Suspect identified in fatal home invasion
Uniondale
A wanted man with a criminal history dating back nearly 15 years was identified by police Saturday as the masked home invader involved in the death of a Hofstra University student early Friday morning.
Dalton Smith, who was wanted on a parole violation related to a first-degree robbery conviction, attempted to rob the off-campus home where he and Hofstra junior Andrea Rebello were fatally shot, Nassau County police said.
Authorities said police were involved in the shooting although it isn't clear who fired the shots that killed Rebello and Smith around 2:30 a.m. Friday. Police said they are still investigating.
Smith was identified using fingerprints just hours after funeral arrangement were made for Rebello, 21, a popular public relations major who was with her twin sister Jessica and other students in an off-campus house at the time of the break-in. The other students were unharmed.
Smith, of Hempstead, Long Island, had what police described as "an extensive criminal history," which included arrests for robbery in the first degree in 1999, promoting prison contraband in the second degree in 2000, robbery in the first degree in 2003, assault in the second degree in 2003 and robbery in the second degree in 2003.
Nassau County Chief of the Homicide squad Lt. John Azzata said in a statement that a warrant was issued for Smith on April 25 for absconding from parole.
The shooting, which took place just steps from campus, cast a pall over the university community as it geared up for commencement on Sunday.
Rebello's father, Fernando, was too distraught to discuss the incident in detail outside the family's Tarrytown, N.Y., home Friday.
"It's my daughter, my baby daughter," he told the Journal News through tears. "She was so beautiful. I'm so confused.
"I don't know what to do," he said.
The Journal News reported that Wednesday's funeral Mass for Rebello at Teresa of Avila Church in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., will be in Portuguese.
Hofstra's commencement ceremonies will go on as planned on Sunday. University spokeswoman Karla Schuster said she expects school President Stuart Rabinowitz to acknowledge the shooting in his remarks.
The two sisters, another woman and another man were inside the two-story rental house when the gunman, wearing a ski mask, forced his way in, according to Nassau County Inspector Kenneth Lack. The intruder allowed the third unidentified woman to leave, and she called 911.
A law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press the woman called 911 from near an ATM. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Victoria Dehel, who lives four houses away, said she heard what sounded like fighting. At first she ignored it, figuring it was from rowdy students coming home from a bar. Suddenly, "this girl was shrieking," followed by loud bangs just seconds later.
"It didn't sound good at all," Dehel said. "I turned to my boyfriend and I said, 'I think someone just got murdered.' It was awful."
Boston to study bomb response
Lowell, Mass.
Boston's police department and mayor's office will conduct twin reviews of the response to last month's bombing of the Boston Marathon, police commissioner Ed Davis said Saturday.
Davis said the aim of the reviews is to learn from the experience and prepare for the future.
"We are very anxious to get those reviews under way and learn lessons from anything that might pop up as an issue of concern," Davis said. "I expect that this whole year will be a time of review and reflection on what happened."
Davis addressed reporters after delivering the commencement address at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The event occurred a little more than a month after the April 15 bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260. The attacks made Davis a national figure.
He said one review, of all of the city's response services, will be conducted under the leadership of Mayor Thomas Menino and his office of Emergency Management. The second investigation will look at best practices and will be funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
"I fervently hope that each of these reviews help us learn more about our emergency services and will allow us to better prepare for other large-scale events in our future," Davis told hundreds of graduates, their families and faculty.
He couldn't immediately say when the investigations will start, only that he expects them to take "a few months." He did not know how much they are likely to cost.
Davis indicated that the bombings have changed the perspective of the city police department. He noted that ahead of the July 4 celebration in Boston, police officers will travel to New York City for additional training on securing large-scale public events.
Loyal Election Machine Could Help Disgraced Politician Win A Council Seat
NEW YORK — With Vito Lopez having unceremoniously resigned from the state Assembly where he once lorded over the powerful housing committee, the career politician has turned his attention to getting elected to the City Council. And he just might succeed.
That’s because the two other candidates in the race for the 34th district — one of whom is being backed by Council Speaker Christine Quinn — could end up appealing to the same pool of voters, potentially splitting them and handing Lopez a victory.
Perhaps more importantly, the disgraced former assemblyman, who is accused of sexually harassing several women, will undoubtedly call on his deep, established base of neighborhood support in the district to get out the vote on Election Day.
“He’s a wonderful man, a wonderful politician,” said Lalo Burgos, 73, who lives in the district and runs a barbershop near Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick. And he said Lopez takes care of residents. "That’s all that matters.”
John Mollenkopf, a professor at the Center for Urban Research of the CUNY Graduate Center, said that community support could make all the difference for Lopez.
"He runs an old-fashioned type of operation that’s very much based on loyalty," Mollenkopf said. "This will be a test of that loyalty.”
It also doesn’t take many votes to win in a Council primary: Diana Reyna, the term-limited Councilwoman who holds the seat, won in 2009 when there was no mayoral race, with 3,865 votes.
Last week’s release of an embarrassing state ethics report detailing allegations of Lopez’s misbehavior with female staffers led the 71-year-old legislator to announce his retirement at the end of the legislative session in June while also proclaiming his innocence.
The announcement was met with cries for an immediate resignation and movement within the Assembly to push him out of office.
Lopez then sped up his timeline. By Monday morning, his nameplate was taken from his office door and his Assembly web page was taken offline.
A second investigation, led by Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan as a special prosecutor, could find no basis for bringing criminal charges against Lopez. It did, however, call into question Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s role in a secret taxpayer-funded settlement for two of Lopez’s former staffers.
“I have maintained my innocence throughout this matter and I believe no criminal investigation should ever have been conducted,” Lopez said in his statement on May 17 announcing his resignation at the end of June before he was faced with the possibility of expulsion and resigned on Monday.
He said that he would focus on the Council race. “I expect to run a vigorous campaign on the issues facing the citizens of my community and hope to continue to serve them as a member of the City Council,” he said. “I believe that the voters of the community should decide who should represent them.”
Lopez and his representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.
The longtime politician’s deep ties to the Bushwick, Ridgewood and Williamsburg neighborhoods are rooted in his years as chair of the Assembly’s housing committee, through which he steered state money to his district for low-income housing and a popular senior center he created.
Founded in 1973, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, was one of the main beneficiaries of the money that Lopez made sure flowed from Albany to his district.
“He’s got a base of support through his social services that’s going to vote for him no matter what,” said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College.
And that, Muzzio says, could make the difference in how much the sexual harassment scandal plays into the Council race.
“In the ‘should’ world, this should kill him," Muzzio said. "But the ‘is’ world is another story.”
Muzzio said a split between the other two candidates could hand Lopez the spot on the Democratic ticket, tantamount to election in November. “It’s politics 101. If you want to win — split the competition,” Muzzio said.
Lopez lost some of his support when news leaked last year that Lopez had been accused of sexual harassment by several former female employees. Lopez, who had represented the 53rd Assembly District since 1984, was censured and stripped of his housing committee chairmanship — the very seat of power which he used to funnel funding to his constituents.
He also lost his seat as the Kings County Democratic Party chair, which he took over in 2006 from disgraced former Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr., after he was convicted of taking illegal campaign contributions.
Well before the ethics commission report was released, anti-Lopez protesters gathered on a soggy April afternoon around the corner from a posh Williamsburg restaurant on the water.
Organized by local members of the National Organization for Women and a progressive Democratic club, the New Kings Democrats, 20 or so protesters shouted from the sidewalk as cars drove in for Lopez’s first fundraiser for the Council race.
“It’s outrageous that someone who’s been accused of sexual harassment has the chutzpah to run for City Council,” said Lincoln Restler, a New Kings Democrats member and former Brooklyn district leader. Created in 2008, the reform club has spent years organizing against Lopez and endorsing candidates to subvert his influence across the borough.
One of those candidates is Antonio Reynoso, who is also a member of the New Kings Democrats. But he’ll also have to face Tommy Torres, 40, in the district’s Democratic primary.
Reynoso is the chief of staff to the 34th district's term-limited Councilwoman Diana Reyna, a former top aide to Lopez turned bitter foe. The 30-year-old Brooklyn native grew up in Williamsburg’s South Side before leaving for college upstate.
By the time Reynoso came back to Brooklyn, he knew he wanted to be in politics even if he didn’t know where to start. He said he went out one day with two resumes: one for Reyna and one for Lopez.
Lopez’s office was closed that day; Reyna hired him. “God steered me in the right direction,” Reynoso said.
Reynoso makes no effort to hide his disdain for Lopez, especially in the wake of last week’s report. “He should resign immediately and step away from serving public office,” he said. “There’s no remorse. There’s no realistic understanding of what he’s done. And that’s the biggest crime.”
Reynoso isn’t the only one upset by Lopez’s bid for City Council, and he’s already received powerful backing for his run. Speaker Christine Quinn launched a “Women for Reynoso” campaign, naming Reynoso as the only viable option for the 34th District.
“We must ensure that Vito Lopez never sets foot in City Hall,” Quinn said in a statement.
Reynoso has also been endorsed by another Democratic progressive in the mayoral race, Bill de Blasio, and has gained the support of major unions — which Muzzio said will be a key factor in the race. To beat Vito, he said, “You need organizational muscle.”
To date, Reynoso has raised around $86,000 for the race. While Lopez has managed to net approximately $38,000 for his City Council run, The New York Post has already reported that Lopez might be able to roll over some of the more than $1 million he has in state campaign coffers.
Meanwhile, Torres, the third candidate for the Council seat, has raised close to $23,000. A public school teacher and athletic coach, Torres grew up in Cooper Park Houses, one of Greenpoint’s public housing developments.
Torres stayed in the borough for college, going to St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights on a baseball scholarship. He followed that up with a master’s degree in education from Mercy College in Westchester County, which Torres said wouldn’t have been possible without the city’s public education program.
“I took advantage of the public schools,” said Torres over the phone after coaching a baseball game. “I came back to continue the good work.”
For either Reynoso or Torres to come out on top, they need to beat Vito’s ongoing popularity around the district. Throughout Bushwick, Lopez’s current constituents still say that they care more about his generosity than the allegations against him.
Caesar Bettencourt, 72, stood near a stoop along St. Nicholas Avenue as he defended Lopez.
“I think certain people are trying to make trouble for him,” said Bettencourt, a regular at the local senior center. “I think it’s all a setup. It’s politics.”
US chief justice commemorates Jackson Center in NY
JAMESTOWN — U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts may need a bigger suitcase for his return to Washington following a visit to his native western New York for the 10th anniversary of a center dedicated to the late Justice Robert H. Jackson.
Jackson's grandchildren presented Roberts with a gift intended for the entire high court, a life-size bronze bust of Jackson.
"It will occupy a place of great prominence at the court," Roberts promised after accepting the bust Friday, "just as his portrait does."
And at a reception with Jackson Center board members and community officials Thursday, Roberts was presented with a framed lithograph of Jackson.
Roberts, who was born in Buffalo, spent about 20 minutes Friday addressing a crowd of more than 2,000, most of them schoolchildren, from the front porch of the center in Jamestown. He stayed away from the weighty topics pending before the court, such as gay marriage, reflecting instead on the changes it has undergone since Jackson's day, from serious ones like the diversity of the justices down to the shape of their mahogany bench and the offerings in the public cafeteria.
Jackson served on the Supreme Court from 1941 to 1954 after getting his start as a country lawyer in western New York. He took a leave from the bench to oversee the Nuremberg Trials following World War II. The center was dedicated 10 years ago by Roberts' predecessor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had been a law clerk under Jackson. Roberts was a law clerk under Rehnquist.
"For some lawyers and judges, the law is merely a way of earning a wage, and others cannot see beyond shaping a pattern according to precedent," Roberts said in his address. "But some inspired lawyers and judges, like Justice Jackson, have understood that they are participating in a loftier enterprise. The Jackson Center is an enduring monument to that ideal."
Following the address, U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins delivered to the center's co-founder, Gregory Peterson, a framed bill, signed into law, that named a newly constructed federal courthouse in Buffalo after Jackson.
College student, intruder killed in NY break-in
UNIONDALE — A Hofstra University junior sharing an off-campus house with her twin sister and several other college students was shot and killed during an early morning break-in Friday that also left the armed intruder dead, police said.
The shooting at a private house only steps from the Long Island campus cast a pall over the university community gearing up for commencement ceremonies this weekend. Hofstra's president said in a statement that the ceremonies would go on as scheduled.
It wasn't clear who fired the fatal shots or how many rounds were fired, but authorities said police were involved in the shooting, which happened about 2:30 a.m. A weapon was found inside the house, police said.
Nassau County police and Hofstra University identified the slain student as Andrea Rebello, 21, of Tarrytown, N.Y. Her sister, Jessica, was also in the house at the time of the break-in but was not injured, police said. The gunman was not immediately identified.
"It's my daughter, my baby daughter," a crying Fernando Rebello told The Journal News outside his home Friday afternoon. "She was so beautiful. I'm so confused.
"I don't know what to do," he said, declining to discuss the incident further.
The two sisters, another woman and another man were inside the two-story rental house when the gunman, wearing a ski mask, forced his way in, according to Nassau County Inspector Kenneth Lack. The intruder allowed the third unidentified woman to leave, and she called 911. Police provided no other details on the man who was in the house at the time of the break-in, except to say he was not injured.
60 injured in train collision
Fairfield, Conn.
Two commuter trains serving New York City collided in Connecticut during Friday's evening rush hour, sending 60 people to the hospital, including five critically injured and one very critically injured, Gov. Dannel Malloy said. There were no reports of fatalities.
The Metro-North Railroad, a commuter line serving the northern suburbs, referred in a news release to a "major derailment" near Fairfield, just outside Bridgeport. It said emergency workers were at the scene of the accident, which came shortly after 6 p.m.
"We're most concerned about the injured and ultimately reopening the system," Malloy said from the scene about three hours after the crash. He said there was no reason to believe it was anything other than an accident.
Malloy said that most people were not seriously hurt. He said there was extensive damage to the train cars and the track, and it could take until Monday for normal service to be restored.
He said the area where the accident happened was down to two tracks because of repair work and that the accident will have a "big impact on the Northeast Corridor."
Bill Kaempffer, a spokesman for Bridgeport public safety, told The Associated Press that about 250 people were on board the two trains.
Photos taken at the scene showed a train car askew on the rails, with its end smashed up and brushing against another train. Amtrak suspended service indefinitely between New York and Boston.
"At this stage, we don't know if this is a mechanical failure, an accident or something deliberate," Fairfield police spokesman Lt. James Perez told the Connecticut Post.
The railroad said a train that departed New York City's Grand Central station en route to New Haven derailed. A westbound train on an adjacent track then struck the derailed train. Some cars on the second train also derailed as a result of the collision.
Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph Gaudett said everybody who needed treatment had been attended to, and authorities were beginning to turn their attention to investigating the cause.
"Everybody seemed pretty calm," he said. "Everybody was thankful they didn't get seriously hurt. They were anxious to get home to their families."
The Metro-North main lines run from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.
Next step awaited in Oneida deal
Albany
Gov. Andrew Cuomo used his usual carrot-and-stick approach to drive a settlement deal with the Oneida Indian Nation, putting an agreement together in short fashion, behind closed doors and in a manner that at least a few people felt was bullying.
Announced Thursday, the deal allows the territory of the tribe, which has been buying property around its 32-acre reservation for years, to grow to up to 25,000 acres through acquisition. It would share of slot machine revenue from the tribe's Turning Stone Casino for gaming exclusivity in Central New York.
The governor informed officials from Madison and Oneida counties that if they continued to pursue litigation against the tribe's land claims in central New York, the state would no longer cover the $2 million in annual legal expenses, said Oneida County Legislator Chad Davis, a Democrat from the New Hartford area.
"The governor threatened to pull the money and we'll be on our own," Davis said of Cuomo's remarks to a gathering just before it entered the Red Room for the announcement of the agreement to resolve land rights and taxation issues with the tribe.
A spokesman for Cuomo said the governor said that if the state withdraws under the settlement but the county does not, the county would have to go it alone.
"This is one of those issues; it's been ugly and counterproductive," Cuomo said in a radio interview Friday, emphasizing that the counties will gain millions of dollars in revenues annually if the deal is passed.
Judy Bachman of Vernon is the chairwoman of Citizens Equal Right Alliance, which is concerned about the Oneidas' acquisition of thousands of acres of land. She had heard from legislators about Cuomo's remarks, which she considered to be manipulative.
Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente said the governor said there would be repercussions if they voted against the deal. Picente said he did not take the governor's words as a threat.
"Sometimes the facts get in the way with these people," he said of the deal's critics. "Our risk is greater to keep going than to settle an agreement we can all live with. ... The governor said if you want to continue litigation, go ahead — but we won't."
Picente said even though the state is responsible to protect subdivisions from legal attacks, the Cuomo administration could pull financial support because the localities are the plaintiffs in two cases against the Oneidas, one a foreclosure matter and the other the plan by the U.S. Department of Interior to place 13,000 acres into trust for the tribe.
He said the deal Cuomo put together was done in less than three weeks; he believes the majority of members of the Madison County board of supervisors and the Oneida County board of legislators will vote to pass it.
Davis complained that the detailed agreement has not been provided. "That's why they want to railroad this thing," Davis said, adding that the deal arrived just as it appeared the Oneidas might be vulnerable in the court cases.
Cuomo said the Oneidas are taking advantage of gaining gambling exclusivity in central New York in exchange for sharing casino revenues and for making payments that would cover property taxes. If passed by the state Legislature, the agreement will finally bring that body's endorsement to the 1993 gaming compact that a state court ruled void because it was never authorized by lawmakers.
Cops: Body found in Plaza was homeless man
ALBANY (AP) — Authorities say they've tentatively identified the body found at the Empire State Plaza as that of a homeless man known to frequent the sprawling state government complex in downtown Albany.
State Police say they received a report around 6 p.m. Wednesday that a body had been found at the Empire State Plaza. Troopers say an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death. Notification of the man's relatives is pending his positive identification.
The body was found outside one of the plaza's high-rise office buildings. Several thousand state government employees work at the plaza, which also includes an underground concourse, parking garages and conference and performance venues.
Lopez is leaving; timing criticized
Albany
Scandal-scarred Assemblyman Vito Lopez is willing to resign his seat when the legislative session ends on June 20. But that's not soon enough for the chamber's Democratic leadership, which has been hammered by criticism of its handling of sexual harassment complaints against the Brooklyn lawmaker.
The subject of a scathing report from the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Lopez on Friday announced his intention to resign next month in order to run for New York City Council.
JCOPE's report and another from Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan were made public Wednesday, and concluded that Lopez engaged in serial sexual harassment and bullying of female members of his staff — including unwanted physical contact, demands for massages and the wearing of revealing clothing, and other inappropriate behavior.
In a brief statement released just before noon Friday, Lopez noted that Donovan's investigation concluded there was no basis for criminal charges. "I have maintained my innocence throughout this matter and I believe no criminal investigation should ever have been conducted," Lopez said.
"I have made no secret that I intend to run for New York City Council in November, which requires me to resign my current term. Nevertheless, because the citizens of my district voted me back into office last November by an overwhelming majority, I feel obligated to serve out this session of the Assembly," he continued.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's office announced Thursday evening that he would introduce a measure asking the chamber's Ethics Committee to review the full JCOPE report and consider sanctions against Lopez, including expelling him from the chamber. The draft resolution was circulated Friday in anticipation of a vote when the Legislature returns to Albany for its first four-day session week since the end of March.
Lopez's announcement was followed by a terse release from Silver's spokesman Michael Whyland: "Assembly member Lopez should no longer be in public office. We will move forward with our resolution on Monday."
Gov. Andrew Cuomo released a similar statement after saying in a radio interview that it would be "the height of hypocrisy" for the Assembly not to take action in response to Lopez's alleged misdeeds. "Vito Lopez should not spend another day in office, let alone a whole month," Cuomo said. "He should resign effective immediately and if he does not, he must be expelled. "
Silver faced criticism for his office's decision to strike a confidential settlement with two other alleged Lopez staffers for more than $100,000 in taxpayer funds. That secret deal, Donovan concluded, allowed Lopez to continue his alleged pattern of abuse.
Despite the heat, most Assembly Democrats were directing their ire at Lopez. Capital Region freshmen Patricia Fahy and John McDonald expressed their continued support for Silver despite his admission of errors in the settlement. "There's disappointment in how this may have been handled," said McDonald.
Fahy said she would not contribute to the "feeding frenzy" surrounding Silver, who has otherwise impressed her with his engagement on women's issues including anti-harassment efforts.
She said that a leadership vacancy would further undo an already scandal-plagued session. "What good would result," Fahy said, "from this place descending into complete chaos?"
cseiler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5619 • @CaseySeiler
Cuomo to Lopez: Quit or be expelled
Albany
Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on Assemblyman Vito Lopez, a former Democratic power broker from Brooklyn, to resign in the wake of sordid sexual harassment allegations brought by female staff members.
If he won't quit, Cuomo said Thursday, his colleagues should expel him from the chamber.
"The more facts that have come out in this matter, the uglier it has gotten," Cuomo said at a Capitol news conference. "I have three young daughters who would love to work in government, volunteer in government. ... Whatever procedures they have need to be dramatically redone, because this can't be allowed to happen again."
A "zero tolerance" policy is needed in cases of substantiated sexual harassment in the Assembly, the governor said. But Cuomo, a Democrat, stopped short of calling for action against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, despite calls by Republicans and the good-government group Common Cause for a change in Assembly leadership.
Two reports released Wednesday detailed how Silver's lawyers entered into a confidential settlement with two women who accused Lopez of sexual harassment in 2011 — charges that the leadership never referred to the Assembly Ethics Committee. One report, by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, detailed how Assembly lawyers decided that since the women filed no formal "complaint," the matter could be settled without the bipartisan committee being informed. The women instead retained an attorney who negotiated the settlement, which included $103,080 in taxpayer funds and $32,000 from Lopez. The second report, by special prosecutor Dan Donovan, the Republican district attorney from Staten Island, said this action "encouraged" Lopez to offend again. Which he allegedly did.
It's not easy to expel a member of the Legislature, but the state Senate in 2010 voted to oust Hiram Monserrate after he was convicted of misdemeanor harassment in connection with a domestic dispute.
Cuomo was asked if he had any specific criticisms of how Silver, D-Manhattan, handled the matter.
"The way the Assembly handled it? Yes," Cuomo replied. "Is that the speaker or other people? I don't know. ... It was handled poorly and terribly."
Silver has previously asked Lopez to resign. Mike Whyland, a Silver spokesman, issued a statement reiterating that mistakes were made.
"While the report found no legal or ethical violations by the speaker or his staff, the speaker has said since August that the Assembly should not have agreed to a confidential settlement," said Whyland who later added: "Speaker Silver intends to draft and introduce a resolution tomorrow, to be voted on Monday, to ask the Ethics & Guidance Committee to consider the full JCOPE report and to recommend appropriate sanctions including expulsion of Assembly member Lopez."
Republican State Chairman Ed Cox has been calling for Silver's resignation since the allegations against Lopez were first revealed in August. At the time, the speaker stripped Lopez of several perks and banned him from employing young women.
"By silencing earlier victims of sexual abuse ... Speaker Silver is directly responsible for their subsequent victims," Cox said.
In a radio interview, Albany County District Attorney David Soares said the Assembly's sexual harassment procedures are "awful," and urged any victim to contact his office.
Common Cause Executive Director Susan Lerner called for a leadership referendum, questioning whether Silver has "absorbed the lessons of any of the various sexual harassment/abuse scandals."
Lerner said Silver's aides abrogated their responsibility and "took every measure possible to avoid engaging in a proper investigation in compliance with (the Assembly's) own sexual harassment procedures in order to protect Vito Lopez."
jvielkind@timesunion.com • 518-454-5081
Photos: Going after a record
French professional sailor Francis Joyon takes his trimaran IDEC past Manhattan's skyline Thursday. Joyon arrived in New York with his trimaran as he waits for a weather window to challenge the solo trans-Atlantic sailing record from New York to Cape Lizard, England. Joyon will attempt to break the rec ord of 5 days, 19 hours and 20 seconds.
Cuomo finances detailed in report
Albany
A financial disclosure form posted online Thursday shows Gov. Andrew Cuomo's net worth to be at least $1.8 million.
Most of Cuomo's assets are in what his aides have said is a blind trust with AMG National Bank. On his 2012 tax returns, the governor disclosed he exchanged $668,539 worth of investments in the trust account for a net loss. The form reveals for the first time that the AMG account is worth between $1.75 million and $2 million. Cuomo also declared between $5,000 and $20,000 in a federal deferred compensation plan from his time as HUD secretary.
The disclosure form, filed with the state's Joint Commission on Public Ethics, does not require Cuomo to declare the size of his personal checking account; Cuomo's taxes reported $1,657 in interest from an account at JP Morgan Chase Bank in 2012. The disclosure form indicates Cuomo does not have any interest worth more than $1,000 in any other stocks, bonds or real estate. Cuomo lives in a home owned by his romantic companion, Food Network host Sandra Lee. The two share in household expenses, Cuomo's aides have said.
Cuomo's taxes reported his adjusted gross income for 2012 as $187,499 — the bulk of it from his $168,910 salary as governor. Cuomo reported $40,705 in tax-exempt interest income related to the AMG account.
The disclosure form also revealed the governor accepted an airplane trip from Andrew Farkas, a developer who once employed the governor, in 2012. The value of the trip was over $1,000.
JCOPE also posted disclosure forms for Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
'New York Now' looks into team's name
Don't miss this week's episode of "New York Now," a state Emmy-winning co-production of WMHT and the Times Union. Here are highlights:
WMHT's Matt Ryan looks at the Cooperstown school district's decision to swap its sports team's name "Redskins" for the slightly more sensitive "Hawkeyes," and one regional tribe's way of saying thanks.
Times Union state editor Casey Seiler convenes the Reporters Roundtable with Bill Hammond of the Daily News and Pat Bailey of WRGB Ch. 6 to discuss the release of the report on Assemblyman Vito Lopez's alleged misdeeds, and the land deal struck between the Cuomo administration and the Oneidas.
"New York Now" airs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. Sunday on WMHT Ch. 17.
Two Pivotal Elections: What The 1977 Mayoral Race Can Tell Us About 2013
NEW YORK — Seven Democrats want their party’s nomination for mayor and the frontrunner is a woman who would be the first of her sex to lead City Hall. Two Democratic candidates of color may eat into each other’s bases. Credible candidates on the Republican side have a good shot at a win. Minor party designations could play a major role come November. The New York Post is angling to have a big say in who gets elected.
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The 2013 mayoral race? No, the 1977 free-for-all — the last big, multi-candidate election for mayor where almost nothing was predictable.
A look back at the contest that marked a shape-shift in the city over 35 years ago demonstrates how much has changed in both our politics and our social and economic make-up since then.
But to Kenneth Sherrill, professor of political science at Hunter College and was elected Democratic District Leader in 1977, it is the voters who have changed most of all.
“A lot of the voters of that election are dead, the city is much less white, the make-up of white ethnics has changed, there was no Asian American vote then, and the immigrant population wasn’t what it is now,” he said. “Today there isn’t the bankruptcy or crime that there was then, so the inferences about what, for instance, the African American or Jewish vote would do now are very different.”
A TUMULTUOUS TIME IN POLITICSThe year 1977 was a tumultuous and pivotal one in New York City politics.
It was best remembered for a steaming hot July blackout that was followed by looting and arson, the “Son of Sam” murders that had the city on edge, the rise of Rupert Murdoch’s transformation of the once-liberal New York Post into a sensationalistic rightwing Brit-style tabloid, and the first Yankees World Series win under owner George Steinbrenner.
The Bronx was burning — figuratively and literally — and the city was still simmering from Republican Gerald Ford initial denial of a bailout two years earlier.
The year 2013 is no less pivotal and tumultuous for the city’s politics.
The longtime incumbent mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who was not supposed to have a third term and got one after changing the term limits law with the help of the City Council and Speaker Christine Quinn, is about to depart after overseeing a prosperous period of growth and development — at least for those at the top — that had the business elites cheering.
As his term winds down, the mayor is warning against a return to “the bad old days,” trying to answer the rising indignation of a coalition of progressives, people of color and civil rights advocates who have called attention to what they say have been overly aggressive police tactics during Bloomberg’s tenure, such as stop-and-frisk and the surveillance of Muslims.
Even without the public debate over police tactics, there would be enough to shape the mayoral election: school reform and whether to continue mayoral control; rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy and responding to future disasters; and the erosion of the city’s middle class and the inequality gap that has widened over the past decade.
1977: A Stellar Field Of CandidatesIn 1977, despite presiding over the city’s economic meltdown, Democratic Mayor Abraham Beame — who had the added liability of having been the comptroller when the city’s books were coming apart at the seams — ran for re-election.
In addition to Beame on the Democratic side, two liberal Manhattan Congress members jumped in — the relatively unknown Ed Koch and the famous Bella Abzug, who was coming off a razor-thin primary loss in 1976 to Daniel Patrick Moynihan for the Democratic nomination for US Senate.
Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton also got in the race — the first black with a credible shot at becoming mayor — but so did Herman Badillo, a Congressman from the Bronx who had served as Bronx borough president and was the first Latino with a serious chance of winning the top spot in City Hall.
The longest-shot Democrat in 1977 was the former chair of the City Club of New York, Joel Harnett, who got on the primary ballot but would only go on to garner 1 percent of the vote.
And last but by no means least there was Mario Cuomo, Gov. Hugh Carey’s secretary of state, whose claim to fame then was mediating a dispute for Mayor John Lindsay over a public housing project planned for upper middle class Forest Hills.
It was Carey, one of the architects of the bailout for the city, who pushed Cuomo to run for mayor.
There was a Republican primary in 1977, too, with liberal state Sen. Roy Goodman of the Upper East Side, heir to the Ex-Lax fortune, squaring off with popular conservative radio talk show host Barry Farber.
Minor parties played a key role in 1977 as they very well may this year. Farber lost the Republican nomination to Goodman but had the Conservative Party line. And Cuomo won the Liberal Party line.
The conventional wisdom made Abzug, who died in 1998, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination — based on her name recognition and strong showing for US Senate — and all the talk was about who in the crowded field would end up in the runoff with her after the initial primary vote.
Legendary journalist Doug Ireland, who is still writing today, managed Abzug’s Senate campaign but tried to discourage her from running for mayor and to instead try again for Congress, which he said he felt was more suited to her talents.
“I told her she wasn’t prepared and it would kill her chances for future office,” he said. “It Stassen-ized her,” he said, referring to Harold Stassen, a wartime Minnesota governor who ran for the Republican nomination nine times starting in 1948.
Abzug lost two subsequent U.S. House races on Manhattan’s East Side in 1978 and in Westchester in 1986. She also tried to get her old West Side seat back in 1992 when Ted Weiss died, but was beaten in a party convention by Jerry Nadler, who still holds the seat today.
A Violent Summer Shaped the 1977 RaceThe 1977 race was very much a creature of external events, primarily the “Son of Sam” murders that had begun the previous year, with most victims young lovers in parked cars, and the arson and the chaotic aftermath of the July 13 blackout.
As Sewell Chan of the Times wrote on the 30th anniversary of the blackout: “1,000 fires were reported, 1,600 stores were damaged in looting and rioting and 3,700 people were arrested. Neighborhoods from East Harlem to Bushwick were devastated. The authorities later estimated that the total cost of the blackout exceeded $300 million.”
While these events by themselves might not have been enough to turn voters away from the more liberal candidates — particularly Abzug — the sensationalizing of these events by the New York Post under its new owner Mudoch were.
As Jack Doyle wrote in “Murdoch NY Deals: 1976-77,” the Post blackout headline was “24 HOURS OF TERROR.” He quotes Pete Hamill of the Daily News writing, “Something vaguely sickening is happening to that newspaper, and it is spreading through the city’s psychic life like a stain.”
When Murdoch decided to endorse Ed Koch, he was running at about 4 percent in the polls and was a virtual unknown citywide.
While Koch might have been the bachelor congressman from Greenwich Village — and was gaybaited by some in the Cuomo camp with “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo” posters in conservative precincts — Murdoch picked up on him as one of the only pro-death penalty Democrats who was willing to take up the banner of “law and order.”
“There are many reasons why Mr. Koch became the next mayor,” wrote Joyce Purnick, a reporter for the Post during that election, in a story a few years ago in the New York Times, “but I will always believe that the blackout separated him from the pack.”
Koch also hired legendary political consultant David Garth, who had guided John Lindsay to re-election in 1969 and went on to make Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg mayors. Garth's famous winning ad slogan for Koch was: "After eight years of charisma and four years of the clubhouse, why not try competence?” -- digs at both Lindsay and Beame respectively. In 2010, the NY Times wrote, "Just by signing on with Mr. Koch, Mr. Garth had conferred instant credibility on his fledgling campaign. 'Without him,' Mr. Koch said, 'I would never have been mayor.'"
Koch was also helped by an innovation taken for granted now — overnight polling. The Fix reported in an article titled "Ed Koch, polling pioneer" that polling data in 1977 had to be filtered through university computers, a process that took days. Garth hired Mark Penn, then still a college student, and his pal Doug Schoen, to do their polling, and Penn built his own computer to be able to process their polling data immediately — such as testing Koch's famous slogan for impact.
While Abzug is generally regarded as the most liberal candidate in the race — Ireland calls her “the first radical elected to Congress since Vito Marcantonio” (the East Harlem Communist elected as a Republican to the House in 1934), Badillo was also running to the left as “a champion of the poor,” Ireland said, “and then he went on to work for Koch and Giuliani who were declared enemies of the poor."
To help Koch, the Post focused its negative coverage on Abzug and Cuomo.
About two weeks before the primary, a Times/CBS News poll had Beame and Abzug at 17 percent each, Cuomo at 14 percent, Koch with 12 percent, Sutton with 9 percent, and Badillo with 7 percent. It was anybody’s ballgame.
When the votes were counted on Sept. 8, 1977, Koch led the pack with 19.81 percent followed by Cuomo, who had the Times’ endorsement, with 18.74 percent, putting them in the runoff triggered by no one getting 40 percent.
In third was Beame with 17.98 percent and early frontrunner Abzug finished out of the money with 16.56 percent. Sutton got 14.42 percent, Badillo 10.97 percent, and Harnett 1.53 percent.
Koch beat Cuomo in the runoff for the Democratic nod 55 to 45 percent, and Cuomo ran hard on the Liberal line in the general election losing 50 to 41 percent with Goodman the Republican and Farber the Conservative getting 4 percent each.
How did Koch win?
“One, I lost the black vote because they came and asked for a deal — a commitment for a black vice mayor,” Mario Cuomo told the Gotham Gazette. “I didn’t think that such a deal was a good idea. Badillo asked for same thing. I told him no. Meade Esposito, the Democratic boss in Brooklyn, asked for a deal and I said no. That was the Koch victory. Nothing illegal or terrible for them asking for it, I just wasn’t comfortable in giving it.”
Koch did make those deals to get elected, but they didn’t work out for him in the long run. He appointed Basil Paterson, a Harlem leader and father of former Gov. David Paterson, and Badillo as deputy mayors. But neither lasted much longer than a year — Paterson becoming secretary of state under Carey and Badillo quitting in a dispute with him over his failure to deliver for the South Bronx. The deals with boss Esposito, Queens boss Donald Manes and Bronx boss Stanley Friedman didn’t catch up with Koch until his third corruption-scarred term.
Role of Minor PartiesBarry Farber, still a conservative radio talk show host, said there was one big difference between 1977 and 2013: “There was a meaningful Liberal Party and a meaningful Conservative Party in ’77.”
Indeed, though Farber ended up with 4 percent in the general election in 1977, “there was a scenario for me to win on the Conservative line and doing an insurgency on the Republican line if the Democrats had lived up to their habits and nominated the leftmost candidate” — Abzug.
In Farber’s view, he was preempted by conservative Democrats.
“Ed Koch took the biggest broad jump in history and adopted the social welfare policy of Genghis Khan. He didn’t edge toward right. He came out as though there had never been a leftist,” he said. “Cuomo was considered the second most conservative and he finished second. Beame, the incumbent, was the third most conservative” and he finished third with Bella fourth.
The Liberal Party hasn’t enjoyed automatic ballot status since Andrew Cuomo had their line for governor in 2002 and then refused to campaign and opposed the Democratic nominee Carl McCall, having already dropped out of the Democratic primary.
But this year, the Liberals, which were the key to Rudy Giuliani’s two mayoral wins, have given their line to grocery store chain billionaire John Catsimatidis who wants to be the next Bloomberg.
The Working Families Party, which supplanted the Liberals, has yet to designate a candidate and may be unable to settle on one in the crowded primary given their complex, consensus-building nomination process.
The Independence Party, which gave Bloomberg the minor party help he needed to become mayor three times, has designated former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion as their nominee.
Carrion and Catsimatidis along with former Giuliani Deptuy Mayor and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota and homeless advocate George McDonald are running for the Republican nomination with Lhota the early favorite — though no poll has come out since his labeling of Port Authority police as “mall cops” got a lot of pushback from his base and he had to apologize.
The Conservative Party, long led by Mike Long, has not yet made a pick, but will before the September primary.
Carrion doesn’t want his nomination, but the others in the Republican primary do and Long will pick one of them (despite some of their socially liberal positions) because he fears the leading Democrats “would really take the city backwards a lot of years,” he told Crain’s.
2013 a Different TimeWhat has changed since 1977? To Bill Lynch, it is the voters who have changed.
“The difference is the voters have changed drastically,” said Bill Lynch, a Harlem-based political consultant who managed David Dinkins’ mayoral campaigns and served as his deputy mayor. People of color — once called “minorities” — have became the majority.
But the city has also become what Bloomberg calls “a luxury product,” which in recent years has attracted the people of means who fled urban America in the 1970s but have returned to New York City en masse, driving real estate to stratospheric levels while the market still languishes in most parts of the country.
“One lesson of 1977,” said Sherrill, “is that once you have a certain number of candidates, it is impossible to go over 40 percent, and it is hard to predict who will be the top two. The other lesson given who ended up in the runoff is never to underestimate anybody. There were some people who predicted Koch-Abzug, but nobody predicted Koch-Cuomo.”
This year, the Democratic field is as crowded as it was in 1977 and gaming out who will be the top two in the expected runoff following September’s primary is anybody’s guess. Three seem to be vying for most liberal — Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, and former City Council Member Sal Albanese — while former Comptroller and 2009 Democratic candidate Bill Thompson has moved toward the center.
Quinn is to Thompson’s right, though even she is tacking left with proposals to oversee the police department more closely after she agreed to back a bill that would impose an independent monitor over the NYPD, and finally giving in on a paid sick leave bill — albeit in a much watered-down version.
If former Congressman Anthony Weiner jumps in — and he comes in second to Quinn in recent polls — he would fit somewhere between the left candidates and Thompson.
Sherrill said that for all the help Koch got from the Post, the election came down to a message that resonated with voters. And, so far, he said he had not heard a message from any of the 2013 candidates that resonates.
“You go to the boroughs outside Manhattan and you hear about an unresponsive government that took care of the affluent on Wall Street and did not help them,” Sherrill said. “I think a candidate who makes an appeal to frustrated working-class people that he or she will stand up for against the relatively well off who saw a much more rapid recovery can do very well in the parts of the city that were devastated and haven’t bounced back. With the rising inequality, there is a strong sense that no one is looking out for ‘people like me.’ I would not be surprised to hear Anthony Weiner take that up. I would not be surprised if the election turned on personality and style more than the issues. I think an angry candidate can do very well, I’m afraid.”
Andy Humm is the co-host of the weekly Gay USA cable TV show, a contributor to Gay City News, and a former city Human Rights commissioner.
UPDATE: This version is updated with more information on Koch's 1977 campaign.
Lopez helped to get top state post
Albany
One of the marginal details in the long-awaited report on alleged serial sexual harassment by Assemblyman Vito Lopez casts a light on how a young attorney landed a top job at the state Workers' Compensation Board.
The 68-page report by the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics refers to "Employee 2," a woman who worked as a legislative assistant in Lopez's district office for two years before being promoted in January 2011 to serve as his chief of staff.
"Many staff members said she was very highly regarded by Lopez, and Employee 2 herself described how she and her boyfriend (now husband) traveled to Atlantic City to gamble with Lopez," states the report, which was made public Wednesday. "Employee 2 also acknowledged that Lopez played a role in securing a job for her husband as the Executive Director of a New York State agency. Employee 2's husband was appointed to the position in January 2010."
While the couple remains unnamed in the public version of the report, the only person appointed as the executive director of a state agency in January 2010 was Jeffrey Fenster, who was selected by Gov. David Paterson to lead the Workers' Compensation Board for an annual salary of $141,730. Fenster was at the time dating and is now married to Lopez's former chief of staff.
At the time of his appointment, Fenster was a 29-year-old attorney with the New York City law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. His lack of management experience or expertise in workers' compensation law raised eyebrows. Nine months after the hiring, the Daily News spotted Fenster running interference between Lopez and reporters at a raucous meeting of the Kings County Democratic Party.
Employee 2, who according to the report became aware of Lopez's bullying treatment of female staff members during her employment in his office, left the lawmaker's service in August 2011 for a job with the New York City Department of Finance — a position she initially kept secret from the Brooklyn Democrat.
Employee 2 told investigators that remaining Lopez staffers confided that he tried to meddle with her new job as retaliation for her departure.
Fenster did not respond to a request for comment. Instead, board spokeswoman Rachel McEneny said in an email that "Jeff's been a consummate professional in his work on the board and was an instrumental part of our reforms to the workers' compensation system that will save businesses $800 million" — a reference to changes Gov. Andrew Cuomo included in the state budget for the fiscal year.
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi would not comment on the record. Paterson did not respond to a reporter's request left with his spokesman, and Lopez's lawyer was unresponsive.
There are others at Workers' Compensation with current or past family ties to power: The board's vice chair is Frances Libous, a registered nurse who is the wife of state Sen. Tom Libous, R-Binghamton.
Four of the board's 13 members are serving past the expiration of their terms.
cseiler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5619 • @CaseySeiler
NYC's subway system preparing for next big storm
NEW YORK — Removable panels and inflatable plugs are among the ideas New York City's transit officials are considering to stop the next big storm from flooding the subway system the way Superstorm Sandy did, officials said Thursday.
Interim Executive Director Thomas Prendergast said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority investigating whether removable panels could be placed over ventilation grates and stairwells. The panels would be sealed shut with foam and should work better than the plywood and sandbags the agency uses now, Prendergast said.
"We don't have to wait for space age solutions or rocket science solutions," he said.
Prendergast said the MTA is also exploring other technologies such as an inflatable plug big enough to seal off a subway tunnel.
Eight of the MTA's underwater tunnels flooded during the storm last October. Most subway lines were out for only a few days but parts of the system have taken much longer to repair.
Prendergast said "A" train service to the Rockaways will resume May 30 for the first time since the storm.
The MTA is still assessing the closed South Ferry station at the southern tip of Manhattan, where Thursday's briefing was held in a crew room that flooded during the storm.
Lower Manhattan, home to the financial industry, City Hall and tens of thousands of residents, was where the subway system took its hardest hit from Sandy other than in the Rockaways.
Prendergast said there are 540 places in lower Manhattan where water can get into the system, including stairways, ventilation grates and emergency exits.
He said the MTA hopes to have some mechanism in place to plug them up by the end of the 2013 hurricane season or at least by the beginning of the 2014 season.
Should a hurricane come in the meantime, he said, "we would do what we did last time, which is sandbags and plywood."
— Associated Press
Judge blocks NYC plan for new taxis
NEW YORK — A judge has blocked New York City's plan for a mandatory uniform fleet of yellow taxis, ruling it violated a provision requiring a hybrid option.
The city's so-called Taxi of Tomorrow, a Nissan NV-200, is not a hybrid.
The judge's decision Wednesday declared the law creating the uniform fleet "null and void."
But the new taxis could still go forward. The Taxi and Limousine Commission had anticipated the judge's ruling. It said it will vote on a proposed rule that would allow drivers to continue using hybrids provided they met minimum size requirements.
The commission said in a statement that the new fleet's adoption later this year wouldn't be delayed.
City officials didn't challenge the judge's decision.
— Associated Press
O'Hara admits to felony
Albany
Ten days before his trial was to start, a former owner of the Albany Patroons championship basketball team pleaded guilty to a felony count in Texas as part of a public corruption investigation.
Entrepreneur and businessman Joseph O'Hara is scheduled to be sentenced July 30 after pleading guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, according to federal court records. A plea agreement calls for a term of 36 months and cash restitution to be determined. O'Hara, of Schenectady, once owned local sports teams and other businesses and served as a business consultant to public governments, school districts and private firms, including the personal improvement business NXIVM. Principals of NXIVM, which is based in Colonie, have had legal disputes with him for several years.
O'Hara, an attorney who owned the Patroons in the early 1990s, was indicted in November 2010 on three felony charges in El Paso, Texas. The 65-year-old was accused of bribing an administrator in a local school district. Federal prosecutors said he used a $5,000 campaign contribution to help secure a computer services contract.
While several documents in the O'Hara case are unavailable to the public, the record shows that O'Hara's guilty plea was accepted by Judge Frank Montalvo on Friday.
O'Hara's lawyer Albert Weisenberger said the plea offer had surfaced recently and O'Hara had been planning to go to trial May 20.
A former associate of O'Hara's had previously pleaded guilty to a felony charge related to the case and was planning to testify in the trial prior to his own sentencing, said Weisenberger. Some records in the case are sealed, he said, because of an ongoing investigation involving the El Paso Independent School District.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Western District of Texas was unavailable on Wednesday.
Weisenberger said that office has conducted a multi-year investigation of public corruption in the El Paso region. He said he is unaware of O'Hara assisting in other cases.
He said the maximum sentence his client faces is 20 years in prison. Under terms of the agreement, O'Hara, who has had a series of medical problems, seeks to begin his sentence Dec. 1, court records show.
Reporter Brendan Lyons contributed; jodato@timesunion.com • 518-454-5083
NanoCollege chief assigned to develop 'innovation hot spots' at state universities
Albany
Hoping to transition the state university system toward "entrepreneurial academics," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he has tapped Alain Kaloyeros, head of the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, to help set up business incubators the governor calls "innovation hot spots."
Kaloyeros sat two seats away from Cuomo for several hours on Wednesday as state officials ceremonially kicked off a third round of activity by the state's 10 regional economic development councils.
Cuomo stocked each council during his first year in office, and has used them as a vehicle for distributing state resources and encouraging local political, business, labor and arts representatives to develop strategic plans to guide development.
The councils will vie for a slice of $225 million in funding this year.
They'll also submit plans to create one of the new incubators. Five would be backed by seed money and allow participating companies to avoid paying taxes. Each would be attached to a university.
Kaloyeros did not give remarks during Wednesday's summit, but did ask several questions of council co-chairs, who gathered from around the state to brief the governor and his top aides on their efforts.
Cuomo called the NanoCollege — where companies pay to do research in a commonly owned facility on publicly owned tools — a "model."
The governor said Kaloyeros could help state universities convert research into economic activity, a process called "tech transfer."
"We're going to recruit Alain Kaloyeros, who has figured this out before most people knew the question, and he is going to help expedite this transition of thinking," Cuomo said. "It's delicate, because academics are academics. ... But you can be a great academic and you can be entrepreneurial, and I would argue you'd be a better academic if you were actually entrepreneurial."
Exactly what Kaloyeros will be doing is unclear, and most council members said they were unaware of his new role.
A spokesman for Empire State Development said Kaloyeros would serve as an adviser but would not get a formal title.
The spokesman said his work would not be limited to the regional councils, but would also include universities.
When asked, Kaloyeros said simply, "Whatever the governor wants me to do, I will do."
jvielkind@timesunion.com • 518-454-5081 • @JimmyVielkind
Bill: Ban fracking pollutants for treatment or dumping in state
Albany
State Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk was joined Wednesday by opponents of the natural gas drilling technique known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing to announce she'll introduce a bill to ban "the treatment, discharge, disposal, transportation or storage" of hydrofracking waste products in New York state."
The legislation, which is so new it currently lacks an Assembly sponsor, is meant to wall off the Empire State from what fracking opponents describe as a steady stream coming over the border from Pennsylvania, where the technique has been used for several years in the gas-bearing Marcellus Shale region.
"It simply makes no sense that we would accept hazardous wastes from other states while we are working to determine the environmental impact fracking would have on New York," the Duanesburg Democrat said at a Wednesday news conference.
Roger Downs of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter said fracking fluid had been shipped to treatment facilities or industrial use in Buffalo, Chautauqua County and other communities, while drill cuttings have ended up in landfills in a half-dozen localities.
"New York should not be Pennsylvania's dumping ground," Downs said.
Katherine Nadeau, water and natural resources director of Environmental Advocates, said the new bill should be addressed in parallel to a broader moratorium on fracking in the state — a measure that has been passed by the Assembly but remains blocked in the state Senate, where most Republicans support the implementation of the technique or are at least willing to place the decision in the hands of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo is still waiting for the completion of the Department of Environmental Conservation's regulatory framework for fracking, which in turn awaits a Department of Health review of the portion of the massive document concerning potential health impacts.
James Smith, a spokesman for the Independent Oil & Gas Association, said in an email that "the assumption that the lawful transportation and disposal of waste water is somehow a secret or an unregulated activity is absurd. Presenting this as some sort of crisis is irresponsible."
cseiler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5619 • @CaseySeiler
