Komen supporters conflicted
NEW YORK — When Dorothy Twinney first saw a Race for the Cure walk for breast cancer — "a sea of pink" traveling through her hometown of Plymouth, Mich. — she was so moved she wept.
This week, after watching The Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity announce plans to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, then abandon those plans amid a public furor, Twinney decided she was done with the organization for which she raised thousands of dollars on three-day, 60-mile walks that left her feet bloodied and blistered, but her spirits high. "It just feels like it's all tarnished now," the 41-year-old mother of two said.
At week's end, many longtime Komen supporters were feeling similarly conflicted. Some, depending on where they stood on the hot-button issue of abortion, called it more of a betrayal. Those who supported Komen's grants to Planned Parenthood for breast-cancer screenings called the initial move to cut them politically motivated; those opposed to the grants said the same thing about the reversal.
The outrage clearly stunned Komen, the country's most widely known breast cancer organization. "I think (Komen) has been horrified to be so caught up in this culture war," said Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League.
Many women described feeling caught in the middle when The Associated Press first reported on Tuesday that Komen had adopted criteria excluding Planned Parenthood from future breast screening grants because it was the subject of an investigation launched by a Florida congressman at the urging of anti-abortion groups. The grants totaled $680,000 in 2011.
Alyce Lee-Walker was one of them. A longtime Komen supporter, she'd never given money to Planned Parenthood. But when she learned of the funding cut, the small-business owner from Pinehurst, N.C., immediately went online to donate $188 — the 88 signifying good luck in Chinese.
Komen's reversal as well as its original move left her disgusted, she said: "It's all political."
Even angrier about the reversal were anti-abortion advocates who'd applauded Komen's original move.
"We were very happy to see (Komen) discontinue funding to Planned Parenthood," said Tony Lauinger, state chairman for Oklahomans For Life. "For an entity ... that's trying to prevent breast cancer across the world, it's directly counterproductive that the organization would be giving funds to Planned Parenthood, which is the largest provider of abortions in the country."
The controversy was rawest, it seemed, for breast cancer survivors, especially those, like Joyce Miller, who'd donated many hours of time to Komen. After her first breast cancer treatment, Miller spent an hour a day manning Komen's phone lines, for nearly two years.
"I do not forgive them," the 70-year-old Dallas woman said after the reversal. She said she was also thinking of her daughter, Twinney, the Michigan woman who spent years on the breast cancer walks.
As for Twinney, she didn't try to hold back the tears as she spoke of the years of fundraising. "Those weekends, on those walks, were some of the most special times of my life, next to the birth of my children," she said. "You met the best people in the world. This organization began for such a special reason. And I am just so disappointed right now."
State constitution reform effort seeks unity
Is 21st century New York state being strangled by a state constitution rooted in the 19th century? Redistricting rules, hotly debated this year, were inserted in the constitution in 1894. Showing that history does repeat itself, upstate was intended to be a Republican power center in the Senate in a move against New York City Democrats. Casino gambling is also illegal in the state, again it's part of the constitution. A major update is needed, but political reality makes a successful constitutional convention close to impossible. As a result, a new "coalition of opposites" has been formed to push for amendments to the constitution.
For the full story buy a copy of the Sunday Times Union at your favorite newsstand. It will appear later this week on timesunion.com.
Hacking keeps Boston police website offline
BOSTON — The Boston Police Department's website remains offline for the second day in a row after members of the hacking collective Anonymous defaced it.
People trying to access the website were redirected to the department's Facebook page Saturday, a day after the hackers posted rapper KRS-One "Sound of Da Police" music video that criticizes police brutality.
A message posted on the website Friday said, "Anonymous hacks Boston Police website in retaliation for police brutality at OWS." That's apparently a reference to Occupy Wall Street.
A police spokeswoman on Saturday declined to say why the website has not been restored and refused to discuss measures authorities were taking to bolster the site.
Anonymous is a collection of Internet enthusiasts, pranksters and activists whose targets have included Visa and MasterCard, the Church of Scientology and law enforcement agencies.
— Associated Press
NY police: Man high and going wrong way on parkway
BAY SHORE — State police have arrested a Long Island man accused of driving the wrong way for several miles on the Southern State Parkway while high on prescription drugs.
No injuries or accidents were reported in the 2:30 a.m. incident.
The driver, identified as 28-year-old John Brooks of Huntington, was arrested Friday after state police received multiple reports of a wrong-way driver traveling westbound in the eastbound lanes of the parkway in Suffolk County. He was charged with driving while ability impaired.
He was given a desk appearance ticket to return to court on Feb. 13. The name of his attorney was not immediately available.
State police say Brooks admitted taking prescription drugs earlier. They say he failed a sobriety test and was arrested.
The specific prescription drug was not immediately available.
SUNY Fredonia to lead Great Lakes pollution study
FREDONIA — Plastic pollution in the Great Lakes will be the focus of a study this summer.
Led by the State University of New York at Fredonia, researchers will try to quantify the amount of plastic polluting the fresh water Great Lakes. They also want to raise awareness about the danger to aquatic animals, who can become entangled in or eat the plastic bags and water bottles they encounter.
Coordinator Sherri Mason, a Fredonia chemistry professor, has established a partnership with the 5 Gyres Institute for the July study. The institute is dedicated to raising awareness of plastic polluting the oceans.
The survey will be funded by a $10,000 grant from the Cleveland, Ohio-based Burning River Foundation.
8k formerly homeless families to lose rent help
NEW YORK — New York City is cutting off rent-assistance payments to about 9,000 homeless families following a court decision, and advocates warned Friday the move could flood the city's shelter system.
The city announced its decision to cancel the Advantage rent-subsidy program in March after it lost state and federal funding, but until this week it had been forced by a court order to continue the payments while legal challenges to the decision played out. An appeal in the case is set to be heard next week, but on Thursday a judge ruled the city could proceed with its plans.
On Friday, advocates warned that many of the families would be forced to enter the city's shelter system. Most of the families had entered the program with the understanding that their payments would end by the summer of 2012.
The city's decision "will mean a surge of entries to our homeless shelters, which are already close to the breaking point," objected Public Advocate Bill de Blasio in a statement. Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said that continuing the program would have been cheaper than putting people in shelters.
Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond said in a statement that the Advantage program is too expensive for the city to support without help.
"The city taxpayers have borne alone the extraordinary cost of this program since the withdrawal of state and federal funding almost a year ago," he said. "We will continue to work aggressively to prevent and end homelessness in the absence of state and federal assistance."
NYPD puts shooter of suspect on restricted duty
NEW YORK — The New York Police Department announced Friday that a narcotics officer and his sergeant have been stripped of their guns and put on desk duty amid an investigation of the officer's killing of an unarmed drug suspect — a shooting that occurred within a few feet of the suspect's grandmother inside the family home.
The measures came after the New York Police Department backed away from an initial account saying that the officer had struggled with 18-year-old Ramarley Graham at the door of a bathroom. Police said a bag of marijuana was found in the toilet, suggesting Graham was trying to flush it away before the gunfire erupted.
A grand jury was expected to investigate the incident to determine if the officers should face criminal charges, said Police Commission Raymond Kelly, who also expressed sympathy for the family.
"We're obviously trying to get the facts," Kelly said at a news conference. "A young man's life was taken. ... It's the worst thing that can happen to a parent — to lose a child."
The NYPD did not immediately release the name of the 30-year-old officer or the sergeant, whose conduct was under scrutiny because he was in charge of the officers who responded to the home.
The shooting stemmed from an NYPD investigation of street-corner drug dealing in a Bronx neighborhood. On Thursday afternoon, a police "observation team" identified Graham as a potential suspect and radioed to other officers that he "appeared to be armed," Kelly said. In a later transmission, the officers mistakenly reported that "they observed the butt of a gun in the waistband of (Graham)," he added.
A civilian witness told police that around the same time, two police officers in plain clothes but wearing NYPD raid jackets pulled up and yelled at a man — apparently Graham — "Police! Don't move!" After the man ducked into Graham's three-family home, the officers followed and found the front door locked.
The officers, after being joined by the sergeant and a fourth officer, managed to get enter through a back entrance, climb some stairs and break down the door to the Graham family's second-floor apartment, Kelly said.
An officer positioned behind the shooter "reported seeing Ramarley Graham running toward them from the rear of the apartment and then turning into the bathroom," Kelly said.
"The partner also reported hearing the shooting officer as he stood at the bathroom door yell, 'Show me your hands. Show me your hands' and then, 'Gun. Gun,'" Kelly said. "The partner then said he heard a shot."
The officer fired one shot at close range from his 9mm semiautomatic handgun, police said. The victim was struck in the upper chest and collapsed inside the bathroom. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
A search of the apartment failed to turn up any weapons.
Asked about the initial report of a struggle, Kelly said the account of the shooting was revised after investigators interviewed the second officer and the grandmother.
"This was obviously a very traumatic situation for the grandmother," Kelly said. "She was present when it happened."
It was third time in a week that police had fatally shot a suspect: On Jan. 26, an off-duty NYPD officer killed a carjacking suspect during a shootout in Brooklyn. And on Sunday night, an off-duty detective shot a 17-year-old after police say the teen and another suspect hit the officer with a cane and tried to rob him in Brooklyn while he was walking to catch a subway to work. Neither of those officers were put on restricted duty.
In a fourth shooting involving the NYPD on Tuesday, a gunman shot an officer in the head after the officer responded to a report of shots fired in Brooklyn, police said. The shooter was caught about two hours after and was charged with attempted murder, they said.
The wounded officer is expected to recover.
Protesting surveillance at mosques
NEW YORK — Thirty-three civil rights groups from around the country complained to the New York attorney general Friday about police documents that showed the New York Police Department recommending increased surveillance of Shiite mosques based on their religion.
The letter urged Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate NYPD's surveillance operations, revealed by an Associated Press investigation, which monitored entire neighborhoods and built databases about everyday life in Muslim communities.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have insisted that police only follow legitimate leads and do not conduct preventative surveillance in ethnic communities. A May 2006 report addressed to Kelly, however, recommended increased spying at mosques and an assessment of the region's Palestinian community to look for potential terrorists.
Even before the AP published the document, Kelly was under fire from Muslim groups who were angry that a controversial movie about Muslims, "The Third Jihad," was shown at NYPD training sessions. Kelly appears briefly in the movie.
About 150 protesters gathered near police headquarters Friday to challenge the NYPD's tactics. "Don't be afraid, stand for justice!" they chanted before holding evening prayers in nearby Foley Square.
"Just the fact of knowing there is someone out there trying to listen to my conversations that can turn me into some kind of criminal, which I'm not, and exploiting my religion, it hurts," said Sondos Alsilwi, an 18-year-old history major at City College.
Schneiderman's office did not immediately have a comment on the letter.
The Obama administration has made fighting homegrown terrorism a focus of its national security strategy but has repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether it endorses the NYPD's tactics. Tom Perez, the U.S. Justice Department's top civil rights prosecutor, has refused to even answer questions about the NYPD.
The 2006 intelligence report, entitled "US-Iran Conflict: The Threat to New York City," made a series of recommendations to Kelly, including: "Expand and focus intelligence collections at Shi'a mosques." It includes a list of mosques and community organizations stretching from southern New Jersey to Connecticut.
The NYPD's operating rules prohibit it from basing investigations on religion. The NYPD also says it follows FBI guidelines, which would prohibit many of the steps recommended in the report.
But the NYPD faces little in the way of oversight when it comes to its intelligence programs. Both the City Council and Congress are kept in the dark about this secretive aspect of the department. Many first learned about the spying programs from news reports.
"The masses of people around this city are fed up with the police," City Councilman Charles Barron told protesters Friday. "Who the hell do they think they are?"
On Thursday, Kelly downplayed the significance of the 2006 document, calling it a "contingency plan" for military conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Such language does not exist anywhere in the document.
Fears of such a conflict were rising again Friday amid concerns in the Middle East that Israel was preparing a military strike on Iran. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that an attack would only hurt the United States.
"A war itself will damage the U.S. 10 times over" in the region, "Khamenei said in a national broadcast Friday.
Iran is a majority Shi'a country, while most Muslims belong to the Sunni sect.
In August, when the AP first reported on the spying operations, Bloomberg said the NYPD doesn't even consider religion as part of its police work.
"We don't stop to think about the religion," he said. "We think about the threats and focus our efforts there."
Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna would not say whether the mayor still believes that.
Study: 127 donors give $16.8M
ALBANY — In the latest sign that politics in New York are for sale, NYPIRG researchers have identified a core group of 127 donors who gave $50,000 or more to state candidates and party committees last year.
Together, this group of big givers contributed $16.8 million.
Top givers included lawyers, real estate interests, the state teachers union, and health care organizations.
But last year also saw substantial contributions by Wall Street executives who supported the successful push to legalize same-sex marriage.
The study renewed calls for campaign finance reform, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he supports.
Of the donors who gave $50,000 or more in the state, Cuomo received the most: $2,959,426.04 from 79 of the 127, although some of those gave less than $50,000 the administration said.
As the analysis was released on Friday, a consortium of more than 100 organizations dubbed Fair Elections for New York sent a letter to the governor in support of changes including a public funding option, lower giving limits and stronger enforcement.
Cuomo's office noted that the governor called for these changes in his State of the State speech although it is unclear how the Legislature will respond.
The median household income in 2010 was $55,603, according to Census data.
But there are plenty of individuals as well as corporations, unions and other special interest groups who can give many times that amount to favored politicians and their parties.
In fact some donors were able to get around limits such as the $150,000 cap for individual giving by donating to "housekeeping" or soft money accounts that both Republicans and Democrats maintain, the study found. Such accounts can't fund advertisements for specific candidates but help pay for the infrastructure of political parties.
Of the 127 big givers, Leonard Litwin & Holdings, a New York City apartment building developer, was in first place with $698,300, the study found. Their biggest single donation was $125,000 to the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.
New York State United Teachers was in second place with $639,204 in contributions. Their largest single gift was $140,000 to the Working Families Party.
LAWPAC, which represents trial lawyers, came in third with $590,750. Their biggest single gift was $102,300 to the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee.
Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, noted that this was just one of many lists that come out each year chronicling how much money well-heeled business and organizations pour into elections.
"We always have lots of lists. Lots of money," said Lerner, whose organization has long pushed for campaign finance reform.
This year, though, she said she was heartened by Cuomo's stated support for tougher restrictions on political giving.
Lerner added the 2010 Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which greatly loosened restrictions on political giving, has created a backlash, at least by good government groups. On the national level, she said, there is a new push for a constitutional amendment that would restore some limits to campaign contributions.
Supporters of the Citizens United decision believe more regulations regarding campaign contributions would amount to an unconstitutional limit on free speech.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman received $334,500 from these sources. Then came the four Republican senators who voted for same sex marriage last year: Roy McDonald, Stephen Saland, James Alesi and Mark Grisanti. Senate Republican Majority Leader Dean Skelos was also one of the biggest recipients as was Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
Of the top 20 recipients, the rest were party committees.
rkarlin@timesunion.com 518-454-5758 @KarlinTU
Map reveals Lyme disease risk areas
CONCORD, N.H. — Researchers who spent three years dragging sheets of fabric through the woods to snag ticks have created a detailed map they claim could improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease.
The map, which pinpoints areas of the eastern United States, including areas in the capital Region, where people have the highest risk of contracting Lyme disease, is part of a study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Though the areas highlighted as high-risk likely won't surprise anyone familiar with the disease, the research also showed where the disease likely is spreading, and it turned up some surprising information about the rate at which ticks are infected with the bacteria that causes it, researchers said.
The map shows a clear risk of Lyme disease across much of the Northeast, from Maine to northern Virginia. Researchers also identified a distinct high-risk region in the upper Midwest, including most of Wisconsin, northern Minnesota and a sliver of northern Illinois. Areas highlighted as "emerging risk" regions include the Illinois-Indiana border, the New York-Vermont border, southwestern Michigan and eastern North Dakota.
"The key value is identifying areas where the risk for Lyme disease is the highest, so that should alert the public and the clinicians and the public health agencies in terms of taking more precautions and potential interventions," said the study's lead author, Dr. Maria Diuk-Wasser of the Yale School of Public Health. "In areas that are low risk, a case of Lyme disease is not impossible but it's highly unlikely, so the clinician should be considering other diagnoses."
Named after a small Connecticut town, Lyme disease is transmitted by the bite of tiny deer ticks. Antibiotics easily cure most people of Lyme, but other than the disease's hallmark round, red rash, early symptoms are vague and flu-like. People who aren't treated can develop arthritis, meningitis and some other serious illnesses.
Previous risk maps were heavily reliant on reports of human infections, but those can be misleading because the disease is both over- and under-diagnosed, according to the study. Where someone is diagnosed is not necessarily where the disease was contracted, and ticks may live in a region long before they actually infect someone, meaning there could be a significant risk even without confirmed cases.
The study was published this week based on data collected between 2004 and 2007. Diuk-Wasser said the high risk areas likely haven't changed, but there might be some changes in the transitional areas. The map is still useful, however, because it highlights areas where tick surveillance should be increased and because it can serve as a baseline for future research, she said. And it provides new information about the infection rate among ticks, she said.
About 1 in 5 ticks collected were infected — more than researchers expected — and that percentage was fairly constant across geographic areas, she said. Researchers had expected the infection rate to vary.
NYPD targeted Shiites
NEW YORK — The New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of thousands of Shiite Muslims and their mosques, based solely on their religion, as a way to sweep the Northeast for signs of Iranian terrorists, according to interviews and a newly obtained secret police document.
The document offers a rare glimpse into the thinking of NYPD intelligence officers and how, when looking for potential threats, they focused their spying efforts on mosques and Muslims. Police analysts listed a dozen mosques from central Connecticut to the Philadelphia suburbs. None has been linked to terrorism, either in the document or publicly by federal agencies.
The Associated Press has reported for months that the NYPD infiltrated mosques, eavesdropped in cafes and monitored Muslim neighborhoods with plainclothes officers. Its spying operations were begun after the 2001 terror attacks with help from the CIA in a highly unusual partnership.
The May 2006 NYPD intelligence report, entitled "US-Iran Conflict: The Threat to New York City," made a series of recommendations, including: "Expand and focus intelligence collections at Shi'a mosques."
The NYPD is prohibited under its own guidelines and city law from basing its investigations on religion. Under FBI guidelines, which the NYPD says it follows, many of the recommendations in the police document would be prohibited.
The report, drawn largely from information available in newspapers or sites like Wikipedia, was prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. It was written at a time of great tension between the U.S. and Iran. That tension over Iran's nuclear ambition has increased again recently.
Police estimated the New York area Shiite population to be about 35,000, with Iranians making up about 8,500. The document also calls for canvassing the Palestinian community because there might be terrorists there.
"The Palestinian community, although not Shi'a, should also be assessed due to presence of Hamas members and sympathizers and the group's relationship with the Iranian government," analysts wrote.
The secret document stands in contrast to statements by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said the NYPD never considers religion in its policing. Kelly has said police go only where investigative leads take them, but the document described no leads to justify expanded surveillance at Shiite mosques.
The document also renews debate over how the NYPD privately views Muslims. Kelly has faced calls for his resignation recently from some Muslim activists for participating in a video that says Muslims want to "infiltrate and dominate" the United States. The NYPD showed the video to nearly 1,500 officers during training.
Documents previously obtained by the AP show widespread NYPD infiltration of mosques. It's not clear, however, whether the May 2006 report prompted police to infiltrate the mosques on the list. A current law enforcement official, familiar with the report, said that since it was issued the NYPD learned that Hezbollah was more political than religious and concluded that it's not effective to monitor Shiites.
On Thursday, Kelly described the document as a "contingency plan," though that is not mentioned in the document and there is nothing indicating what would trigger such a contingency.
"This was a 2006 document that talked about what we would do if there were hostilities involving Iran," he said. "It seems to me that it would be prudent for us to have plans in that regard."
Neither David Cohen, the NYPD's top intelligence officer, nor department spokesman Paul Browne responded to emails or phone calls from The Associated Press this week.
Iran is an overwhelmingly Shiite country, but Shiites are a small percentage of the U.S. Muslim population. By contrast, al-Qaida is a Sunni organization and many U.S. leaders consider Shiite clerics as allies in the fight against homegrown extremism. Shiites are often oppressed overseas and many have sought asylum in the West.
No jobs rebound in region
ALBANY — The Capital Region lost 16,700 jobs since the onset of the recession in the summer of 2008 and has failed to replace them, putting the area near the bottom of a list showing regional rates of recovery since the economy began to sag.
A report released Thursday by the office of state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli found the area is one of only a handful of regions to have posted net job losses in 2010 and 2011 — a period that saw at least modest employment gains in most other parts of the state.
The snapshot of the region's employment scene should be taken in some context. Government is the leading employer in the region and when state jobs drop, the economy takes a disproportionate hit.
About 60 percent of the area's losses was in state jobs, with local public workers making up a major part of the rest, state analysts said. Strong private-sector gains, especially in health care and non-public education, helped offset the losses.
"You can't say somebody's doing something wrong in the Capital Region," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors in Albany. (Johnson serves on the advisory panel of the state Common Retirement Fund, managed by the comptroller.)
Johnson said the region's overall economy has to be viewed as a diverse collection of smaller economies with starkly different relationships to public-sector employment. In areas such as Saratoga County, the private sector — including the first wave of new technology jobs — has "been able to ameliorate or offset the losses as a result of fiscal imbalances" felt by local, state or federal government employers, he said.
The comptroller's report divides the employment picture into two chapters: the depth of the recession from July 2008 through the end of 2009, and the past two years of general recovery.
The Capital Region shed 15,000 jobs in the first period, the losses slowed to 1,700 in the second. The report defines the area as Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady and Schoharie counties.
Other regions have suffered a much greater net loss of jobs over the two periods, although they have been offset by gains during the recovery. New York City, for example, lost 128,000 jobs through the end of 2009, but gained back 66,100 in the past two years — a 52 percent recovery rate.
Like the Capital Region, Binghamton and Ithaca showed net job losses during recession and recovery, although they were minor. Long Island, by comparison, lost a net of 2,500 jobs in 2010 and 1011 on top of 50,000 lost between mid-2008 and the end of 2009 — and that loss was split evenly between the private and public sectors.
Rochester gained back almost all of the roughly 18,500 jobs it lost — although the report notes the recent bankruptcy filing of Kodak could darken the city's picture. The lower Hudson Valley lost 28,800 jobs and only gained back 4,000.
Overall, the state lost 333,400 jobs from July 2008 through the end of 2009 and gained back 154,300, or 46 percent, in the past two years. Private-sector gains of 183,600 were offset by the loss of 29,300 government sector jobs.
The state was 16th in the nation for percentage of jobs regained. Around the United States, slightly more than a third of the jobs lost have been replaced.
DiNapoli warned the pace of recovery slowed markedly in the second half of 2011 — especially in the all-important financial sector, where salaries and bonuses generate a large chunk of state revenues.
A major area of concern: The average pay of jobs created in the past two years is more than 40 percent lower than those lost in the recession.
"New York's recovery appears to be losing momentum, which raises concerns about the pace of the economic recovery in 2012," DiNapoli said in a statement.
"The ranks of the long-term unemployed have grown markedly and those that have found jobs are being paid less. New York's economy has improved over the past two years, but not all New Yorkers have benefitted equally."
cseiler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5619 • @CaseySeiler
Democrats ask to ease primary ballot access
Democrats on the state Board of Elections are proposing to lower the number of signatures candidates would need to get on the primary election ballot, according to papers filed in federal court.
The argument appears in an affidavit filed Tuesday in federal court by Bob Brehm, a longtime Democratic employee at the state board. U.S. District Court Judge Gary L. Sharpe asked the state board to submit a political calendar after he ordered primary elections for the U.S. Senate and Congress be held on June 26. The date was moved from Sept. 11 to comply with a federal law, which mandates military voters stationed overseas get absentee ballots at least 45 days before a general election.
The state Board of Elections is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, who are mired in dispute over whether to move the primary for state offices — members of the Assembly and Senate — in line with the June date to spare taxpayers a $45 million expense.
The Republican and Democratic commissioners sent Sharpe separate versions of a political calendar, which usually occurs.
The Republican version notes many of the required dates are adjusted "automatically," since in statute they are built back from the election date. The first day to circulate petitions for the elections is March 20.
Democrats agree with this start date, but suggest moving the filing period for petitions from April 23-26 to April 10-16. This would shorten the amount of time candidates can circulate nominating petitions by 10 days — from 38 to 28 — and the Democrats propose reducing the required number of signatures by 25 percent, as was done for the 1992 election.
The Jewish holiday of Passover is observed from April 6 - 14.
A reduction means potential members of Congress would need the valid signatures of 938 enrolled voters to get on the ballot, as opposed to 1,250. Would-be U.S. Senate candidates would need 11,250 signatures instead of 15,000.
No hearings are scheduled in the case.
Workers' comp cost joins sick list
ALBANY — Add skyrocketing workers' compensation rates to the list of costs that local governments will be passing on to property taxpayers.
While mayors, county executives and other local officials have been warning that rising health care costs for their employees, as well as pension expenses, put them in a bind, a recent survey found that workers' compensation rates have been going up as well.
Precise increases are hard to pin down since rates vary by location and particular job classifications.
But PERMA, a consortium of towns and counties that pool resources to buy workers' compensation insurance, says their costs rose an estimated 34 percent compounded between 2009 and 2011.
Last year, members of the group, known as the Public Employer Risk Management Association, paid about $40 million for workers' compensation insurance for some 430 local governments.
PERMA makes up about a third of the state's government market for workers' compensation insurance.
Capital Region members include the towns of Bethlehem, Glenville and New Scotland, said Paul Jahn, chief research officer at PERMA's Workers Compensation Policy Institute. He noted that municipal rates are outstripping those paid by private insurers.
Government workers' compensation insurance rates exceeded the private sector by 26 percent in 2011 and 36 percent the year before.
It's not that municipal workers are getting injured with greater frequency. But a 2007 overhaul of the system under Gov. Eliot Spitzer raised the weekly payout for injuries from $400 to more than $700, based on an individual's earnings before an injury.
Because municipal workers such as police and firefighters make higher than average wages, their payments are higher when they are injured.
"This is a pretty systemic problem for municipalities," Jahn said.
It's also another example of how the 2007 reforms, which were widely hailed at the time, have failed so far to save money.
One of the problems has been the slowness to impose time limits on how long injured workers would receive compensation.
Before 2007, there were no real time limits, so injured workers could collect compensation on an ongoing basis. While that may have benefitted workers who suffered major debilitating injuries, it also cast a pall of uncertainty over other cases and may have dissuaded people from going back to work.
The reforms were supposed to include time limits in exchange for the higher payments but those limits have been slow in coming.
Late last year, the Times Union reported that there was a backlog of an estimated 12,000 injury cases in which judges were supposed to set limits for payments.
rkarlin@timesunion.com • 518-454-5758
New suits, new starts for NYC's unemployed
NEW YORK — Troy Baptiste was grinning as he stared at his reflection in the full-length mirror, admiring the navy blue suit that was made especially for him. The elderly tailor scurried around Baptiste sticking pins into the fabric, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"I don't think I ever looked this good in a suit," Baptiste said, breaking into laughter. "I can't wait to go to this job interview wearing this suit."
It was an unusual day for Baptiste, an unemployed 30-year-old from Brooklyn who can hardly afford a McDonald's Happy Meal for his 4-year-old son, let alone a custom-made suit. He was one of 17 unemployed men who are receiving suits worth $1,000 from Mohan Ramchandani, a renowned tailor who has fitted New York City's wealthiest residents for 30 years at Mohan's Custom Tailors, including former mayor Rudy Giuliani. The recipients are students and graduates of the HOPE Program, a nonprofit that provides work readiness training and job placement assistance to impoverished New Yorkers.
The program is hoping the new suits will help these men — some of whom have served time in prison — make a fresh start in a difficult job market.
"It makes them stand a little bit taller," said Irene Camp, HOPE Program's development director. "I think it helps them to portray a really professional outlook, and helps to set the tone for the kind of employee that they're going to be."
Baptiste decided he needed to turn his life around after he was laid off in 2010 and ended up serving several months in jail, though he did not elaborate on his prison record.
"As far as making decisions, when your back is against the wall, I kind of made a bad decision," he said. "Got myself into some trouble."
He found out about HOPE through his probation officer. The program set him up with an unpaid internship at Baruch College, where he performs clerical work at the graduate admissions office. Now he's trying to land a job in clerical work or as a lab technician. Anything, really, that will help him provide a good life for his son.
"He's one of the batteries in my back," Baptiste said. "So I can at least have a better future for him. Have clothes on his back, food on his table and a roof over his head."
Ramchandani was inspired to help these men because he sympathizes with their plight. An immigrant from India, he started his business 30 years ago, with very little money, in a rented space at the Roosevelt Hotel.
"What you study at school, that's one thing," said KJ Singh, a sales manager at Mohan's. "But how you look at the job, that's another. That gives an individual a lot of confidence."
Occupy Buffalo removed from Niagara Square
BUFFALO — At daybreak, the grassy outlines where tents stood and a cluster of flags fluttered in the wind were all that remained of the Occupy Buffalo encampment that began Oct. 8 on a quadrant of Niagara Square.
Hours earlier, police descended and, after a brief warning, officers tossed 17 tents and their contents into a top trailer and arrested 10 protesters who refused an order to cross the street.
The sudden police action followed Occupy Buffalo's rejection of an early-evening ultimatum by the city to accept a March 8 extension or face expulsion.
"It went very peaceful. Those who wanted to get arrested, got arrested," Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda said.
An agreement signed with the city Dec. 9, expired Wednesday, but many of the occupiers believed those terms entitled them to remain an additional two months.
Instead, anxious occupiers saw police cars and SWAT vehicles circle Niagara Square and men in blue move in. A lift and the trailer were also put into position.
Some occupiers said they were forbidden from returning to their tents to retrieve personal belongings. Among those was Irwin, who asked to get a law book from the geodesic dome.
Until today, Buffalo had avoided the police crackdowns and arrests that occurred at Occupy encampments in many cities, including New York City, Oakland, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Denver and Albany.
The 10 people who refused to go across the street early this morning sat down on the public sidewalk peacefully and were arrested. They were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct and taken to the Holding Center, and released at 10:30 a.m.
They will not need to return to court and will have charges dismissed Aug. 2 if they don't camp within 3 miles of Niagara Square.
— McClatchy
NYC mayor gives $250K to Planned Parenthood
NEW YORK — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving up to a quarter-million dollars to Planned Parenthood to offset funds that were cut by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer foundation.
Spokeswoman Samantha Levine said Thursday the mayor has promised to match future donations to Planned Parenthood, up to $250,000.
The organization uses the money for breast cancer screenings.
The Komen foundation said it was cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood because of new criteria for giving grants. Critics accused it of bowing to pressure from anti-abortion activists.
Bloomberg said politics have no place in health care and that lives are at stake.
Planned Parenthood said it was grateful for the donation. The donation was first reported by The New York Times.
— Associated Press
Bloomberg: Use last rainy-day funds in budget plan
NEW YORK — New York City should scrape dry the last of its rainy-day funds to balance next year's budget without new cutbacks or taxes, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday as he unveiled a $68.7 billion budget proposal that anticipates billions of dollars in deficits in years to come.
While the mayor announced no new cuts in his plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1, the proposal relies in part on a series of reductions announced earlier that could shutter 20 fire companies, slice library funds and leave tens of thousands of low-income parents without city-sponsored child care.
Some of those services have in past years been saved by the City Council's discretionary funds, which last year totaled $386 million. The mayor's budget proposal is traditionally the first step in a lengthy process of revisions and wrangling involving policymakers, elected officials and advocates. The final deal will require the approval of the City Council.
On Thursday, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn praised the mayor for avoiding tax hikes and deep spending cuts, but called the reductions for libraries, after-school programs and other services "troubling."
— Associated Press
Trump offers golden graves for silver-spoon set
NEWARK, N.J. — They say you can't take it with you when you die, but that's not necessarily true for the wealthiest Americans — like Donald Trump.
He announced this week he is considering building a 1.5-acre cemetery next to his high-end golf course in Bedminster, where members pay a lifetime fee of as much as $300,000. If they want to stay beyond that, they most likely will pay a membership fee that includes burial.
It may be among the pricier final resting places, but if it gets state and local approval, it'd be a bargain compared with some of the country's other swank cemeteries.
Putting one's name on the most permanent of marquees can reach several million dollars at the most exclusive cemeteries — a far cry from the median $6,560 for a funeral in 2009, the most recent yearly figure from the National Funeral Directors Association.
At Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass., a National Historic Landmark renowned for its landscaping, the choicest piece of pond-front property costs upward of half a million dollars, said Sean O'Regan, vice president of cemetery services and operations.
"While you're not purchasing real estate — you're purchasing burial rights — it's definitely location, location, location," O'Regan said.
The Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, which was designated last year as a National Historic Landmark, is popular among the wealthy and famous. Burial arrangements can range from $600 for cremated remains to $3.5 million for an historic private mausoleum more than 100 years old, Woodlawn President John Toale said.
The Frank E. Campbell funeral home in New York's Manhattan is the go-to place for celebrity funerals. In its 115 years of business, the home has arranged final rites for the titans of New York industry, famous sports figures, politicians and countless celebrities, Vice President Dominic Carella said.
"We fulfill any request, from private jets, to horse-drawn carriages," Carella said, adding that no request surprises him — from arranging Dixie Land bands to a funeral procession with the rarest of collectible Ferraris. "We've had funerals from $20,000 or $30,000, to a couple hundred thousand dollars."
Wealthy clients who wish to go quietly know the company's fee includes keeping personal details from the media and providing undercover security guards to keep the paparazzi at bay, Carella said.
For a public funeral, as when tens of thousands of mourners attended viewings in Miami and New York for Latin music legend Celia Cruz, the company can organize the crowds, control the information flow, and take care of special requests from the family.
And as in life, those accustomed to keeping commoners at arm's length can do so in death.
"I have families that come in to me and say, 'I want a family plot, but I don't want anyone next to me,' so they'll buy the six plots around them," Carella said.
He recently sold 12 grave plots to a man in East Hampton, N.Y., who wished to be buried in the center of the property and surrounded by landscaping.
Large family plots and mausoleums have gone the way of many a celebrity marriage. While wealthy and famous figures of the past customarily would be surrounded in death by family members, a modern-day mogul may be torn over which relatives or ex-relatives will share the burial plot.
"It's the changing dynamics of the family. Going back 20 years, if someone came in and said they had five children, they'd buy a grave for 15," Carella said.
Campbell used to build 12 to 15 mausoleums a year but now erects only one or two.
"People are moving. There are mixed marriages, interfaith couples. The number of people buried together is fewer," Carella said. "A lot has to do with the changing dynamics of what's going on in society."
Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y., is another East Coast "destination" resting place. Carella recently arranged a funeral there. He said the plot cost $450,000 and the mausoleum nearly $1 million.
Forest Lawn, which has cemeteries in and around Los Angeles, is one of the most well-known burial spots for Hollywood celebrities. Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson are buried there.
Spokesman Ben Sussman said prices start as low as $2,000. He declined to say how much the "distinguished properties" retail for. The spots include a private garden and sarcophagus or statuary.
But lavish burials or A-list cemeteries aren't the only way to go out with a bang.
For about $4,000, California-based Angels Flight will custom-design 210 fireworks containing the deceased's ashes, which can be fired off in a beach-front display, set to music. For an extra $1,000, the company will take a funeral party out on a yacht for an ocean fireworks display. And for those with a large enough piece of property, Angels Flight can stage the display in their private yard.
With cremation on the rise, some companies will custom-design an urn or transform ashes into a diamond ring, incorporate them into an oil painting or bury them in an eco-friendly underwater reef.
And for stars of the small screen, like Trump, there's a company that makes video tombstones that play a montage of photographs set to music.
Groundhog wars: Rodents diverge on winter forecast
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil told people to prepare for six more weeks of winter on Thursday, making him the minority opinion among his groundhog brethren who seem to think that spring is coming early.
But with such a mild and relatively snowless winter so far, who can tell the difference?
Phil's "prediction" came as he emerged from his lair to "see" his shadow on Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in the town for which he's named about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Yet groundhogs in at least four other states — West Virginia's French Creek Freddie, Georgia's Gen. Beauregard Lee, Ohio's Buckeye Chuck and New York's Staten Island Chuck (full name: Charles G. Hogg) — did not see their shadows.
The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in a German superstition that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early.
Temperatures were near freezing when Phil emerged at dawn — unseasonably warm for Punxsutawney — and were forecast to climb into the mid-40s in a winter that's brought little snow and only a few notably cold days to much of the East.
Organizers expected 15,000 to 18,000 people to witness the prognostication ceremony that was held just before 7:30 a.m.
And the ceremony is largely that: Phil's prediction is determined ahead of time by the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, a group who dons top hats and tuxedos and decides in advance what the furry creature will predict.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett was among the spectators this year. Those who couldn't make it to Gobbler's Knob could follow the groundhog on Twitter and Facebook, or watch a webcast of the event on his website.
"What started as a small gathering in 1887 has now evolved into tens of thousands of visitors from around the nation and even the world coming to Punxsutawney to participate in this time-honored Groundhog Day tradition," Corbett said.
Phil has now seen his shadow 100 times and hasn't seen it just 16 times since 1886, according to the Inner Circle. There are no records for the remaining years.
The tradition attained a large following with the 1993 Bill Murray comedy "Groundhog Day," in which a weatherman covering the event must relive the day over and over again. Before the movie came out, Phil was lucky to have an audience of 2,500, said Mike Johnston, vice president of the Inner Circle.
And while the group has records of Phil's predictions dating back to 1886, what it doesn't have is a tally of whether Phil was right.
Johnston said the reason is simple: "He's never been wrong." Phil is "incapable of error," he said, because the groundhog smartly avoids being site-specific in his prognostications.
If Phil predicts six more weeks of winter, said Johnston, "I guarantee you someone's going to have six more weeks of winter."