BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Upstate braces for the fallout now that all 5 state leaders are from the NYC area
ALBANY — Since the beginning of New York State’s government in 1777, only once — a fluke political year in 1965 — have all statewide officeholders and the two leaders of the Legislature been residents of downstate.
Now, with the selection last week of a Republican legislator from Long Island as the new Senate majority leader, upstate is shut out of any state leadership post for the second time in state history.
Of the five statewide and legislative leaders running the state government, Gov. David A. Paterson, whose home is in Harlem, has the closest address to upstate. But his residence is closer to Richmond, Va., than it is to downtown Buffalo.
“It’s scary. It’s real scary,” said Jordan Levy, who runs an investment company in Buffalo and is chairman of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp.
“These people can say they know the upstate economy is in the toilet. They can say we know upstate has issues. But they don’t know anything about those issues. They don’t have to live with them. If they don’t have to live with them every day, they won’t have the same sense of urgency that we do to fix these things, because we live with them every day,” Levy added.
Paterson, who has insisted that the upstate economy is a top priority for him, said it is natural for people to want to be represented by those who live in their region or look like them or are even of the same gender.
“I certainly understand that, but I think a lot of us draw on some of the problems in our own districts to help people in the upstate region,” he said in an interview.
The governor talked of the unemployment and job-creation problems in his district when he served in the Senate — issues he said puts him in a position to understand the needs of upstate.
“The important thing in the end is not where people live, but if they take their duty as statewide leaders seriously, and I think everybody does,” he said.
Still, if the governor wanted to get together for dinner with the other four state leaders, they could select a central point and meet within less than a half hour drive from their homes — if traffic is flowing.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo both live in Manhattan, and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and new Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos both live on Long Island.
And if they wanted to invite New York’s two U. S. senators to that dinner meeting, Charles Schumer of Brooklyn and Hillary Rodham Clinton of Westchester County also would be able to make it in short order.
That’s not to say state leaders haven’t expressed concern about upstate. Over the past 10 to 15 years, many statewide candidates have toured upstate, stopped by shuttered factories and pushed plans to revitalize the ailing economy.
Yet, upstate continues to stumble, as jobs and people leave.
Now, some are worried that, with an all-downstate leadership in state government, the needs of upstate will get less than lip service.
“It seems the scales are tipping, and we’re weighing heavily toward downstate. Obviously, it’s very much of a concern,” said Paul Ciminelli, a prominent Buffalo developer.
So how does that play out in Albany?
Consider this example: Just last week, the Legislature let stand a change in the state’s Wicks Law, which dictates rules for public construction projects, such as new school buildings.
Although the change was hailed as a reform when passed in April, it includes a provision that, come Tuesday, will knock out many non-union companies from bidding on the work. That is not a problem downstate, where most firms are unionized.
But in upstate, only about 30 percent of the firms are unionized, contractors say, and now non-union companies will be cut out from the public construction work, which will force them to lay off workers.
Pushed by unions to keep the status quo, Paterson and the Legislature decided against changing the law to put the non-union companies on a level playing field with unionized firms.
Also consider property taxes.
The idea of a property tax cap was dead on arrival in the Assembly, whose Democratic conference is dominated by legislators from New York City. Why?
Because there is no separate school property tax in New York City, which keeps its property tax relatively low and, instead, relies on a separate city income tax.
This year’s fight over cleaning up old industrial sites known as brown-fields also devolved into an upstate/ downstate fight.
The program was originally billed as a means to help decaying upstate neighborhoods. Instead, it became a tool for developers in New York City and its suburbs to build on sites that would have been developed anyway — running up a tab of $3.1 billion in tax breaks.
Lawmakers last week changed the program, but not before promising to keep funding intact for those downstate development plans.
Upstate business groups also complain about a lack of action on a law enacted in 1885 to protect scaffold workers in New York City. Over the years, it morphed and made employers liable, critics say, even if the injured worker fails to use safety equipment or is drunk. That higher insurance adds $10,000 onto a home’s cost in Buffalo, builders say.
Yet there are those who say the long tradition of geographic balance — having a least one upstater at the seat of power in Albany — has done little to stem the loss of jobs and population outside the New York City area.
They note that even though upstate had a voice through Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno — who was one of the “three men in a room” divvying up the state budget and making major statewide decisions over the past 13 years — he did little for upstate beyond his own Albany-area district.
“Joe Bruno served the Capital District very, very well, but I don’t know if we necessarily felt in Rochester any increased influence in his role as Senate majority leader,” said Sandy Parker, president of the Rochester Business Alliance and a leader of Unshackle Upstate, a job-creation coalition.
Others also say that statewide officials like Paterson and particularly the Senate’s new majority leader, Skelos, have reason to care about upstate: political survival.
Skelos does not want to be known as the GOP majority leader who lost the Senate to the Democrats. Republicans hold a 32-30 edge now, and the planets are lining up neatly for the Democrats to take control in January.
“I’m not from the city,” said Skelos, who is making an upstate tour this week, beginning in Buffalo. “I’m from Long Island, and we have suburban interests throughout the state. And whether you live outside Buffalo or Montauk, your property taxes are choking you. That is the No. 1 issue.”
Some upstate business executives worry, though, that high property taxes are just one of the causes for upstate along with job creation and stemming the loss of population.
So upstate is left to wonder if its economic and demographic slide over the past 30 years will continue with the shift of all state leadership seats to the New York City area, especially since the three-men-in-a-room structure in Albany presents little opportunity for influence from others.
“If state government operated in a way where members of the Assembly and Senate outside the leaders had some more direct influence, then it might not be so worrisome. But the way it operates is the majority leader, speaker and governor tend to be the people who make the most crucial decisions, and we’ve no longer got a voice there,” said Victor Martucci, vice president at Marrano Marc/Equity, the region’s largest home builder.
How do the downstate leaders, who live in communities so different from upstate, relate when their view of upstate is the occasional fly-in for a news conference or fundraiser? How can their view not be prejudiced if they spend the majority of their work week south of the George Washington Bridge?
“I’m skeptical and concerned,” Levy said. “They can say what they want. But there’s no way it can be the same.”
