State Senate leader visits upstate
ALBANY — On his first official visit upstate since becoming State Senate majority leader earlier this week, Malcolm Smith is keeping his audience tightly controlled: only Democratic mayors from big cities.
Smith, who was to meet this morning with Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown, said upstaters living outside the cities should not take any messages from who is on his initial calling-card list.
“I will be the majority leader for the State of New York and will be coming to rural and suburban counties and going to Republican districts as well,” Smith said in an interview Thursday. He said he would be happy to meet with Republican senators and their constituents.
“This is too serious a time for people to get caught up in what party you’re in,” said the Queens Democrat.
Smith’s ascendancy to the top Senate job now places every major government office — governor, attorney general, comptroller, both legislative houses and the two U. S. Senate seats — in the hands of downstate residents.
Sensitive to the 2010 statewide elections, Democrats have been using the word “upstate” in nearly everything they do these days at the Capitol.
Smith was to meet at 10:30 a. m. today with Brown, along with Democratic Sens. William Stachowski and Antoine Thompson. On Thursday, he met with the mayors of Rochester and Syracuse.
Smith described the trek as a fact-finding mission “to hear about their concerns, what their interests are and how we can partner.” He said today’s meeting will touch on everything from crime issues to the Buffalo waterfront.
“We are in very difficult times ahead,” Smith said of a budget that is facing a $15.4 billion deficit. He said Albany will have to work “more efficiently and smarter” to help solve upstate’s economic problems.
Smith did not close the door to carving out special treatment to deal with upstate’s long economic descent.
Upstate business groups have called for Albany to exempt upstate from certain state laws, such as those affecting bidding on public works projects or cleanup standards of old industrial sites, to help lower costs for local governments and provide new incentives for businesses to locate in the region.
Smith said he would be “very open” to pilot-type projects that focus on upstate.
“Now is a time for us to be creative,” he said.
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