in the State Senate. ... The November election is little more than eight months away and we intend to redouble our efforts to regain seats."
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
LIP Service For Long Island's Children
State Shortchanges Education At The Taxpayers’ Expense
On the education front (read as school funding), the landscape looks pretty much the same as it did last year, and the year before that.
The paucity of State aid to education, and the widening disparity between what upstate school districts reap from Albany and that which trickles down to Long Island, having not so much to do with who sits in the Governor’s mansion (Nelson Rockefeller having dealt from the same hand some forty years ago) as it does the State Legislature doing little to bring an arcane and archaic aid formula into the 21st century.
The NYS Education Law, and the State Aid formulae that have evolved over the past five decades – valiant attempts during the mid-70s at reform notwithstanding – have left New York with a system and practice of school financing which is as incomprehensible as it is unfair.
To the dismay of parents and students, teachers and taxpayers, the static nature of how we pay for elementary and secondary education in New York, and the stagnant persistence of the Legislature to either maintain the status quo or, worse still, to patch a crumbling infrastructure with a silly putty under the euphemism of STAR, have created an endemic of high property taxes and mediocre performance.
As the battle lines are drawn, here on Long Island and up in Albany, no doubt the scene will play out much as it did last year, and the year before that.
Cuts will be proposed. Politicians will place blame. Money will be restored. Politicians will take credit. Upstate will see a bounty. Long Island appreciably less. And that rebate check will be in the mail.
It’s a vicious cycle, really, with few among the elected having either the fortitude to offer practical cures, or the stomach to tolerate the strong medicine it takes to promote academic excellence while preserving New York’s tax base.
As Tim Bolger (not related to Ray) proffers in his Long Island Press piece, some see “Upstate getting more money while the Island gets a Commission on Property Tax Relief to study the issue.”
We see a method of school financing that is obsolete and incapable of serving the needs of New York’s children, and an ongoing political partisanship that, yet again, favors posturing and finger-pointing over the desires of those who foot that ever-escalating bill.
Parents and students, teachers and taxpayers, deserve much better.
- - -
From The Long Island Press:
Rallying For The 3Rs
By Tim Bolger
The public's heightened political attentiveness this presidential election year aside, cumbersome and non-reader-friendly budget proposals are not usually instigators for protests. But this is Long Island, and its taxpayers are particularly sensitive about fluctuations in the amount of money the state says it will send to schools.
Sure, the case can be made that the Long Island Progressive Coalition (LIPC) is an organization that traditionally relies on tactics such as picketing to attract attention to issues that don't make ordinary citizens take to the streets. But it's not just the Massapequa-based advocacy group's Feb. 14 demonstration that has called attention to Gov. Eliot Spitzer's 2007 promise to increase aid to school districts. A Long Island delegation of New York State senators is planning a protest along with community leaders at Ellsworth Allen Park in Farmingdale, at noon on March 1.
For his part, Spitzer says the promise he made last year of four consecutive annual school aid increases has been undermined by an economic downturn and a projected $384 million drop in tax revenue this year. So, while there is more than $2 billion in school aid, some LI schools are on course to get what equates as a smaller increase from last year while some will be dealt a decrease.
"The continued worsening outlook for the economy demands additional tough choices," Spitzer said in a statement. "We are taking the steps necessary to ensure the fiscal integrity of our state government." Meanwhile, the Long Island Tea Party goes on, reacting to the governor's proposal amendments.
Although complex, both demonstrations illustrate the sharp line between the two approaches to this issue (leaving alone the plethora of tangential problems critics highlight when discussing LI school funds). At the Valentine's Day rally outside Sen. Caesar Trunzo's (R-Brentwood) Hauppauge office, LIPC and about 30 protesters gave the senator "Don't break our hearts, keep your promise" valentines. Their goal, based on a Feb. 14 report from the statewide Alliance for Quality Education, is to not only get the Senate majority to return the funding to levels promised, but to do so without disproportionate cuts to the school districts that need it most-including Central Islip, Brentwood and William Floyd, all of which Trunzo represents.
"We want to make sure restoring these funds to high-needs and underserved school districts is a priority, and the only way we're going to do that is to say it loud enough," says Maurice Mitchell, lead organizer for LIPC. He says that since Spitzer announced budget amendments earlier this month, LIPC is focusing on those in the Legislature who are negotiating the budget's details before it goes to a vote.
In a statement, Trunzo condemns Spitzer: "I have great concerns about the governor's budget proposal, which spends too much, taxes too much and once again shows the governor's indifference to the needs of Long Island residents." That is likely a preview of the rhetoric the public will hear live on March 1.
On a flyer for the upcoming Saturday protest against the governor's plan, the message doesn't focus as much on nuance as it does on the overall threat of tax increases that result from decreased state funding to schools. Messages saying "School aid cuts mean higher taxes and less for education" and "Long Islanders want their fair share of education aid" adorn the posters. The event is billed as the Education and Taxpayer Rally, organized by the regional office of the Senate majority.
"All we're looking for is our fair share," says Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Selden), calling the proposal "an attempt by the administration to redistribute money that was originally intended for Long Island." He notes that while the economic downturn has wreaked financial havoc, a 7.5 percent increase in education spending statewide was proposed-yet despite the fact that the region has 16 percent of the state's students, only 8 percent of that increase comes to the region. LaValle says he finds this difficult to justify and reiterates that if the budget is passed as is, the result would be "either cut programs or raise property taxes or both."
The budget protests likely won't turn violent or result in looting. But many LI leaders see this budget in terms of Upstate getting more money while the Island gets a Commission on Property Tax Relief to study the issue. With the budget due on April 1, looks like this March will be a stormy one.
On the education front (read as school funding), the landscape looks pretty much the same as it did last year, and the year before that.
The paucity of State aid to education, and the widening disparity between what upstate school districts reap from Albany and that which trickles down to Long Island, having not so much to do with who sits in the Governor’s mansion (Nelson Rockefeller having dealt from the same hand some forty years ago) as it does the State Legislature doing little to bring an arcane and archaic aid formula into the 21st century.
The NYS Education Law, and the State Aid formulae that have evolved over the past five decades – valiant attempts during the mid-70s at reform notwithstanding – have left New York with a system and practice of school financing which is as incomprehensible as it is unfair.
To the dismay of parents and students, teachers and taxpayers, the static nature of how we pay for elementary and secondary education in New York, and the stagnant persistence of the Legislature to either maintain the status quo or, worse still, to patch a crumbling infrastructure with a silly putty under the euphemism of STAR, have created an endemic of high property taxes and mediocre performance.
As the battle lines are drawn, here on Long Island and up in Albany, no doubt the scene will play out much as it did last year, and the year before that.
Cuts will be proposed. Politicians will place blame. Money will be restored. Politicians will take credit. Upstate will see a bounty. Long Island appreciably less. And that rebate check will be in the mail.
It’s a vicious cycle, really, with few among the elected having either the fortitude to offer practical cures, or the stomach to tolerate the strong medicine it takes to promote academic excellence while preserving New York’s tax base.
As Tim Bolger (not related to Ray) proffers in his Long Island Press piece, some see “Upstate getting more money while the Island gets a Commission on Property Tax Relief to study the issue.”
We see a method of school financing that is obsolete and incapable of serving the needs of New York’s children, and an ongoing political partisanship that, yet again, favors posturing and finger-pointing over the desires of those who foot that ever-escalating bill.
Parents and students, teachers and taxpayers, deserve much better.
- - -
From The Long Island Press:
Rallying For The 3Rs
By Tim Bolger
The public's heightened political attentiveness this presidential election year aside, cumbersome and non-reader-friendly budget proposals are not usually instigators for protests. But this is Long Island, and its taxpayers are particularly sensitive about fluctuations in the amount of money the state says it will send to schools.
Sure, the case can be made that the Long Island Progressive Coalition (LIPC) is an organization that traditionally relies on tactics such as picketing to attract attention to issues that don't make ordinary citizens take to the streets. But it's not just the Massapequa-based advocacy group's Feb. 14 demonstration that has called attention to Gov. Eliot Spitzer's 2007 promise to increase aid to school districts. A Long Island delegation of New York State senators is planning a protest along with community leaders at Ellsworth Allen Park in Farmingdale, at noon on March 1.
For his part, Spitzer says the promise he made last year of four consecutive annual school aid increases has been undermined by an economic downturn and a projected $384 million drop in tax revenue this year. So, while there is more than $2 billion in school aid, some LI schools are on course to get what equates as a smaller increase from last year while some will be dealt a decrease.
"The continued worsening outlook for the economy demands additional tough choices," Spitzer said in a statement. "We are taking the steps necessary to ensure the fiscal integrity of our state government." Meanwhile, the Long Island Tea Party goes on, reacting to the governor's proposal amendments.
Although complex, both demonstrations illustrate the sharp line between the two approaches to this issue (leaving alone the plethora of tangential problems critics highlight when discussing LI school funds). At the Valentine's Day rally outside Sen. Caesar Trunzo's (R-Brentwood) Hauppauge office, LIPC and about 30 protesters gave the senator "Don't break our hearts, keep your promise" valentines. Their goal, based on a Feb. 14 report from the statewide Alliance for Quality Education, is to not only get the Senate majority to return the funding to levels promised, but to do so without disproportionate cuts to the school districts that need it most-including Central Islip, Brentwood and William Floyd, all of which Trunzo represents.
"We want to make sure restoring these funds to high-needs and underserved school districts is a priority, and the only way we're going to do that is to say it loud enough," says Maurice Mitchell, lead organizer for LIPC. He says that since Spitzer announced budget amendments earlier this month, LIPC is focusing on those in the Legislature who are negotiating the budget's details before it goes to a vote.
In a statement, Trunzo condemns Spitzer: "I have great concerns about the governor's budget proposal, which spends too much, taxes too much and once again shows the governor's indifference to the needs of Long Island residents." That is likely a preview of the rhetoric the public will hear live on March 1.
On a flyer for the upcoming Saturday protest against the governor's plan, the message doesn't focus as much on nuance as it does on the overall threat of tax increases that result from decreased state funding to schools. Messages saying "School aid cuts mean higher taxes and less for education" and "Long Islanders want their fair share of education aid" adorn the posters. The event is billed as the Education and Taxpayer Rally, organized by the regional office of the Senate majority.
"All we're looking for is our fair share," says Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Selden), calling the proposal "an attempt by the administration to redistribute money that was originally intended for Long Island." He notes that while the economic downturn has wreaked financial havoc, a 7.5 percent increase in education spending statewide was proposed-yet despite the fact that the region has 16 percent of the state's students, only 8 percent of that increase comes to the region. LaValle says he finds this difficult to justify and reiterates that if the budget is passed as is, the result would be "either cut programs or raise property taxes or both."
The budget protests likely won't turn violent or result in looting. But many LI leaders see this budget in terms of Upstate getting more money while the Island gets a Commission on Property Tax Relief to study the issue. With the budget due on April 1, looks like this March will be a stormy one.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Style Over Substance?
More To Obama Than Mere Words
Never downplay the significance of hope, or its capacity to not only inspire, but to serve as a driving force behind political, economic, and social transformation.
Don't be too quick to downplay words -- long ago proclaimed to be mightier than the sword -- as a catalyst not only of change, but of cohesion, of healing, and as a vehicle to move society, as well as entire nations, forward out of the darkness of the abyss.
And say what you will about the conservative posturing of the Wall Street Journal. Sometimes, even this bastion of right-leaning journalism recognizes the power of vision, the impact of oratory, and the gist behind the glib.
Call it a movement, or perhaps just a moment, this departure from the past, from the tired and failed, from the foibles of yesteryear -- whether inside or outside the Beltway -- is as refreshing to the ears as it is nourishing for the soul.
To many Americans, this restoration of hope -- this great movement to lift our nation and, yes, to truly light the world -- is so much more than empty eloquence. It is a window of opportunity to recast the very role of this nation as it struggles to find its place in that new world order, and a clear opening to recapture the very essence of what was, and what can again become, the great American dream.
- - -
From The Wall Street Journal:
Obama and the Power of Words
By STEPHEN F. HAYES
These are words that move and uplift, that give hope to the hopeless. These words inspired millions of voters nationwide to join the grand experiment called democracy, casting votes for their candidate, their country, their destiny:
"More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values . . . For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!"
So Ronald Reagan proclaimed on July 17, 1980, as he accepted his party's nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in Detroit, Mich.
Earlier that day, the New York Times ran a long profile of Reagan on its front page. The author, Howell Raines, lamented that the news media had been unsuccessful in getting Reagan to speak in anything other than "sweeping generalities about economic and military policy." Mr. Raines further noted: "political critics who characterize him as banal and shallow, a mouther of right-wing platitudes, delight in recalling that he co-starred with a chimpanzee in 'Bedtime for Bonzo.'"
Throughout his campaign, Reagan fought off charges that his candidacy was built more on optimism than policies. The charges came from reporters and opponents. John Anderson, a rival in the Republican primary who ran as an independent in the general election, complained that Reagan offered little more than "old platitudes and old generalities."
Conservatives understood that this Reagan-as-a-simpleton view was a caricature (something made even clearer in several recent books, particularly Reagan's own diaries). That his opponents never got this is what led to their undoing. Those critics who giggled about his turn alongside a chimp were considerably less delighted when Reagan won 44 states and 489 electoral votes in November.
One Reagan adviser had predicted such a win shortly after Reagan had become the de facto nominee the previous spring. In a memo about the coming general election contest with Jimmy Carter, Richard Whalen wrote Reagan's "secret weapon" was that "Democrats fail to take him very seriously."
Are Republicans making the same mistake with Barack Obama?
For months now, Hillary Clinton has suggested that Mr. Obama is all rhetoric, no substance. This claim, or some version of it, has been at the center of her campaign since November. One day after losing to him in Wisconsin and Hawaii -- her ninth and tenth consecutive defeats -- she rather incredibly went back to it again. "It's time we moved from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions," she said -- a formulation that could be mistaken for a sound bite.
As she complained about his lack of substance, tens of thousands of people lined up in city after city, sometimes in subfreezing temperatures, for a chance to get a shot of some Mr. Obama hopemongering. Plainly, her critique is not working.
And yet, Republicans are picking it up. In just the past week, conservative commentators have accused Mr. Obama of speaking in "Sesame Street platitudes," of giving speeches that are "almost content free," of "saying nothing." He has been likened to Chance the Gardner, the clueless mope in Jerzy Koscinski's "Being There," whose banal utterances are taken as brilliant by a gullible political class. Others complain that his campaign is "messianic," too self-aggrandizing and too self-referential.
John McCain has joined the fray. In a speech after he won primaries in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland, Mr. McCain said: "To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude." After Wisconsin, he sharpened the attack, warning that he would expose Mr. Obama's "eloquent but empty call for change."
The assumption behind much of this criticism is that because Mr. Obama gives a good speech he cannot do substance. This is wrong. Mr. Obama has done well in most of the Democratic debates because he has consistently shown himself able to think on his feet. Even on health care, a complicated national issue that should be Mrs. Clinton's strength, Mr. Obama has regularly fought her to a draw by displaying a grasp of the details that rivals hers, and talking about it in ways Americans can understand.
In Iowa, long before the race became the national campaign it is today, Mr. Obama spent much of his time at town halls in which he took questions from the audience. His answers in such settings were often as good or better than the rhetoric in his stump speech, and usually more substantive. He spoke about issues like immigration and national service in a thoughtful manner -- not wonky, not pedantic, but in a way that suggested he'd spent some time thinking about them before.
More important for the race ahead, Mr. Obama has the unique ability to offer doctrinaire liberal positions in a way that avoids the stridency of many recent Democratic candidates. That he managed to do this in the days before the Iowa caucuses -- at a time when he might have been expected to be at his most liberal -- was quite striking.
His rhetorical gimmick is simple. When he addresses a contentious issue, Mr. Obama almost always begins his answer with a respectful nod in the direction of the view he is rejecting -- a line or two that suggests he understands or perhaps even sympathizes with the concerns of a conservative.
At Cornell College on Dec. 5, for example, a student asked Mr. Obama how his administration would view the Second Amendment. He replied: "There's a Supreme Court case that's going to be decided fairly soon about what the Second Amendment means. I taught Constitutional Law for 10 years, so I've got my opinion. And my opinion is that the Second Amendment is probably -- it is an individual right and not just a right of the militia. That's what I expect the Supreme Court to rule. I think that's a fair reading of the text of the Constitution. And so I respect the right of lawful gun owners to hunt, fish, protect their families."
Then came the pivot:
"Like all rights, though, they are constrained and bound by the needs of the community . . . So when I look at Chicago and 34 Chicago public school students gunned down in a single school year, then I don't think the Second Amendment prohibits us from taking action and making sure that, for example, ATF can share tracing information about illegal handguns that are used on the streets and track them to the gun dealers to find out -- what are you doing?"
In conclusion:
"There is a tradition of gun ownership in this country that can be respected that is not mutually exclusive with making sure that we are shutting down gun traffic that is killing kids on our streets. The argument I have with the NRA is not whether people have the right to bear arms. The problem is they believe any constraint or regulation whatsoever is something that they have to beat back. And I don't think that's how most lawful firearms owners think."
In the end, Mr. Obama is simply campaigning for office in the same way he says he would operate if he were elected. "We're not looking for a chief operating officer when we select a president," he said during a question and answer session at Google headquarters back in December.
"What we're looking for is somebody who will chart a course and say: Here is where America needs to go -- here is how to solve our energy crisis, here's how we need to revamp our education system -- and then gather the talent together and then mobilize that talent to achieve that goal. And to inspire a sense of hope and possibility."
Like Ronald Reagan did.
Mr. Hayes, a senior writer for The Weekly Standard, is the author of "Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President," (HarperCollins, 2007).
Never downplay the significance of hope, or its capacity to not only inspire, but to serve as a driving force behind political, economic, and social transformation.
Don't be too quick to downplay words -- long ago proclaimed to be mightier than the sword -- as a catalyst not only of change, but of cohesion, of healing, and as a vehicle to move society, as well as entire nations, forward out of the darkness of the abyss.
And say what you will about the conservative posturing of the Wall Street Journal. Sometimes, even this bastion of right-leaning journalism recognizes the power of vision, the impact of oratory, and the gist behind the glib.
Call it a movement, or perhaps just a moment, this departure from the past, from the tired and failed, from the foibles of yesteryear -- whether inside or outside the Beltway -- is as refreshing to the ears as it is nourishing for the soul.
To many Americans, this restoration of hope -- this great movement to lift our nation and, yes, to truly light the world -- is so much more than empty eloquence. It is a window of opportunity to recast the very role of this nation as it struggles to find its place in that new world order, and a clear opening to recapture the very essence of what was, and what can again become, the great American dream.
- - -
From The Wall Street Journal:
Obama and the Power of Words
By STEPHEN F. HAYES
These are words that move and uplift, that give hope to the hopeless. These words inspired millions of voters nationwide to join the grand experiment called democracy, casting votes for their candidate, their country, their destiny:
"More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values . . . For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!"
So Ronald Reagan proclaimed on July 17, 1980, as he accepted his party's nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in Detroit, Mich.
Earlier that day, the New York Times ran a long profile of Reagan on its front page. The author, Howell Raines, lamented that the news media had been unsuccessful in getting Reagan to speak in anything other than "sweeping generalities about economic and military policy." Mr. Raines further noted: "political critics who characterize him as banal and shallow, a mouther of right-wing platitudes, delight in recalling that he co-starred with a chimpanzee in 'Bedtime for Bonzo.'"
Throughout his campaign, Reagan fought off charges that his candidacy was built more on optimism than policies. The charges came from reporters and opponents. John Anderson, a rival in the Republican primary who ran as an independent in the general election, complained that Reagan offered little more than "old platitudes and old generalities."
Conservatives understood that this Reagan-as-a-simpleton view was a caricature (something made even clearer in several recent books, particularly Reagan's own diaries). That his opponents never got this is what led to their undoing. Those critics who giggled about his turn alongside a chimp were considerably less delighted when Reagan won 44 states and 489 electoral votes in November.
One Reagan adviser had predicted such a win shortly after Reagan had become the de facto nominee the previous spring. In a memo about the coming general election contest with Jimmy Carter, Richard Whalen wrote Reagan's "secret weapon" was that "Democrats fail to take him very seriously."
Are Republicans making the same mistake with Barack Obama?
For months now, Hillary Clinton has suggested that Mr. Obama is all rhetoric, no substance. This claim, or some version of it, has been at the center of her campaign since November. One day after losing to him in Wisconsin and Hawaii -- her ninth and tenth consecutive defeats -- she rather incredibly went back to it again. "It's time we moved from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions," she said -- a formulation that could be mistaken for a sound bite.
As she complained about his lack of substance, tens of thousands of people lined up in city after city, sometimes in subfreezing temperatures, for a chance to get a shot of some Mr. Obama hopemongering. Plainly, her critique is not working.
And yet, Republicans are picking it up. In just the past week, conservative commentators have accused Mr. Obama of speaking in "Sesame Street platitudes," of giving speeches that are "almost content free," of "saying nothing." He has been likened to Chance the Gardner, the clueless mope in Jerzy Koscinski's "Being There," whose banal utterances are taken as brilliant by a gullible political class. Others complain that his campaign is "messianic," too self-aggrandizing and too self-referential.
John McCain has joined the fray. In a speech after he won primaries in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland, Mr. McCain said: "To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude." After Wisconsin, he sharpened the attack, warning that he would expose Mr. Obama's "eloquent but empty call for change."
The assumption behind much of this criticism is that because Mr. Obama gives a good speech he cannot do substance. This is wrong. Mr. Obama has done well in most of the Democratic debates because he has consistently shown himself able to think on his feet. Even on health care, a complicated national issue that should be Mrs. Clinton's strength, Mr. Obama has regularly fought her to a draw by displaying a grasp of the details that rivals hers, and talking about it in ways Americans can understand.
In Iowa, long before the race became the national campaign it is today, Mr. Obama spent much of his time at town halls in which he took questions from the audience. His answers in such settings were often as good or better than the rhetoric in his stump speech, and usually more substantive. He spoke about issues like immigration and national service in a thoughtful manner -- not wonky, not pedantic, but in a way that suggested he'd spent some time thinking about them before.
More important for the race ahead, Mr. Obama has the unique ability to offer doctrinaire liberal positions in a way that avoids the stridency of many recent Democratic candidates. That he managed to do this in the days before the Iowa caucuses -- at a time when he might have been expected to be at his most liberal -- was quite striking.
His rhetorical gimmick is simple. When he addresses a contentious issue, Mr. Obama almost always begins his answer with a respectful nod in the direction of the view he is rejecting -- a line or two that suggests he understands or perhaps even sympathizes with the concerns of a conservative.
At Cornell College on Dec. 5, for example, a student asked Mr. Obama how his administration would view the Second Amendment. He replied: "There's a Supreme Court case that's going to be decided fairly soon about what the Second Amendment means. I taught Constitutional Law for 10 years, so I've got my opinion. And my opinion is that the Second Amendment is probably -- it is an individual right and not just a right of the militia. That's what I expect the Supreme Court to rule. I think that's a fair reading of the text of the Constitution. And so I respect the right of lawful gun owners to hunt, fish, protect their families."
Then came the pivot:
"Like all rights, though, they are constrained and bound by the needs of the community . . . So when I look at Chicago and 34 Chicago public school students gunned down in a single school year, then I don't think the Second Amendment prohibits us from taking action and making sure that, for example, ATF can share tracing information about illegal handguns that are used on the streets and track them to the gun dealers to find out -- what are you doing?"
In conclusion:
"There is a tradition of gun ownership in this country that can be respected that is not mutually exclusive with making sure that we are shutting down gun traffic that is killing kids on our streets. The argument I have with the NRA is not whether people have the right to bear arms. The problem is they believe any constraint or regulation whatsoever is something that they have to beat back. And I don't think that's how most lawful firearms owners think."
In the end, Mr. Obama is simply campaigning for office in the same way he says he would operate if he were elected. "We're not looking for a chief operating officer when we select a president," he said during a question and answer session at Google headquarters back in December.
"What we're looking for is somebody who will chart a course and say: Here is where America needs to go -- here is how to solve our energy crisis, here's how we need to revamp our education system -- and then gather the talent together and then mobilize that talent to achieve that goal. And to inspire a sense of hope and possibility."
Like Ronald Reagan did.
Mr. Hayes, a senior writer for The Weekly Standard, is the author of "Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President," (HarperCollins, 2007).
A Call For A "Quiet Revolution?"
Time For Taxpayers To Question "Why" And Scream, "No More!"
A basic premise of The Community Alliance blog -- indeed, the very foundation of our organization's existence -- is that good citizens need to be informed and involved if government is to work, and to work for us.
How many times -- on issues ranging from property taxes to illegal accessory apartments, affordable housing to zoning -- have we called upon residents to borrow a page from the movie Network (heck, rent the DVD), and to open their windows, stick their heads out, and shout, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore?"
At least once or twice, if memory serves.
If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times: "Join your local civic." "Attend town meetings and community forums." "Ask your (legislator, town supervisor, local commissioner, school board trustee), 'What have you done for our community lately?'" "Attend budget hearings and demand to know where every tax dollar is being spent." And for your own sake, if not that of your neighbors, "VOTE!"
On that last, but certainly not insignificant point, we've pondered, "When we send the same elected officials back to the same jobs, year after year after year (substitute "decade" or "century" where applicable), do we really expect anything will change?"
Unfortunately, many of our musings (some say, tirades) fall upon the deaf ears of the indifferent, bounce off the hardened mindsets of the disenfranchised, and are cast aside as hollow calls to action by taxpayers long frustrated by the broken promises of the elected, the annointed, and those who have become the entrenched benefactors of a self-perpetuating system that thrives on the apathy of the electorate.
Cynicism notwithstanding, perhaps there's now a new wave of enthusiasm, churned up in the sometimes frenetic and too often overstated rhetorical waters of change, evidenced by voters turning out at the polls in record numbers, offering the hope that, if not a revolution, then at least a realization, is at hand.
A realization that it is, after all, the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, and the taxpayer who, above all, needs to be that squeak.
- - -
From Newsday's Editorial Page
TO: Fellow Mad-as-Hell Taxpayers
Another day, another scandal involving wasted tax dollars. Isn't that the way you feel sometimes when you pick up the newspaper?
This past week, there was a story about a prosperous-looking lawyer, Lawrence Reich, who wriggled his way into the state pension system. He did so by having himself listed as a full-time employee on the books of five separate Long Island school districts. In fact, he was working as a consultant, but his dishonesty qualified him for a public pension of nearly $62,000 a year. By the end of the week, two more law firms and 11 school districts were implicated in similar sweetheart deals. We taxpayers are their dupes.
Then there was the $85,000 Mastic Beach public pool tile repair that turned into a $7.1-million payday for the contractors. Can you imagine continuing to sign those bills without at least asking a few tough questions? If hard-working, honest Long Islanders aren't fed up by now with this abuse of our trust, then we are as numb as ocean swimmers in February.
It's one thing to look at a rising property tax bill and think, "At least I'm getting good services." Most people don't mind paying for a fair value, right?
But giving money to people who game the system, who are continually figuring out new and sneakier ways to enrich themselves beyond our control ... that leaves a sick feeling.
One way to handle it is to immerse ourselves in our busy lives. We shrug about how we're powerless, roll up the windows in our minivans and keep driving on.
But reality continues to knock.
This winter, we learned that the superintendent of the Water Authority of Great Neck North, Robert Graziano, makes $192,427 a year, which is more than the salary for the governor of New York! He bought a car on the taxpayer's dime - a 2005 Ford Crown Victoria - and also a 42-inch plasma TV. He justified the TV to his board by saying it was for "security" purposes. Oh, sure. That Giants-Patriots game probably never looked safer.
The man even hired his son, Gregory, and got him a $38,300 pay increase just this year. Which of us wouldn't like to obtain secure jobs for our children and pay them enough to live in Nassau County? Gregory Graziano's salary is now $140,000.
These special districts are part of what drives up the cost of living and makes it hard for our children to settle here. Special taxing districts bill Nassau and Suffolk taxpayers $500 million a year, or about $726 for every family of four. That money could go a long way toward paying the home heating bills this winter.
Time to wake up
It feels as though some public employees - not all of them, of course; thank goodness there are still dedicated public servants here who respect their constituents - have lost their sense of honor. Honor is an old-fashioned word, but what else keeps someone from dipping a hand in the till when he or she can get away with it?
Brookhaven Town Supervisor Brian X. Foley, who took office five years into the project, says he welcomes an investigation of the out-of-control spending on the Mastic Beach pool. Too bad it wasn't investigated long before all the headlines. Or how about Harborfields' former assistant schools superintendent, who warned Reich in 2005 that he should correct the record of his employment status or risk having his "picture in Newsday"?
Really, is public humiliation the only check on these people? Sometimes, it feels as though they are laughing at us.
The first wake-up call came a few years ago, when officials announced that Roslyn school administrators had stolen millions of dollars from the district. Don't you remember seeing the former school superintendent, Frank Tassone, dressed for his sentencing in an orange jailhouse jumpsuit? He got four to 12 years in prison. What a shame. This is a man who was in a position to be a role model for our children. Let's hope they don't follow his example.
His arrest led to probes of several Island school districts, and that lesson wasn't lost on voters. They rejected school budgets in near-record numbers in 2005. The voting booth is one of the only outlets for our outrage.
But most of the school districts scheduled a second vote and won. Word spread among parents that if the budgets weren't approved, the schools would cut our classroom teacher's aide or the band program or bus service - things that are near to our hearts. Of course we felt blackmailed into passing the budget on the second vote. Even when taxpayers try to stand up, we get shoved back down into our seats.
Is it any wonder we develop a cynical shell and tune out?
Only a few hundred people voted in this past December's election of special district representatives, even after the Graziano tale and other abuses of the system came to light. To be fair, one would have to be a walking Day Runner to keep up with these special district election schedules. There are 11 dates a year across Long Island - one every month except for February.
Reform is clearly needed. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has at least proposed to do away with the salaries and benefits of special district officers; unpaid posts are the norm in most of New York. Officials should also create a simpler election calendar. And, sure, the FBI is on the case investigating Reich. County prosecutors, state comptrollers, IRS agents - we can rely on them to step in when a situation turns really bad.But school embezzlers and other scoundrels will probably keep gambling that they won't get caught.
What to do, what to do?
There's more we can do, as individuals. But it's going to take stepping on the brakes of that minivan and rolling down our windows. It's going to take a quiet revolution in what we value.
Say we decided to give up boasting about our cars or boats or summer homes. Say we bragged instead about how carefully our school district spends our money - and we know because we attend the meetings or serve on the board.
We could keep an eye open for that commissioner or labor leader living beyond his or her means, and ask how that's possible. When a public pool is closed for five years running - stranding the girls' swim team on dry land - we could make a few more inquiries. Learn about the Freedom of Information Act. Request documentation. Write a letter to the editor. Blow the whistle.
There are a few souls in every community who get involved beyond all expectation. Perhaps we could learn to treasure them more, and join them. That would give new meaning to the word "citizen." That would be an example worth setting.
Forward this message to everyone you know.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
A basic premise of The Community Alliance blog -- indeed, the very foundation of our organization's existence -- is that good citizens need to be informed and involved if government is to work, and to work for us.
How many times -- on issues ranging from property taxes to illegal accessory apartments, affordable housing to zoning -- have we called upon residents to borrow a page from the movie Network (heck, rent the DVD), and to open their windows, stick their heads out, and shout, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore?"
At least once or twice, if memory serves.
If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times: "Join your local civic." "Attend town meetings and community forums." "Ask your (legislator, town supervisor, local commissioner, school board trustee), 'What have you done for our community lately?'" "Attend budget hearings and demand to know where every tax dollar is being spent." And for your own sake, if not that of your neighbors, "VOTE!"
On that last, but certainly not insignificant point, we've pondered, "When we send the same elected officials back to the same jobs, year after year after year (substitute "decade" or "century" where applicable), do we really expect anything will change?"
Unfortunately, many of our musings (some say, tirades) fall upon the deaf ears of the indifferent, bounce off the hardened mindsets of the disenfranchised, and are cast aside as hollow calls to action by taxpayers long frustrated by the broken promises of the elected, the annointed, and those who have become the entrenched benefactors of a self-perpetuating system that thrives on the apathy of the electorate.
Cynicism notwithstanding, perhaps there's now a new wave of enthusiasm, churned up in the sometimes frenetic and too often overstated rhetorical waters of change, evidenced by voters turning out at the polls in record numbers, offering the hope that, if not a revolution, then at least a realization, is at hand.
A realization that it is, after all, the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, and the taxpayer who, above all, needs to be that squeak.
- - -
From Newsday's Editorial Page
TO: Fellow Mad-as-Hell Taxpayers
Another day, another scandal involving wasted tax dollars. Isn't that the way you feel sometimes when you pick up the newspaper?
This past week, there was a story about a prosperous-looking lawyer, Lawrence Reich, who wriggled his way into the state pension system. He did so by having himself listed as a full-time employee on the books of five separate Long Island school districts. In fact, he was working as a consultant, but his dishonesty qualified him for a public pension of nearly $62,000 a year. By the end of the week, two more law firms and 11 school districts were implicated in similar sweetheart deals. We taxpayers are their dupes.
Then there was the $85,000 Mastic Beach public pool tile repair that turned into a $7.1-million payday for the contractors. Can you imagine continuing to sign those bills without at least asking a few tough questions? If hard-working, honest Long Islanders aren't fed up by now with this abuse of our trust, then we are as numb as ocean swimmers in February.
It's one thing to look at a rising property tax bill and think, "At least I'm getting good services." Most people don't mind paying for a fair value, right?
But giving money to people who game the system, who are continually figuring out new and sneakier ways to enrich themselves beyond our control ... that leaves a sick feeling.
One way to handle it is to immerse ourselves in our busy lives. We shrug about how we're powerless, roll up the windows in our minivans and keep driving on.
But reality continues to knock.
This winter, we learned that the superintendent of the Water Authority of Great Neck North, Robert Graziano, makes $192,427 a year, which is more than the salary for the governor of New York! He bought a car on the taxpayer's dime - a 2005 Ford Crown Victoria - and also a 42-inch plasma TV. He justified the TV to his board by saying it was for "security" purposes. Oh, sure. That Giants-Patriots game probably never looked safer.
The man even hired his son, Gregory, and got him a $38,300 pay increase just this year. Which of us wouldn't like to obtain secure jobs for our children and pay them enough to live in Nassau County? Gregory Graziano's salary is now $140,000.
These special districts are part of what drives up the cost of living and makes it hard for our children to settle here. Special taxing districts bill Nassau and Suffolk taxpayers $500 million a year, or about $726 for every family of four. That money could go a long way toward paying the home heating bills this winter.
Time to wake up
It feels as though some public employees - not all of them, of course; thank goodness there are still dedicated public servants here who respect their constituents - have lost their sense of honor. Honor is an old-fashioned word, but what else keeps someone from dipping a hand in the till when he or she can get away with it?
Brookhaven Town Supervisor Brian X. Foley, who took office five years into the project, says he welcomes an investigation of the out-of-control spending on the Mastic Beach pool. Too bad it wasn't investigated long before all the headlines. Or how about Harborfields' former assistant schools superintendent, who warned Reich in 2005 that he should correct the record of his employment status or risk having his "picture in Newsday"?
Really, is public humiliation the only check on these people? Sometimes, it feels as though they are laughing at us.
The first wake-up call came a few years ago, when officials announced that Roslyn school administrators had stolen millions of dollars from the district. Don't you remember seeing the former school superintendent, Frank Tassone, dressed for his sentencing in an orange jailhouse jumpsuit? He got four to 12 years in prison. What a shame. This is a man who was in a position to be a role model for our children. Let's hope they don't follow his example.
His arrest led to probes of several Island school districts, and that lesson wasn't lost on voters. They rejected school budgets in near-record numbers in 2005. The voting booth is one of the only outlets for our outrage.
But most of the school districts scheduled a second vote and won. Word spread among parents that if the budgets weren't approved, the schools would cut our classroom teacher's aide or the band program or bus service - things that are near to our hearts. Of course we felt blackmailed into passing the budget on the second vote. Even when taxpayers try to stand up, we get shoved back down into our seats.
Is it any wonder we develop a cynical shell and tune out?
Only a few hundred people voted in this past December's election of special district representatives, even after the Graziano tale and other abuses of the system came to light. To be fair, one would have to be a walking Day Runner to keep up with these special district election schedules. There are 11 dates a year across Long Island - one every month except for February.
Reform is clearly needed. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has at least proposed to do away with the salaries and benefits of special district officers; unpaid posts are the norm in most of New York. Officials should also create a simpler election calendar. And, sure, the FBI is on the case investigating Reich. County prosecutors, state comptrollers, IRS agents - we can rely on them to step in when a situation turns really bad.But school embezzlers and other scoundrels will probably keep gambling that they won't get caught.
What to do, what to do?
There's more we can do, as individuals. But it's going to take stepping on the brakes of that minivan and rolling down our windows. It's going to take a quiet revolution in what we value.
Say we decided to give up boasting about our cars or boats or summer homes. Say we bragged instead about how carefully our school district spends our money - and we know because we attend the meetings or serve on the board.
We could keep an eye open for that commissioner or labor leader living beyond his or her means, and ask how that's possible. When a public pool is closed for five years running - stranding the girls' swim team on dry land - we could make a few more inquiries. Learn about the Freedom of Information Act. Request documentation. Write a letter to the editor. Blow the whistle.
There are a few souls in every community who get involved beyond all expectation. Perhaps we could learn to treasure them more, and join them. That would give new meaning to the word "citizen." That would be an example worth setting.
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