The Buffalo News - Politics http://www.buffalonews.com Latest stories from The Buffalo News en-us Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:54:54 -0400 Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:54:54 -0400 <![CDATA[ Cuomo’s progressive agenda runs into legislative roadblocks ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130617/CITYANDREGION/130619184/1026
But the governor all but conceded defeat Monday on several key initiatives he had floated to restore his ties with the progressive wing of his party, from a new abortion rights measure to public financing of political campaigns. Not even on his lips these days is talk of lessening penalties for marijuana possession, among his top priorities earlier this year.

With just three days left on the 2013 legislative calendar, it remains uncertain what Cuomo’s tongue-lashing and threats against the Legislature, made in a radio interview Monday, were meant to accomplish.

But one thing seems clear: The governor’s major political victory in getting reluctant Republicans to go along with him in early January on a gun-control measure is not helping with his progressive agenda at the end of this session.

“I think it hurt all his endeavors for the rest of the year. He probably got people who voted for that gun bill who shouldn’t have. That has made them gun-shy for the rest of the year,” said Michael R. Long, chairman of the state Conservative Party.

So while Cuomo was issuing his own 2014 electoral threats Monday against those lawmakers not supportive of his abortion rights and campaign finance plans, so, too, was Long, whose name recognition may not be as high with voters but whose title holds sway with Republicans eager to hold partial control of the Senate.

His message to Senate Republicans has been simple. “Hold firm,” Long said. And has he made that clear to them? “I couldn’t have made it any clearer.”

M. Tracey Brooks, president of Family Planning Advocates, said women’s organizations support Cuomo’s vow to not press for passage of nine women’s rights provisions he proposed – including the toughening of laws on sexual harassment and human trafficking – unless an abortion rights measure he and the groups want is included in the package.

Senate Republicans and four independent Senate Democrats say that isn’t happening.

Brooks said that any link between the gun law and abortion measure is a “misread” of public opinion, which she says has shown support for the abortion provision.

Many lawmakers say they can’t wait to leave Albany, but there are some matters still to be resolved:

• Casino gambling – Will Cuomo and lawmakers cut a deal to permit up to seven new casinos in New York before asking voters this fall to approve such a change to the State Constitution?

• “Tax-Free NY” – Will Cuomo get lawmakers to go along with a program giving tax breaks – including even no state income tax payments by employees – to firms willing to locate on state and private college campuses?

• Local government assistance – What will be the final form be of an expected deal to let localities ask a special state restructuring board for help with their structural deficits, and will there be real or window-dressing solutions for “distressed” municipalities to pay what they can afford in cases of binding arbitration with police and firefighters unions?

While those measures get the headlines, dozens of others are in the mix. Upstate lawmakers fear that momentum has stopped for a new public-private entity to help utilities finance improvements to electrical transmission lines, which could help Western New York power plants with more ways to sell energy to downstate.

Some parents are pressing for a ban on over-the-counter sales of certain cough medicines being abused by teenagers for their hallucinatory effects, while others, led by a Western New York contingent, want increased penalties for repeat child-abuse offenders.

“We have a framework for further discussions,” Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said of where the sides are on the various issues.

After more than an hour of closed-door talks, there was only one thing on which the sides appeared to agree. “We agreed we want to be finished by Thursday,” said Senate co-leader Jeffrey D. Klein, D-Bronx.

On a public radio program, Cuomo threatened lawmakers with the creation of a panel with broad investigatory powers if they do not enact a taxpayer-funded campaign finance system along with other ideas he says will reduce corruption.

He also bashed the four independent Senate Democrats, who run the Senate with the GOP in a coalition, for refusing to bring his abortion rights bill to the floor; he said the matter will now be a factor in the 2014 legislative elections.

The governor also defended his newest casino idea, which calls for allowing slotlike devices into new gambling halls in certain parts of the state – Western New York would be excluded because of the new casino deal with the Seneca Nation of Indians – if a referendum to add seven full casinos with table games and real slots is defeated this fall by voters.

While some sources said the sides had agreed Monday to a casino-expansion measure, key lawmakers say the terms are still being negotiated.



email: tprecious@buffnews.com ]]> Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:57:56 -0400 Tom Precious
]]> <![CDATA[ Zellner staves off leadership challenge ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130617/CITYANDREGION/130619223/1026  By Robert J. McCarthy

   A legal challenge to the 2012 election of Jeremy J. Zellner as chairman of the Erie County Democratic Committee has been dismissed by the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court.

   The suit, brought by supporters of unsuccessful chairman candidate Frank C. Max Jr. --  chairman of Cheektowaga Democrats -- was found to be without merit by the Rochester panel after a similar decision in Buffalo. Max had contended that the vote at last September's reorganizational meeting was unfairly weighted toward Zellner after improper redistricting in the Town of Amherst engineered by Democratic Elections Commissioner Dennis E. Ward, the town's former Democratic chairman.

   "The elections commissioner used an arcane provision of election law to redistrict in Amherst to his advantage," attorney Peter Reese said in filing the appeal last October.

   Zellner was elected by a wide margin, with about 57 percent of the vote to Max's 43 percent.
   In a statement, he reiterated his contention that he is the legally elected chairman of the Erie County party.

   "This ruling confirms the overwhelming vote by the duly elected committee members of the Erie County Democratic Committee," Zellner said. "At the time of the vote, both candidates for chair stated publicly that they were going to unite behind the winner. It is time for the Democratic Party in Erie County to move forward together and unite behind our strong ticket."

   Max said Monday no decision has been made regarding taking the case to the Court of Appeals.

 

]]> Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:09:51 -0400 <![CDATA[ New bids for voting machine storage put on hold until 2014 in Niagara ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130616/CITYANDREGION/130619298/1026
The county rents space in a former mattress factory in Newfane, owned by Lockport commercial developer David L. Ulrich, for $7,200 a month.

There it stores all the new electronic ballot readers that it has purchased in recent years, as well as all the old lever machines and the used paper ballots from recent elections.

Ulrich is a frequent contributor to GOP candidates, leading Democrats to allege that the contract is a favor to him.

County Attorney Claude A. Joerg said the terms of the contract call for it to renew automatically every Aug. 1 unless one of the sides gives notice at least 120 days before that.

Legislature Minority Leader Dennis F. Virtuoso, D-Niagara Falls, acknowledged that the resolution calling for a new request for proposals, or RFP, is too late for this year. But he said he’ll reintroduce his measure early in the new year “just to see if we can get it cheaper. It’s a good practice, too. … Jan. 1; it’ll come up again.”

“It should be entertained at the appropriate time,” said Majority Leader Richard E. Updegrove, R-Lockport. “There’s no opposition to going out for an RFP, at least that I’m aware of.”

Ulrich was unhappy to hear that. “We will be looking for a new tenant, and this will most likely end up costing them a lot more money,” he said in an email to The Buffalo News.

The developer also sent a statement that read:

“They can obviously do whatever they want but it does send a strong message that after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to accommodate their needs, and further diminishing the value of my property by donating to them for free the land to build their communications tower, and even providing free parking to county employees at buildings they lease from someone else, that they feel the need to try and wipe out these past good deeds. We try very hard to be a great landlord and to go above and beyond to provide great value and it is very discouraging to me.”

The communications tower he mentioned is part of the county’s new emergency radio system.

“At this point I think, it’s premature, especially if we’re looking into other options,” said Legislator Paul B. Wojtaszek, R-North Tonawanda.

County Manager Jeffrey M. Glatz said the county is looking for other suitable space that it already owns, such as the records storage building that it is vacating on Davison Road in Lockport. The records are to be hauled to Ulrich’s Newfane building.

The Legislature voted last October to lease 28,800 square feet of space for records in the Transit Road building for five years for a total of $640,800.

Glatz said that the final results aren’t in but that it seems the Lockport space may not be large enough for all the machines. “We don’t have anything else,” he said, “and there would have to be some electrical modifications.”

email: tprohaska@buffnews.com ]]> Sun, 16 Jun 2013 19:04:52 -0400 Thomas Prohaska
]]> <![CDATA[ What do you know about Buffalo’s most famous politician? ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130616/CITYANDREGION/130619518/1026
A new book, “The Forgotten Conservative: Rediscovering Grover Cleveland,” by John M. Pafford, lays out Cleveland’s life and makes the case that the two-term president – in nonconsecutive periods, as 22nd and 24th of our chief executives – was both a deeply Christian man and a more conservative president than he is given credit for.

After all, as Pafford points out, Cleveland vetoed more legislation in his terms than all of the men who held the office before him – combined.

That follows on the heels of a recent book by Matthew Algeo that related the story of the top-secret surgery that Cleveland had aboard a ship in 1893 to remove a cancerous growth from his mouth. Algeo came to Buffalo in 2011 to speak about his book.

Both books shine a little more light on the talented and multifaceted man who came to Buffalo early in his life, and spent a good portion of his early political career in local office.

Buffalo has connections to a few presidents – William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt and Millard Fillmore among them – but Grover Cleveland’s striking life story makes him a unique reflection of Buffalo in some key ways.

He lived a portion of his life here, starting with his arrival in the city as a young man.

He built a law career here, and began his political activity in Erie County and the City of Buffalo.

Then there’s the not unimportant fact that he fell in love with – then married, and had five children with – a Buffalo woman who still wins praise as one of the best hostesses ever to occupy the Executive Mansion.

Cleveland is all this – and a colorful personality, too.

“Cleveland’s capacity for work was impressive,” writes Pafford, at one point in the new book. “After a full day in the office, he could work through the night, take a bath, drink some coffee, and be back in the office at eight o’clock the next morning.”

At the same time, Pafford notes, Cleveland “could play as hard as he worked” – and spent a good deal of time in the city’s raucous taverns and beer halls.

So if Grover Cleveland is having a bit of a heyday?

Good for him.

We can take part in it, a little, by upping our knowledge of the former mayor of Buffalo – who went on to even bigger things.

Here are 15 Grover Cleveland-themed quiz questions, with answers drawn from the recent Cleveland books:

1. What was Cleveland’s full name?

a. Grover William Cleveland

b. Stephen Grover Cleveland

c. Grover Washington Cleveland

d. Samuel Grover Cleveland

2. Where was Cleveland born?

a. Buffalo

b. Washington, D.C.

c. New Jersey

d. Ohio

3. Cleveland first arrived in Buffalo in the 1850s to visit an:

a. uncle

b. eligible young woman who became his wife

c. associate from school

d. old friend

4. When Cleveland ran for Erie County district attorney in 1865 – a race he lost – he did so as a:

a. Republican

b. Know-Nothing

c. Whig

d. Democrat

5. Cleveland would go on to marry a local woman who was the daughter of one of his early:

a. drinking buddies

b. political enemies

c. law partners

d. pastors

6. Cleveland took office as mayor of Buffalo in:

a. 1878

b. 1882

c. 1884

d. 1900

7. Buffalonian Frances Folsom, who in 1886 became the bride of Grover Cleveland at age 21 in a small White House ceremony, changed her first name as a young woman from her original given name, which was:

a. Frank

b. Philippa

c. Consuela

d. Bonita

8. The lapse of time between Cleveland’s assuming the mayor’s office in Buffalo and his taking on the position of New York’s governor was:

a. Six months

b. Twelve years

c. Six years

d. One year

9. While in office in the nation’s capital as president, Cleveland and his wife, Frances, spent their down time living at a home on 23 acres of land in outlying Washington called by both a formal name and a casual one, as:

a. Maple Hill, or “the Lair”

b. Rosecliff, or “Camp David”

c. Oak View, or “Red Top” (for the red roofs of the place)

d. Summersdale, or “The Retreat”

10. Cleveland died at age:

a. 71

b. 100

c. 60

d. 88

11. In his first inaugural address, Cleveland vowed to do all of the following as president except:

a. Protect the Indians

b. Hold the country to a gold standard for currency

c. End polygamy in the country

d. Expand railroads to all states in the Union

12. According to Algeo, the tumor-plagued Cleveland disappeared from public view in 1893 for a secret surgery-at-sea on a boat in Long Island Sound that kept him away from office for:

a. Three weeks

b. Five days

c. Six months

d. Twelve hours

13. In religion, Cleveland was a:

a. Roman Catholic

b. Quaker

c. Presbyterian

d. Mormon

14. Cleveland’s two terms as president were interrupted by the four years in office of:

a. Benjamin Harrison

b. Chester Arthur

c. William McKinley

d. James Garfield

15. First lady Frances Cleveland, 27 years younger than her husband, became the first presidential widow to:

a. Relocate overseas

b. Hold political office in her own right

c. Switch party affiliation after her husband’s death

d. Remarry



email: cvogel@buffnews.com

Answers:

1.) b., 2.) c.; 3.) a.; 4.) d.; 5.) c.; 6.) b.; 7.) a.; 8.) d.; 9.) c.; 10.) a.; 11.) d.; 12.) b.; 13.) c.; 14.) a.; 15.) d. ]]> Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:42:02 -0400 Charity Vogel
]]> <![CDATA[ Party lines drawn on Niagara County tourism contract renewal ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130615/CITYANDREGION/130619354/1026
The majority Republicans are proposing only a one-year extension to work out problems they have found with the performance of the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp.

The minority Democrats are proposing a 10-year renewal, which is far closer to the 15-year deal NTCC President John Percy asked for. The contract that just expired was a 10-year pact.

Majority Leader Richard E. Updegrove, R-Lockport, last week cited concerns about Percy’s allegedly extravagant spending and lack of measurable results in adding to the tourist flow in the county.

Updegrove pointed to Lockport Mayor Michael W. Tucker’s longtime criticism of the NTCC as ineffective for Lockport.

Minority Leader Dennis F. Virtuoso, D-Niagara Falls, said the GOP members “have to educate themselves about how the tourism industry works.”

He said, “In tourism, you can’t plan year by year. You have to plan things long-term. These conventions are booked years and years ahead of time. Right now, they’re buying [advertising] space for next year.”

As part of a letter-writing campaign organized by Percy from area businesses, Mike Murphy wrote that his company, Lockport Locks and Erie Canal Cruises, has been winning awards on travel websites.

“This worldwide recognition would certainly not be possible without the tireless market efforts of NTCC,” Murphy wrote. “John Percy and his staff have a national and international reputation. Their contacts and reputation alone are valuable assets to Niagara County.”

Robert L. Emerson, executive director of Old Fort Niagara, wrote that the fort’s attendance rose 33 percent last year.

“This excellent performance can be traced directly to the efforts of the NTCC and its marketing programs,” Emerson wrote.

John Kinney, operator of Whirlpool Jet Boat Tours, said his revenue from the American side of the Niagara River has risen from 3 percent of his business in 1997 to 50 percent today, a jump he credits to Percy’s organization.

“Without the NTCC, Niagara Falls will become Morgantown, W.Va., Scranton, Pa., or Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. There is nothing wrong with these towns; however, nobody would ever call them world-class,” Kinney wrote.

Updegrove charged last week that the letters legislators have been receiving were provoked by fear.

“They are being told that the County Legislature is jeopardizing their livelihoods by not renewing the contract,” he said. “Of course, they are being callously used by Mr. Percy in what amounts to an effort to save his own job.”

email: tprohaska@buffnews.com ]]> Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:01:40 -0400 Thomas Prohaska
]]> <![CDATA[ Can Cuomo really dissolve the Peace Bridge Authority? ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130615/CITYANDREGION/130619369/1026
But Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is getting very different legal advice.

His advisers are telling him there’s a loophole that makes it legally permissible for the State Legislature to pass legislation that could lead to the disbanding of the Peace Bridge Authority no matter what the Canadians think.

The State Legislature passed such legislation on Wednesday, and perhaps that will somehow prompt a resolution of the cross-border dispute over how Buffalo’s key border crossing is governed.

If not, though, the result is likely to be a decidedly unpeaceful legal battle.

And that, of course, could delay improvements at the Peace Bridge – which is exactly the opposite of what Cuomo and the bill’s sponsors say they are trying to do.

The root of such a legal dispute would be the Canadian government’s contention that New York cannot act alone to disband a public authority, which is just what the legislation sponsored by Rep. Sean Ryan, D-Buffalo, and State Sen. Mark Grisanti, R-Buffalo, would in effect do.

“Canada’s view is that significant amendments to the governance of the bridge authority cannot be made without the consent of both federal governments,” Scott Streiner, assistant deputy minister of Transport Canada, said in a May 31 letter to Howard B. Glaser, a top aide to Cuomo.

Asked why Transport Canada feels that way, agency spokesperson Karine Martel cited a 1955 legal opinion from then-New York Attorney General Jacob Javits.

Commenting on a 1955 Peace Bridge governance dispute remarkably similar to the one happening today, Javits wrote: “While it has been recognized that unilateral legislation by a state in furtherance of an interstate compact or agreement does not require consents of the participating parties and of the Congress, such consents are required where changes in the agreement are unilaterally proposed or attempted to be made by one of the parties.”

While a 1955 legal opinion from Albany might not seem to carry that much weight, Javits’ opinion now has the weight of legal history to support it.

In fact, the legal history is so strongly on the Canadians’ side that Arthur J. Giacalone, an East Aurora attorney who specializes in land use and environmental issues and who has been following the issue closely, said: “I think there’s absolutely no rational legal support for the state’s position” that it can dissolve the Peace Bridge Authority on its own.

First and foremost, the state would have to overcome a little legal impediment called the U.S. Constitution, which says “no state shall, without the consent of Congress … enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power.”

Federal courts have long interpreted that to mean, as well, that no state can abrogate such an agreement on its own. In fact, a legal opinion drawn up for the Peace Bridge Authority by its counsel at Phillips Lytle LLP last month cited more than a dozen federal court decisions that appear to buttress the argument that the state cannot act alone.

Most notably, in a 1994 Supreme Court case called Hess v. Port Authority Trans Hudson Corp., the justices said that compacts entered into to create public authorities “are not subject to the unilateral control of any one of the states.”

In addition to the requirement that Canada approve it – which it refuses to do – some sort of U.S. government approval would be required as well.

The legal opinion from Phillips Lytle said Congress had delegated the approval power to the Secretary of State, but the Congressional Research Service said last week that Congress gave that power to the Secretary of Transportation instead.

Adding up all the evidence, though, the Peace Bridge lawyer, Craig R. Bucki, concluded that it’s clear that Canada and the U.S. government would have to approve the just-passed legislation in Albany.

“Absent such consent, any unilateral effort by the State Legislature to enact a law that would claim to dissolve the PBA or compromise its powers would be of no effect,” he said.

Definitive as that sounds, Cuomo’s lawyers say: not so fast.

That’s because they think a quirk of history will play in their favor.

In a memo, the governor’s legal advisors note that New York and Canada amended the Peace Bridge Authority’s founding document in 1970 – but that Congress never agreed to those changes.

That being the case, the state lawyers argue that a previous Peace Bridge revision authorized by both the U.S. and Canadian governments in 1957 remains in effect – and that agreement called for the Peace Bridge Authority to expire on July 1, 1992 or when its bonds were paid off.

Since the authority operated for a time since then with no bond debt, the state views the Peace Bridge Authority as the legal equivalent of the living dead.

“The 1957 agreement was the last amendment consented to by both national governments,” the memo to the governor says.

“Therefore, the proposed NY law returning to the ‘status quo ante’ of the 1992 termination date … does not need further approval by either national government.”

But if he signs, legal action is likely to follow, sources on both sides of the debate conceded.

email: jzremski@buffnews.com ]]> Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:54:18 -0400 Jerry Zremski
]]> <![CDATA[ Cuomo’s casino deal with the Senecas provides a blueprint for the Peace Bridge ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130615/OPINION/130619472/1026
With their agreement, the financial gun aimed in Niagara Falls was lowered and the threat to the Senecas’ monopoly on big-time casino gambling was resolved. Everyone came out a winner, especially Cuomo, who showed he knows how to play a hand.

Peace Bridge worriers, take note.

The past few years have been desperate times in Niagara Falls, which, by hosting the Seneca Niagara Casino within its borders, was due a share of the casino’s slot machine revenues.

The Senecas had been withholding payments due the state, which in turn was supposed to pay the city, over the state’s approval of gambling at racetracks in Hamburg, Batavia and Canandaigua.

The Senecas said those racinos violated the exclusivity zone provided by the 2002 compact signed by the state and the Senecas. On Thursday, Cuomo acknowledged the obvious and agreed that the Senecas’ point was “legitimate.”

With Thursday’s agreement, and assuming approval by Seneca Nation’s council, Niagara Falls will reap a windfall of $89 million in delayed payments. The two other cities hosting Seneca casinos, Buffalo and Salamanca, will receive $15.5 million and $34.5 million, respectively. It’s not found money, but revenue these municipalities were owed and upon which they had counted.

That is especially true for the struggling City of Niagara Falls, which had cut back road paving, saw its credit rating lowered twice and faced the possibility of running out of money before the end of this year. The infusion of $89 million will help, but the city shouldn’t set off on a spending spree. The Falls still faces serious budget problems.

With the deal, Cuomo has withdrawn his threat to locate another casino in Western New York, quite possibly in Niagara Falls. He is also accepting $209.8 million less than the Senecas actually owed the state, presumably as penance for the state’s having encroached on the Senecas’ exclusivity zone. New limits will be placed on the games offered at the three racetrack slot parlors, and on their signage and marketing.

The deal could also benefit all Western New York counties. If the state approves a referendum allowing for expansion of casino gambling in areas of the state not covered by contracts with Indian nations, then the state will forgo its take from the three Western New York casinos, and divide that up among the counties. Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Salamanca would continue to receive their full share of revenues.

This came together now because of the pressure of a looming deadline. The end of the current session of the New York State Legislature arrives on Thursday and, by then, Albany could have authorized a new casino in Western New York, a casino that would have seriously cut into the huge profits from the Seneca Niagara Casino. With that threat (which may have been a gambler’s bluff by Cuomo; we’re sure he’ll never tell), it became time to be serious.

Is something similar happening with the dispute over the Peace Bridge Authority? It’s hard not to see the parallels. As with the casino standoff, Cuomo now has leverage: legislation that could abolish the authority if he signs it.

How that dispute will be resolved – or if it will be resolved – remains unknown, but Cuomo’s agreement with the Senecas shows that even with leverage, the facts make a difference and that he is open to a fair resolution. Here’s hoping one is in the offing. ]]> Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:30:06 -0400 <![CDATA[ Snyder opens up about casino tensions between state, Senecas ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130614/CITYANDREGION/130619432/1026
“There was tension. There had to be,” said Seneca President Barry Snyder Sr., describing the 90-minute meeting he had with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the governor’s New York City office.

“I don’t think anybody came in thinking we were going to settle anything that day,” he added.

Instead, it was a session for two politicians and government leaders to feel each other out, to see how each other reacted to ideas and to see where there might be common ground.

For Cuomo, accustomed to dealing with legislative leaders, it meant offering a mix of firmness and respect for the elected leader of a sovereign Indian nation. For Snyder, it meant figuring out how to deal with another New York governor, something he has gone through often in his five, two-year terms as Seneca president since he won his first race in 1980.

“It was him understanding who I am and me understanding who he is. It was clear he was not going to give ground and I was not going to give ground,” Snyder said.

“He was probably sizing me up as I sized him up,” the Seneca leader said in an interview Friday, a day after he and Cuomo signed a deal ending a four-year dispute in which the Senecas withheld millions of dollars in casino revenue-sharing and other payments because of claims the state breached a 2002 compact giving the Senecas exclusive gambling rights in Western New York.

Under the deal, the Senecas get to keep $209 million of the $559.5 million in withheld revenue-sharing payments, and got a promise from Cuomo that no new non-Indian casinos will be located in a huge area from Lake Erie as far east as the central Finger Lakes.

And, according to the memorandum of understanding the state made public Friday, it is all but guaranteed that the tribe’s 2002 compact to run casinos in Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Salamanca will run until at least 2023 and not expire, as was possible, in 2016.

“In the end, nobody got 100 percent of what they wanted, but it was very good for both sides,” Snyder said.

For Cuomo’s part, the negotiating sessions with the Senecas, as well as leaders of the Oneida and St. Regis Mohawks with whom he also recently made casino agreements, took him back to his days as the nation’s housing and urban development secretary in the Clinton administration.

“Negotiating with Native Americans is different, much different” than his usual dealings with lawmakers in Albany, the governor explained.

For starters, he said in an interview after signing the agreement, a governor is technically “inferior” to a president of a sovereign Indian nation.

“This is nation-to-state,” he said of the protocol of how an Indian leader is to be treated.

Indeed, Snyder said he would not personally meet with Cuomo’s representatives unless Cuomo was in the room. Protocol, he explained.

After the May meeting, the two would not meet again until late Wednesday afternoon in Cuomo’s Capitol suite. Seneca counselors were already in Albany meeting with various officials, but Snyder said he had a condition for Cuomo when the governor called him and asked him on short notice to get to the Capitol.

“It was the most important meeting, but I was not going to go down until everything was positive,” the Seneca president said.

Key officials – including Cuomo’s top adviser Howard Glaser and Seneca general counsel Christopher Karns – kept negotiating final clauses. Also in the mix were a team of Cuomo lawyers and aides, while Snyder relied on a group of outsiders for help, including politically wired Albany lobbyist Tracy Lloyd and former Buffalo Mayor Anthony M. Masiello, now a lobbyist for the tribe, as well as lawyers based in Washington.

At 4:24 p.m. Wednesday, a chartered Learjet 35 left Buffalo with Snyder and his team, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. It was in Albany just 37 minutes later and Snyder was on his way to see Cuomo and the waiting Seneca councilors.

At 8:58 p.m., Snyder’s jet headed home – with the outlines of a deal in place. Final terms, and some sticking points, needed a last round of lawyer talks Thursday morning before Cuomo felt confident enough that a deal was done.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, the governor ordered two waiting State Police planes to take him and a contingent of Western New York lawmakers to Niagara Falls to announce the deal.

Cuomo and Snyder had talked often via phone over the weeks, and the final talks continued right up until Cuomo’s plane departed for Niagara Falls Thursday. But Glaser said the key breakthrough came Wednesday night when Cuomo met Snyder and Seneca Council members in his Capitol office.

“A lot of the complexity in dealing with the Seneca Nation is the need to get consensus by the whole council, and I think the governor really wanted to look them in the eye, face to face,” Glaser said.

Glaser said Cuomo then did something he hadn’t seen before: he told the Seneca leaders to take time to talk among themselves and to use his private office. They did so for 45 minutes.

“It was a moment of respect,” Glaser said.

The governor also acknowledged the problems created by the state that began, the Senecas say, when the state Lottery Division in 2008 let area racetrack “racinos” market themselves as full casinos.

“I think the governor was very direct with the council in saying he understood there had been a breach of trust over the years, and he believed they had a legitimate point and at the end of the day it wasn’t about the language of this contract but re-establishing a relationship with the Senecas,” said Glaser.

“It’s the reboot of the relationship with the Seneca Nation that goes beyond the casino compact itself,” Glaser said Friday.

The five-page casino agreement is as interesting for what it includes as for what it omits.

It includes the monetary terms, the new marketing restrictions on three existing area racetrack casinos and paragraphs about the tribe and state holding regular meetings to avoid future conflicts.

But unlike recent deals with the Oneidas, for example, it resolves no other disputes, whether land issues or tax-free sales of cigarettes and gasoline. It also does not compel the Senecas to support a casino expansion referendum that Cuomo hopes to take to voters in November.

The casino-owning Indians, including the Senecas, were seen as major bankrollers of efforts to try to kill the referendum.

“They never asked, and we never offered,” Snyder said of the referendum. He would not say if the tribe will take a position on the Cuomo plan to add seven new casinos in the state.

What’s more, Snyder said the Senecas might be interested in bidding on the development rights with a partner to run one of the casinos, especially in the Catskills, if the referendum passes. The Senecas years ago made a failed run to develop a Catskills casino.

“We would be interested again. We’re looking for partners,” Snyder said.

First, though, the memorandum that Snyder and Cuomo signed faces formal approval by the Seneca council; Snyder said he expects approval next week.

Snyder recently told The Buffalo News that Cuomo was “a bully.” On Thursday, he apologized to Cuomo for the remark.

But in Friday’s interview, Snyder dismissed any notion that the deals Cuomo made with the Oneidas and St. Regis Mohawks put pressure on the Senecas, as Cuomo allies believe. And he said the Senecas were confident they would win the binding arbitration case before a three-member panel where the dispute with Cuomo was taken last year. But, of arbitration he cautioned, “There are no guarantees.”

Moreover, Snyder said Cuomo’s public threat to locate a new casino, maybe even in downtown Niagara Falls, fell flat with Seneca leaders.

“That was just all political stuff. That was for the news media,” he said. Referring to the meeting Thursday, he added: “I told the governor when I met with him that I don’t really care if you do or do not put another casino in. I think that settled it. We’re a strong gaming entity, and we can compete with anybody.”

Snyder said he came to respect Cuomo by the end of the process.

“He’s a tough governor. I give him credit. He knows he’s a good politician,” the Seneca president said.

email: tprecious@buffnews.com ]]> Sat, 15 Jun 2013 10:17:05 -0400 Tom Precious
]]> <![CDATA[ Funding spared for developmentally disabled ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130614/CITYANDREGION/130619444/1026
The deal, first reported by Newsday, still counts on savings, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo has reportedly agreed to restore funding to programs if agencies cannot come up with the $90 million in savings they were asked to find in the current budget’s $50 billion health-care program.

Service cuts from the lost funding would have been crushing, officials of local programs said.

Day programs by Autism Services would have been in jeopardy, said executive director Veronica E. Federiconi.

Among the programs potentially at risk was a horticultural project for which 10 individuals are driven to Lyndonville for outdoor instruction.

“We have a very low percent of people who can go out to the work world,” Federiconi said. “So the key for us is to try and build in as many day experiences for people who don’t work.

“I collaborated with a horticulturist, and our folks go to Lyndonville several times a week,” Federiconi said. “It’s a safe environment that gets them outdoors doing meaningful activities.”

The state budget originally cut $120 million in aid to the state programs for the developmentally disabled, but lawmakers restored $30 million in March.

The remaining $90 million in cuts were still at issue this week. Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, a Nassau County Democratic, and Senator Martin Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, warned legislative colleagues of the consequences of cutting services from the “most vulnerable people in the state.”

The Independent Living Center on Main Street helps with family reimbursement programs for individuals with disabilities so they can live in the community and not be institutionalized, said Douglas J. Usiak, its executive director.

Many of the services the center offers, such as five wheelchair-lift equipped vans to transport clients, are already pushed to their limits.

“They are booked one month in advance. It used to be two weeks,” Usiak said. “We also provide small grants for family members to help install a fence, pay for equipment or respite for caregivers.”

Usiak said his agency would probably not have seen the “real impact” of the funding cuts until October or November.

Autism Services operates rehabilitation centers on Hertel Avenue and on South Long Street in Williamsville. Each site daily serves 45 clients who take advantage of many arts-based programs led by artists, musicians and actors.

Its Coach Program offers 10 people the opportunity to work.

“But they must have a coach with them at all times, who takes them to work, brings them back and stays with them throughout the day,” Federiconi said. “They work in Barnes & Noble checking in inventory, at a pizzeria, and at Buffalo Seminary in the cafeteria.”

Federiconi said only four of the 400 clients served by her agency can be employed.

“It is scary for our families primarily because right now I have 102 children in our education program who, when they graduate, are not going to have a place to go to,” she said. “The path the state is taking is a transition directly from school to work. Day programs will no longer be an option for them. The state really wants us to focus on finding those kids jobs. Our concern is that the typical population is having a difficult time finding jobs. Taking the kids from a pretty protective environment out into the workforce and hoping they succeed is pretty grandiose. But we have to try.”

email: jkwiatkowski@buffnews.com ]]> Fri, 14 Jun 2013 23:52:00 -0400 Jane Kwiatkowski
]]> <![CDATA[ City GOP backs Rodriguez for mayor ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130613/CITYANDREGION/130619549/1026
Sergio R. Rodriguez, a Marine veteran and former administrator at Medaille College, has been officially endorsed by the City of Buffalo Republican Committee to face the winner of the Democratic primary between incumbent Byron W. Brown and challenger Bernard Tolbert, according to Chairman William E. Nowakowski.

“We’re looking forward to it,” Nowakowski said. “I think he’ll present a different choice.”

But Rodriguez faces a major challenge in a city with a 7-to-1 Democratic advantage in registration.

Indeed, Brown clobbered Republican Kevin J. Helfer by almost 40 percentage points in 2005, while the party endorsed Democrats in several previous elections.

As a result, some Republicans were content to let the line go blank in 2009, when 48,000 fewer voters went to the polls than in 2005 without the draw of a Buffalo mayoral election.

Some countywide Republicans had also privately indicated a preference for Rodriguez not to enter the race this year, so as not to encourage turnout in heavily Democratic Buffalo to the detriment of countywide GOP candidates for sheriff and comptroller.

But Nowakowski said the Buffalo committee felt the need to once again field a Republican candidate.

“Everyone is behind Sergio,” he said. “There was no issue there at all.”

The chairman said that he is encouraged by the presence of a Hispanic candidate on the ballot as the party reaches out to minority voters and that he is impressed by a strong cadre of volunteers surrounding Rodriguez.

“He will run a spirited campaign, though he has still got to raise some money,” he said.

Nowakowski cited the possibility of a rare GOP primary, since Republican Matthew J. Ricchiazzi is also circulating petitions. He did not seek the party endorsement, Nowakowski added.

email: rmccarthy@buffnews.com ]]> Fri, 14 Jun 2013 01:29:52 -0400 Robert J. McCarthy
]]> <![CDATA[ State Senate passes bill seeking sex-offender buffer zones ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130613/CITYANDREGION/130619649/1026 Thu, 13 Jun 2013 02:03:40 -0400 <![CDATA[ Senate committee rejects plan for prosecutor in sexual assault cases ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130612/WORLD/130619676/1026
A week after several top military leaders criticized Gillibrand’s proposal, Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said he favored replacing her proposal with one that increases independent review of sexual assault cases and criminalizes retaliation against victims, but that otherwise largely preserves the status quo.

“I do not support removing the authority of commanders to prosecute sexual assault cases and putting that decision in the hands of military lawyers outside of the chain of command,” Levin, D-Mich., said. “I believe that doing so would weaken our response to sexual assault and actually make it less likely that sexual assaults would be prosecuted.”

Gillibrand, D-N.Y., disagreed vehemently and vowed to try to get her amendment passed by the full Senate.

“I am deeply disappointed the voices of the victims of sexual assault have been drowned out by the military leaders who have failed to combat this crisis,” she said. “Our advocacy on this issue to remove the sole decision-making of the chain of command in serious crimes has only just begun.”

Only a day earlier, the Armed Services Personnel Committee, which Gillibrand chairs, had included her proposal in a bill that authorizes defense programs for fiscal 2014.

But now that bill will go to the Senate floor without the strongest Senate proposal to combat what Gillibrand and many other senators of both parties call an apparent epidemic of sexual assault cases in the armed services.

The legislation is not expected to reach the Senate floor until much later this year, and Gillibrand’s aides expect that she will be able to build support for her measure over time.

Wednesday’s committee vote suggests, though, that it could be an uphill battle that will by no means be fought along the Senate’s typical partisan lines.

The committee voted 17-9 to back Levin’s approach to the problem. Several key senators on military matters – including Republicans John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire – co-sponsored Levin’s approach, as did Democrats Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, Gillibrand won the support of an unusual coalition of less-experienced senators, including Republicans David Vitter of Louisiana and Ted Cruz of Texas as well as Democrats Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

McCain and the other opponents of Gillibrand’s proposal praised her for her passion but said her proposal was a step too far that would erode the chain of command that’s the backbone structure of the American military.

“I think that when we give men and women the responsibilities of command, we should have them exercise those responsibilities,” McCain said.

McCain said the alternative that Levin had offered would be “extremely effective” by cracking down on retaliation and setting up a better review process for commanders’ prosecutorial decisions.

Gillibrand argued that a recent Pentagon study was all the evidence needed to push for a big change in how military sex crimes are prosecuted. The report showed that while the military believes 26,000 unwanted sexual contacts occurred in the military, only about 3,000 were formally reported.

“Victims tell us they do not report because of chain of command,” Gillibrand said.

Hearing that, Cruz decided to oppose Levin’s alternative, saying Gillibrand “made a powerful and effective argument that the lack of reporting is driven by a fear of not having an impartial third party outside the chain of command in which to report a sexual assault.”

While arguing in favor of giving trained military prosecutors rather than commanders the power to decide which cases to pursue, Gillibrand acknowledged that Levin’s alternative included some strong components, such as its criminalization of retaliation in such cases.

And supporters of Levin’s alternative stressed that their support was based on an honest disagreement about the best approach, not any desire to avoid the issue.

Senators are unanimous on one thing, McCaskill said.

“We are not going to give up our focus on this problem,” she said. Addressing the nation’s military leaders, she added: “We have just begun to hold your feet to the fire. We have just begun to hold you accountable.”

email: jzremski@buffnews.com ]]> Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:57:41 -0400 Jerry Zremski
]]> <![CDATA[ Assembly, State Senate vote overwhelmingly to dissolve Peace Bridge Authority ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130612/CITYANDREGION/130619760/1026
The measure sets the wheels in motion to end the corporate status of the binational, 10-member panel created by state and federal laws to run the span between Fort Erie, Ont., and Buffalo.

The bill passed, 92-49, after a contentious session in the Assembly.

With little discussion, the vote in the Senate was 61-0.

The Legislature acted less than 24 hours after Canadians dispatched a senior federal official to Albany in an attempt to slow the state’s efforts to end the Peace Bridge Authority,

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has not publicly embraced the legislation but has backed it in private meetings with lawmakers as a way to pressure Canadians to resolve the continuing dispute over improvements to the U.S. side of the Peace Bridge.

The bill set up a nasty, and unusual, floor debate in the Assembly lasting more than an hour and pitting several Western New York Democrats against one another.

“The governor’s hands are very much around this legislation. His appointees support it. They want to see it move through this Legislature as a bludgeon, as a club, against our Canadian friends on the Peace Bridge Authority. … I don’t like bullying,” said Assemblyman Robin L. Schimminger, D-Kenmore.

He said the bill will halt improvements on the span because the threat of dissolution will force the authority to sell off bonds, meaning that it will not be able to further finance new construction. He called the legislation “mischievous and, at worst, reckless and dangerous.”

Assemblywoman Jane L. Corwin, R-Clarence, said that the authority already has approved a number of major construction efforts and that delays now will cause new environmental-review processes that will push renovations and expansion years into the future. “The governor is telling us we have to do it this way because we have to move forward,” Corwin said. Instead, she said, the legislation will cause lawsuits halting bridge improvements, adding it is not helping negotiations or relations between New York and Canada.

But Assemblyman Sean M. Ryan, D-Buffalo, who sponsored the bill, said Canadian members of the authority do not want to do major expansion work on the Buffalo side for five or more years – delays he said will further add to pollution due to idling trucks on the city’s West Side.

“The children of the West Side of Buffalo who are living in these conditions can’t have four or five more years of that,” Ryan said.

Ryan said the Peace Bridge Authority is just like any sewer or water authority. “Authorities are not answerable to the public and they are not transparent,” he said, blaming the binational board for 15 years of delays to improvements on the U.S. side. He called “baseless” the concerns raised by Schimminger about construction delays or scuttling of the pilot project for preclearance of U.S.-bound trucks in Fort Erie.

Assemblyman Michael P. Kearns, D-Buffalo, called the legislation an example of “sledgehammer diplomacy” that is an attack on the state’s largest trading partner.

No similar division occurred during Senate debate, which was led by Sen. Mark J. Grisanti, R-Buffalo. “The problem is the plaza needs to be done how Western New York and New York State see fit,” said Grisanti, sponsor of the bill. He said the authority has until July 2014 to resolve matters and issue new debt or it goes out of existence. “The dissolution is not up to this legislation. The dissolution is up to the authority,” Grisanti said.

In response to the vote, authority General Manager Ron Rienas, a Canadian, said Wednesday that the legislation will immediately halt $150 million in Peace Bridge projects already approved. He emphasized that the board last year unanimously approved constructing a new customs warehouse on the Buffalo plaza and widening approaches to both ends of the bridge.

But those projects are now likely to be put on hold, he said, because lenders for such capital expenditures are uncertain of the authority’s future. As a result, Rienas said he believes that the authority now must delay other scheduled projects and save its own money for its top priority – an approximately $92 million project to replace the span’s original 1927 decking in 2015.

“Those projects simply won’t happen,” he said, pointing to the need to avoid delays such as the 52 days of lane closures experienced in 2012 because of problems from the deteriorating deck.

He said Canadians share Cuomo’s “frustration” over a lack of progress on the Buffalo plaza, but he disputed assertions by state officials that adopting the schedule would delay work on the U.S. side by eight years. He also said passage of the legislation only causes more delay.

“That work is ready to start, and now it comes to a grinding halt?” he said. “It doesn’t make sense. I think he wants to do the right thing,” he added, referring to the governor. “I think he’s getting terrible advice.”

Rienas also said Albany’s move to dissolve the authority will have no practical effect because under Canadian law it cannot go out of existence until at least 2020. In addition, Rienas said, Cuomo’s accelerated timetable for the Buffalo plaza cannot proceed because it will take several years to determine the success or failure of a pilot project on pre-clearing trucks for inspection in Fort Erie. He contends that the authority should proceed with its schedule in the meantime and then tackle Buffalo plaza projects that Canadian members also support in principle.

Nevertheless, he predicted the new legislation will prompt a legal response from Ottawa. “They have made it very clear,” he said. “If this legislation passes and the governor signs it, they will go to court.”

Tuesday, Canadian Consul General John F. Prato met with Cuomo administration officials and legislators in Albany to try to ease the growing tensions over the bridge dispute. His bid to slow the advance of the legislation was “not successful,” a Cuomo administration official said Tuesday night. Wednesday afternoon, as the bill was being debated in the Assembly, Transport Canada, the lead federal agency in Ottawa, responded to Buffalo News questions about Prato’s visit.

“Canada is committed to the effective functioning of the Peace Bridge Authority. Discussions between Canada and the U.S. take place as required in support of this goal,” said Kelly James, a Transport Canada spokeswoman.

Among those raising concerns about the bill’s impact have been the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who pushed to get Washington and Ottawa to agree to place the truck preclearance facility in Fort Erie. He recently warned the legislation could jeopardize that program that took years to negotiate between Canada and the United States.

When asked about those concerns Wednesday while at the University at Buffalo Law School, Cuomo did not respond directly. But he did sound a familiar refrain that defended his hard-charging approach as stemming from two decades of stagnation at the Peace Bridge.

“Could you now slow the progress? No, because you’re not making any progress,” he said. “So there’s nothing to slow. My point is the exact opposite – let’s do something.”

Still, he said he hopes that the two sides settle their differences “amicably.”

“But Buffalo and the American side has a real trajectory of progress,” he said. “That’s what this is all about.”

email: tprecious@buffnews.com and rmccarthy@buffnews.com ]]> Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:31:49 -0400 Robert J. McCarthy
Tom Precious
]]> <![CDATA[ Cuomo at UB to push bill to reform campaign finance ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130612/CITYANDREGION/130619781/1026
Sources close to the situation said Cuomo will explain his new proposal at a 10 a.m. session to which may local business and government leaders have been invited.

Cuomo has proposed legislation to have taxpayers fund a campaign finance system for New York political candidates.

He says it will take big money out of campaigns and let less-wealthy candidates take on incumbents, and he is expected to promote the idea around the state beginning today. ]]> Wed, 12 Jun 2013 01:51:11 -0400 <![CDATA[ Legislation would provide basic rights for farmworkers ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130612/OPINION/130619835/1026
Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights – named for her late father – is a leader in the fight for reform in Albany. She explains the problem this way:

In the 1930s, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt was pushing for workers rights, southern Dixiecrats balked at giving equal footing to African-Americans. They insisted on carving out of the law’s protections domestic help, farmworkers and day laborers – then largely African-American. Congress and FDR went along and, to this day, federal law punishes farmworkers. New York State law repeats that discrimination.

Congress shows no signs of wanting to rectify this historic injustice. That makes it a state issue, Kerry says, noting that California reformed its laws 40 years ago and has a thriving agricultural economy.

Sen. Timothy Kennedy, D-Buffalo, has sponsored legislation to extend basic human rights to those workers. The Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act would ensure one day of rest each week, require fair compensation for overtime, prohibit paying less than minimum wage to underage workers and expand the state sanitary code to include all housing offered to migrant farm laborers. It would also provide collective bargaining rights to farm laborers.

The measure has cleared the State Assembly, and while Sen. Kennedy believes its prospects in the Senate are good, its fate remains uncertain. It deserves support. The costs are minor – the law would drive up the cost of milk by less than a penny a quart, supporters estimate – but even if the cost were many times that amount, the bill deserves passage. This is a bedrock question of fairness.

Consider the reaction if legislators were to choose another class of worker – nurses, for example – and propose changing the law to prohibit collective bargaining, eliminate the need to provide a day off and drop overtime pay. The bill would be denounced as an unfair attack on a particular subset of workers. It is similarly unfair to shackle farmworkers to abusive labor laws.

The bill would mainly affect employees of very large farms in the state – big businesses – rather than small, family owned farms, 75 percent of which don’t employ farmworkers. The other 25 percent of family owned farms tend to treat their workers well already, Sen. Kennedy said.

Estimates are that 50 to 75 percent of these workers are undocumented, so the issue is inevitably bound up in the federal immigration debate now raging on Capitol Hill. Some, no doubt, would argue that those undocumented workers deserve no rights, but laws already provide them with certain protections and, perhaps more to the point, they are doing work that many Americans decline to do.

But again, this is less about money and legalities than it is about basic human fairness. These workers, who are no doubt fearful of standing up for themselves, deserve the basic protections that this law would provide. New York should pass it. And Washington should not consider itself off the hook. For this nation to continue to support Jim Crow laws such as this is a travesty. ]]> Wed, 12 Jun 2013 01:20:17 -0400 <![CDATA[ Plug for Falls casino pulled from state website ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130611/CITYANDREGION/130619818/1026
As Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has been turning up the heat on the Seneca Nation of Indians by offering to place three new gambling hall competitors in Western New York, the Cuomo administration has been giving a marketing boost to the tribe’s Niagara Falls casino on the state’s I Love NY website.

The plug had been on the “Things to Do” page on the state’s I Love NY website until The Buffalo News inquired about it; it then was taken down.

The site is run by the administration’s economic development agency, and would-be tourists are treated to not one, but two colorful images of the Seneca Niagara gambling hall.

The page flipped between the two photographs showing the west entrance to the casino, complete with its soaring stained glass windows welcoming gamblers into the facility. The Senecas’ Niagara Falls location is the only one of more than a dozen casinos in the state that got its own photographic display on the site, though the Web page does offer a link to other gambling halls.

Ironic might be one word, given the verbal battles that have been soaring back and forth between the Cuomo administration and the Seneca Nation over a $600 million revenue sharing dispute. Cuomo has made a series of rhetorical threats to shake up the tribe’s exclusivity rights to operate full-blown casinos – complete with real slots and table games – in a large area of Western New York, while the tribe has accused the state of breaching the terms of a 2002 compact by allowing new forms of gambling in that exclusivity zone.

So, too, did the Seneca Nation.

email: tprecious@buffnews.com ]]> Wed, 12 Jun 2013 02:26:00 -0400 Tom Precious
]]> <![CDATA[ Erie County comptroller, administration battle over records disposal ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130611/CITYANDREGION/130619811/1026
The administration insists it was first alerted April 1 by a Department of Social Services employee, while the comptroller is adamant that the problem was known by the administration at least as far back as October.

The timeline of discovery is vital, Deputy County Executive Richard M. Tobe told lawmakers during a hearing on the issue Tuesday, because the county was required by law to notify the federal government within 60 days of discovering the breach.

“This is an important fact, because we are required by federal law to give notice within 60 days of our knowledge of a problem with the records. And if these notices occurred in the fall, then we missed it and we’re late, and the county is subject to millions of dollars in fines. The potential fines are very large,” Tobe said.

Social Services Commissioner Carol Dankert-Maurer and other administration officials accompanied Tobe to Tuesday’s hearing of the Legislature’s Government Affairs Committee.

The hearing was requested by the minority members of the Legislature after Mychajliw went public about his department’s investigation into the improper handling of confidential records by social services workers.

Neither side denies that social services workers improperly disposed of confidential documents, including copies of birth certificates, personal medical records, Social Security numbers, bank accounts, tax returns, inmate records, payroll information, court records and passports.

Mychajliw revealed last month that auditors from his department made the discovery in March while in the midsts of an audit. A week after first going public, Mychajliw revealed that on March 15, social services workers showed county auditors how sensitive documents were being stored in an unsecured area of the Rath County Office Building basement.

Mychajliw also charged that a county worker had come forward to say that she and other workers in the department had warned of the potential for lax record-keeping when their unit was dismantled in a budget-cutting maneuver.

The worker, Annette Cole, said the employees brought their concerns to the administration’s attention in October and in December during budget hearings before the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee.

“Yes, the administration was aware of the program support unit, and this Legislature was made aware of the deep cuts to the program support unit,” Mychajliw told lawmakers Tuesday.

In a recent phone interview with The Buffalo News, Cole said that one of the duties that the members of her unit were tasked with was “handling of documents and their disposal.” However, Dankert-Maurer contradicted that claim at Tuesday’s hearing.

“They were providing a support function to the administration of the department. We made the difficult decision to eliminate those positions. Those individuals were able to (go) back to previously held, permanent positions,” Dankert-Maurer said.

Mychajliw said transcripts of the testimony provided by Cole and other workers from the dismantled unit reveal the consequences of eliminating the unit, even though copies of the transcripts provided to The News from the two hearings at which they testified on Oct. 30 and Dec. 13 do not reveal any specific discussion of record-keeping.

email: hmcneil@buffnews.com ]]> Wed, 12 Jun 2013 02:25:45 -0400 Harold McNeil
]]> <![CDATA[ Four Democrats endorsed by Conservative Committee ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130610/CITYANDREGION/130619889/1026
Chairman William L. Kindel announced that the committee is supporting Council Member Mark A. Manna for supervisor against incumbent Republican Barry A. Weinstein.

The Conservatives also support Democrats Patricia S. Dunne and Ramona D. Popowich for Town Board, and Kara A. Buscaglia for town justice. ]]> Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:48:40 -0400 <![CDATA[ Boehner to stump here for Collins ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130610/CITYANDREGION/130619906/1026
Anthony H. Gioia, the former ambassador to Malta and a top Republican fundraiser, said Boehner will highlight an Aug. 7 affair in Hamburg for Collins in a sign of the party leadership’s enthusiasm for the freshman representative.

“This is really an honor for Chris Collins and shows how well he has been received by Boehner and the hierarchy,” said Gioia, who is coordinating the event with businessmen Paul Harder and William Gacioch.

Boehner has previously stumped the area for former Rep. Chris Lee and Assemblywoman Jane L. Corwin when she unsuccessfully ran for Congress in a 2011 special election. He also was active in several congressional elections in 2012 throughout New York State, including an appearance for Collins in his close victory over then-Democratic incumbent Kathleen C. Hochul.

The August event will range in donation price from $1,000 to $5,000, and will also benefit the National Republican Congressional Committee – the panel charged with electing more Republicans to the House.

Gioia said two events are slated at the Harder and Gacioch homes.

email: rmccarthy@buffnews.com ]]> Mon, 10 Jun 2013 21:39:06 -0400 Robert J. McCarthy
]]> <![CDATA[ Doubts grow about ending Peace Bridge Authority ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130610/CITYANDREGION/130619905/1026
The concerns come as sources said top officials from several Canadian federal agencies, including the Foreign Affairs Office and Transport Canada, met Monday in Ottawa to discuss the worsening dispute between New York State and Canada over improvements to the bridge.

Kelly James, a spokeswoman for Transport Canada, did not comment on any federal meetings Monday in Ottawa but issued Canada’s clearest to-date criticism of the bridge-dissolution legislation.

“Canada’s position is clear that the State of New York cannot unilaterally change the governance of structure of the Peace Bridge Authority,” she said Monday night.

Lawmakers in Albany say the controversial legislation, which Canadian officials have already said will lead to lengthy lawsuits if approved, could be passed as early as this week in both the Assembly and the State Senate.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has declined to take a formal position on the bill, but last week, lawmakers said, he privately told legislators to keep pushing the bill because it is putting pressure on Canada to bow to his plan for improvements at the Buffalo end of the span.

But others, including Democratic allies of Cuomo, say the legislation is having the reverse effect on Canadians, and could halt construction on all major projects planned for the bridge.

Schumer has called for “both sides to come together to start talking and forge a friendly and peaceful way to get things done.” Several days ago, the New York Democrat said, “I do think that legislation which says abandon the Peace Bridge Authority and start all over could only down the progress we’ve made.”

He joins Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, in raising red flags over the bill moving through the State Capitol and authored by State Sen. Mark J. Grisanti, R-Buffalo, and Assemblyman Sean M. Ryan, D-Buffalo.

Schumer was instrumental in getting the U.S. and Canadian governments to locate a pilot program in Fort Erie, Ont., to have American customs agents precheck truck traffic in Canada as a way to reduce congestion on the bridge. The project is due to start in about six months.

Schumer said the project will help with commerce and create jobs in Western New York. “But the only way we’re going to get these benefits from preinspection on the Canadian side,” he said, “is cooperation between Canada and New York State.”

Meanwhile, Patrick J. Whalen, a former Cuomo appointee to the Bridge Authority who quit when the dispute began in order to devote more time to his job as chief operating officer at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, broke his silence Monday about the bridge dispute. “I have a really big concern that the legislation jeopardizes the pilot project,” Whalen said of the truck-inspection program.

“There is nothing more important to the operation of the Buffalo plaza than moving commercial primary inspection to Fort Erie, and that starts with the pilot preclearance” program, he said. “No matter who ultimately operates the Peace Bridge and its plazas, the Buffalo plaza will not function efficiently if the primary commercial inspection is in Buffalo, because there’s not enough room.”

Whalen said that even with the improvements eyed for the Buffalo side of the Niagara River, including a larger inspection area, there still won’t be room to handle all the truck traffic without the primary inspection for U.S.-bound commercial vehicles being done in Canada.

The Buffalo Niagara Partnership, the area’s chief business lobbying group, is telling all members of the Western New York delegation that it is not taking a position on the Grisanti-Ryan bill.

The group said that it is supportive of Cuomo’s efforts for an expedited U.S. plaza expansion but that it is “firmly” in support of ensuring the preinspection program for Fort Erie is kept alive. “Rest assured, preinspection is the Partnership’s top priority relative to the Peace Bridge and binational commerce,” the group said to lawmakers.

The group said that varying “legal interpretations” over the Grisanti-Ryan bill have prevented it from taking a stance on the legislation. It said the bill, though, raises a number of questions, including whether the Canadians will still move ahead with the pilot program if the legislation passes; who would handle various bridge work if the authority is dissolved; and what happens to $50 million in projects in the pipeline if the bill passes.

“The Partnership wants what everyone wants, which is an accelerated Peace Bridge plaza and to get the job done. Regarding what’s the right path, we don’t have an opinion, except to say the area of concern that we have is preserving preclearance,” Dottie Gallagher-Cohen, the group’s president, said in an interview Monday.

Senate Republican Conference Leader Dean G. Skelos, of Long Island, said he expects his house to pass the bill. Asked about complaints that Canadians have raised about the bill, Skelos said, “I think there certainly has been a lack of attention to the American side, and I’m looking to see if I have a musket anywhere that we can all go up to the Peace Bridge and make our demands known.”

The bill’s sponsors have said that the authority’s usefulness has run out and that there was never a vision that the bridge always be run by a binational board. They say its structure – five Canadians and five Americans – has led to gridlock on advancing improvements on the Buffalo side. Further, they say the bill gives the authority another year of life – time to get its house in order to proceed with building plans.

Ryan was unsure whether the bill would pass this week or next, which is the end of the 2013 session. “We’re trying to give the parties as much time as possible to control the matter by themselves,” he said. “If they can’t, then we’ll have legislative imposition.”

But Assemblyman Robin L. Schimminger, D-Kenmore, has been trying to persuade lawmakers to oppose the bill, saying it would raise financial issues that would halt new construction efforts, including the U.S. plaza, preclearance project and redecking work. “This legislation … will see the Peace Bridge Authority on a pathway to further lawsuits, international disputes and possible retribution from Ottawa,” he said. “It’s not a pretty picture.”

email: tprecious@buffnews.com ]]> Mon, 10 Jun 2013 21:37:34 -0400 Tom Precious
]]>