Hospital closings in the last two decades from state budget cuts shows utterly stupid foresight

 NY Post

New York has lost a staggering 20,000 hospital beds over the last two decades to budget cuts and insurance overhauls, complicating local and state efforts to battle the coronavirus, according to records and experts.

The Empire State had 73,931 licensed hospital beds in 2000 before years of cuts and closures shrank the number to just 53,000 in 2020, according to records obtained by the New York State Nurses Association from the state Health Department and stats provided by officials.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday the health officials believe they will need anywhere from 55,000 to 110,000 hospital beds to treat the expected wave of coronavirus victims.

“New York has closed too many beds. They went too far,” said Judy Wessler, former head of the NY Commission on the Public’s Health System, about the 28 percent drop in beds.

Those cutbacks mean the state is in a significantly deeper deficit as it searches for ways to expand its capacity to treat COVID-19 victims.

“This is going to crash the health care system,” Cuomo warned, as he again reiterated his request to President Trump that the Army Corps of Engineers be dispatched to help New York state build emergency hospital capacity.

State would make more money off filming if it ended subsidies

From the Village Voice:

When the D.C.-based subsidy watch group Good Jobs First released its analysis recently of the $1.2 billion that New York State hands out in tax breaks to private industries each year, one item stood out: $621 million in subsidies for film and TV shoots that take place in the state. That means every man, woman, and child in New York shells out an average of $31 a year in public money into the coffers of studios and production companies.

...though both the city and state film offices provide data showing that the film industry has grown here since Governor George Pataki instituted the state’s tax credit program in 2004, economic experts aren’t so sure, pointing to other numbers that show that film and TV shoots don’t employ many more people in the state than they did fifteen years ago — and that any gain is nowhere near worth the hundreds of millions of dollars a year that the state pours into it.

And even if a positive impact does exist, New York’s film industry spending may just be a way of treading water: a zero-sum game where states compete to throw increasing amounts of tax money at the same number of jobs. It’s a problem that corporate-subsidy experts in other industries have dubbed “the economic war among the states” — and it serves mostly to funnel money out of public treasuries and into private pockets.

How could one set of numbers show that film tax credits have led to a huge boom in production jobs, while others show little to no effect? One issue is that the state’s audits separately report each job stint, no matter how short, rather than converting to “full-time equivalent” jobs — a tiny footnote in the Camoin study indicates that “if one person is employed part-time for four months, then takes two months off and is hired again for four months that would be counted as two jobs.” As a result, the official state numbers double- or triple-count crew members who work on multiple productions in one year.

Thom says that a study by the California legislature estimated that one-third of production activity in that state would take place in that state with or without subsidies. If the same ratio holds true in New York, then even if the state cut off the subsidy spigot and two-thirds of productions hightailed it to more budget-friendly climes, the state would still collect more than $250 million a year in tax revenues on an expense of zero dollars. With the current program running about a $100 million annual return by the state’s own figures, this implies that New York state would bring in about $150 million a year more in net revenues if it cut off film credits entirely — money it could conceivably then spend on more effective job-creation programs.

Living near Atlantic Yards is no picnic

From the Daily News:

Welcome to life in the shadow of Atlantic Yards, the ambitious and divisive $4.9 billion real estate project that includes 15 high-rise buildings that will eventually tower over central Brooklyn as well as Barclays Center, the rust-colored 18,000-seat home of the NBA’s Nets and the NHL’s Islanders. When developer Bruce Ratner and his political allies — most notably then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Gov. George Pataki, Ratner’s Columbia law school classmate — unveiled plans for a massive real estate project anchored by a Nets arena in 2003, they promised it would be a powerful economic engine that would bring jobs and affordable housing to the borough.

Community activists and longtime residents, however, say many of the promised benefits have yet to materialize — but the headaches and hassles they feared would be generated by the project, renamed “Pacific Park” in 2014 after years of controversy, have arrived right on schedule.

Howard and other residents say the neighborhood feels like it has been taken over by an occupying army. Noise from the construction sites around the Barclays Center is deafening, sometimes roaring on from dawn until well into the night. Traffic is snarled on streets narrowed by construction fences and clogged with trucks. The rat population has boomed and dust and diesel emissions foul the air. Confrontations with the 1,700 workers employed at the construction sites near the Barclays Center and the thousands of fans who regularly attend Nets and Islanders games as well as other events are all too frequent, the residents say.

Pataki calls for state & federal term limits

From the Huffington Post:

Former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) criticized Washington politicians who seek to “stay here forever and say nothing” in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s "Street Smart" on Tuesday.

“One of the worst things about people getting elected to Washington is once they get there, they want to stay there,” Pataki said.

The former three-term governor recalled the advice of a fellow Republican during his first week as a New York state assemblyman as he criticized the complacent attitudes and self-serving priorities of perennial lawmakers:

"I remember when I got elected to the state assembly, the first week I’m there, I’m standing up saying some stupid thing and the guy next to me, Republican, goes, ‘You know, Pataki, if you stay here, sit down and keep your head down, you could stay here forever.’ I was thinking, is that what I want to do? Stay here forever and say nothing? But I honestly think that’s the mentality of many in Washington: priority number one, getting reelected; priority number two, being in the majority; priority number three, doing what’s right for the people. That is wrong."

Pataki suggested keeping congressional term limits short -- eight years for House members and 12 years for senators -- and advised politicians retiring from public office to “go home” instead of furthering their political careers as lobbyists or consultants.

“We never had the concept of 'we have a political class that is our rulers, and then we have the public' -- and yet that’s the way it is,” Pataki said. “We have a permanent political class, whether they’re in office, or they leave public office, they stay in Washington and they dictate our lives. It’s not the way America is supposed to work, and it’s wrong.”

Poletti Plant to be demolished

From the Daily News:

One of the city’s dirtiest former power plants is being razed to the ground, ensuring that it cannot be resurrected to once again pollute the air in northwestern Queens.

The Charles Poletti Power Project, located off 20th Ave. in Astoria, is to be dismantled in early 2013, elected officials said Tuesday.

The facility, which began operation in 1977, was shuttered in 2010 following a lawsuit and years of sustained community opposition.

Former Gov. George Pataki announced in 2002 that the Poletti facility would be phased out. The 885-megawatt plant, which burned oil and natural gas, was operated by the New York Power Authority. It was phased out over the next eight years and was replaced in 2005 by a newer, cleaner New York Power Authority facility nearby.

Authority officials did not immediately respond to repeated requests for information on Tuesday.

But Astoria and Long Island City still produce the bulk of the city’s power supply — a fact bemoaned by local environmentalists who blame the area’s high rates of asthma on the facilities.

Expensive trains scrapped

From the Daily News:

The state announced that it has sold four sets of rusting trains to scrap dealers — an embarrassing end for a once-grand plan to create high-speed rail service between Manhattan and Albany.

The sale of the trains and spare parts netted a mere $420,000, a far cry from the tens of millions of dollars taxpayers sank into the doomed project.

The trains were among seven retired Turboliners former Gov. George Pataki’s administration acquired from Amtrak in 1998.

Each of the trains consisted of two engines and three passenger cars — and were supposed to be refurbished for high-speed use.

But after spending $70 million on the project, the state could only get three of the seven to run — and then only sporadically.

They were plagued with problems, from fires to poor air conditioning.
By 2002 the project was halted and Amtrak towed the three barely working trains to a rail yard in Delaware.

The remaining four have been rusting away in a rail yard outside of Schenectady, costing taxpayers $150,000 a year just in storage costs.

In June, a frustrated Gov. Cuomo announced the state would finally rid itself of the trains, even auctioning them off for scrap if necessary.

And that’s exactly what happened.

Again?

From the Gotham Gazette:

Instead of packing onto crowded, often delayed and inconvenient subways, commuters along the Brooklyn/Queens waterfront will have an alternative way to travel when a new ferry service begins making stops along the East River later this year.

The service is the latest in a long line of attempts to boost commuting by water in New York in an effort to revitalize the waterfront and ease congestion. It comes in the wake of a few successes and many failures. The ferries, which will serve Greenpoint, Williamsburg, DUMBO, downtown Brooklyn and East 34th Street, will be operated by BillyBey Ferry Co., which contracts with NY Waterway and whose boats bear the NY Waterway logo.

According to the city Economic Development Corp., the East River ferry system will cost passengers $3 to $5.50, depending on distance. Currently, the city is constructing piers for the new service, and hopes to have them operating by the time boats are ready to take passengers -- probably by June, although no date has been announced. According to development corporation spokesperson Julie Wood, if the new service becomes a success, the city will look to expand ferry service in other places.

The new ferry service comes after years of unsuccessful effort to promote ferries. In the mid-1990s, then Gov. George Pataki and then Mayor Rudy Giuliani asked NY Waterway to provide service between Hunters Point and East 34th Street. The ferries ran between every 15 to 20 minutes, but only carried 135 people per day at its peak. The service was not subsidized by the city and ended in 2001.

In 2002, NY Waterway once again tried to bring ferries to the East Side of Manhattan. The ferry served the 90th Street pier on the Upper East Side, Long Island City, 34th Street and Pier 11 in Lower Manhattan. Costing only $5 per trip, the ferries operated every 30 minutes during rush hour and had no off-hour service. The second attempt faltered due to low ridership, having only carried 150 people per day. Upper East Side opposition to shuttle bus service NY Waterway provides to its terminals further complicated matters, and low ridership from Long Island City resulted in the service ending once more in 2004.

The administration also has attempted to bring ferry service to other parts of the city. In May 2008, NY Water Taxi offered service from Breezy Point in The Rockaways, to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. Despite having community support, the ferry only served 160 people per day and cost the city $1.5 million in subsidies. The service ended last year 2010.

...the ferries will link up to a free bus service in Midtown as well as to the M34 bus. The ferries also will accommodate bicycles.

Who is going to board a ferry to then have to board a bus to then also probably have to board a train? Why do they think ferry service will have a different result this time? Why are we subsidizing this guaranteed failure?

Hello?

Bombers' garage debacle is a Bronx bummer

From A Walk in the Park:

The Bloomberg and Pataki administrations allowed 25.3 acres of public parkland to be seized in the South Bronx in order to accommodate the building of a new stadium for the New York Yankees, including the building of thousands of additional parking spaces in the asthma capital of America. As predicted the Yankee organization's insistence of building more parking is turning into a nightmare for the city. The developer warned bondholders in an Aug. 18 letter that it currently has "insufficient funds" from operations to pay a $6.8 million interest bill due Oct. 1, and another $6.8 million due next April. Bronx Parking has failed for three years to pay its annual rent tab of $3.2 million to the city. It also has yet to pay any property taxes for the 21 acres of publicly owned land it is leasing to operate the parking system. The Bloomberg administration selected Bronx Parking in 2007 to build and run the garages after the Yankees demanded a minimum of 9,000 spaces to stay in the Bronx.

Adding insult to injury, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. is floating a plan to convert Parks Department managed parking lots into additional development instead of public parkland.

Will Koch succeed at reforming state government?

From NBC 4:

Can legislative districts be re-drawn so that the bad guys don’t necessarily win?

Two former state leaders disagree sharply on that question. Former Governor George Pataki told me legislators would never consent to changing their districts to give a challenger a better chance to win.

But former New York City Mayor Edward Koch, leader of a new group called New York Uprising, retorted: "He’s dead wrong. This is the year they’ll agree to change the system because all incumbents are in danger. The voters are ready to throw them out and the legislators have to show that they’re ready to reform the government if they want to get re-elected."

Koch’s group, New York Uprising, has enlisted the support of four gubernatorial candidates. He’s seeking support from other legislative and congressional candidates.

Even before Koch testified before a state senate committee in Albany, he got into a scrap with the Senate President, Malcolm Smith. Smith told a group of fellow Democrats that, if they got re-elected, they could use their power to throw Republicans into political "oblivion."

Koch, a man not known for subtlety, fired a salvo at Smith: "What he said was absolutely dumb -- dumb even for himself. I mean if he was going to do it, you don’t announce it."

Lighthouse museum goes bust

From the SI Live:

It’s official: The National Lighthouse Museum’s board has formally disbanded, essentially sinking the cash-strapped 11-year-old project here.

In a statement released today, the board said its long-anticipated decision was based on "dwindling prospects" the project could advance at its St. George location.

The 10-acre site abuts the St. George Ferry Terminal and was the 19th century home of the U.S. Lighthouse Service, a precursor to the U.S. Coast Guard. Once viewed as a linchpin in a multimillion-dollar harbor enclave designed to rejuvenate St. George and attract tourists, the project was to feature the museum, housing, shops and restaurants.

The board cited the current economic downturn, the dramatic post-9/11 change in the funding climate and difficulties in finalizing plans and development agreements with government agencies as reasons for its dissolution.

The board also failed to raise the $15 million needed to open the museum’s doors.

A national steering committee awarded Staten Island the museum project in 1998 after then-Gov. George Pataki, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Borough President Guy V. Molinari put up a combined $5.5 million in public money.

The city Economic Development Corporation has already spent $8 million to stabilize two other buildings — former lamp and machine shops — at the site and Borough Hall has allocated millions of dollars.

The EDC is batting 1000% lately. Willets Point will be the next great failure.

Defenders of democracy?

From the NY Times:

Politicians are always prattling on about the glories of democracy. They boast about how they got rid of those nasty smoke-filled back rooms, where sebaceous party hacks used to select the candidates, and replaced them with primaries and with openness.

Truth is, politicians hate primaries. Those who are in command do, anyway. They go out of their way to knock off anyone who opposes their preferred candidates, apparently in the belief that matters of such weight cannot be left to lesser mortals, sometimes known as voters.

In this regard, New York Republicans and Democrats are equal offenders. The state Republicans under Gov. George E. Pataki worked hard to shut out any challenge to their designated favorites in the state’s presidential primaries... Party bosses would have gotten their way, too, had the courts not intervened and said, uh-uh.

With Ms. Gillibrand, the Democratic desire to eliminate democratic competition is especially striking because not a single voter has had a chance to pass judgment on whether she belongs in the United States Senate.

It’s not just that she was appointed. The man who named her, Gov. David A. Paterson, was not elected to his own office. It’s a double whammy, intensified for some New Yorkers by Ms. Gillibrand’s — how to put it — demonstrated flexibility on certain core issues.

And Carolyn Maloney herself is not exactly a defender of democracy in this regard, either.

Photo from the Daily News

Liberal Party boss in pay-to-play

From the NY Post:

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo today revealed the inner workings of an $800,000 pay-to-play kickback scheme at the state comptroller's office involving former Liberal Party boss Ray Harding and the selling of a state Assembly seat for Alan Hevesi's son.

The felony complaint alleges that Harding obtained the large amount in illegal fees on state pension fund investments as a reward for opening up a state Assembly seat for then- Comptroller Alan Hevesi's son and for over 30 years of political endorsements.

And from the Daily News:

Queens Democrat Michael Cohen has no plans to end his City Council bid despite being named today in AG Andrew Cuomo's felony complaint against former Liberal Party boss Ray Harding.

Michael Tobman, Cohen's political consultant, said his client is "still a candidate."

Tobman could not go very far in responding to Cuomo's allegation that Harding worked with unnamed aides to then-Gov. George Pataki to land Cohen a six-figure job with the Health Insurance Plan of New York in exchange for his agreement to give up his Assembly seat so Andy Hevesi could run for it.

We must be in bad shape...

From NY Magazine:

Could Governor David Paterson's plummeting poll numbers tempt George Pataki to try to win back his old job? Pataki, who was reportedly considering a 2010 Senate run, is also mulling a Republican gubernatorial effort, according to a New York City lawmaker. "I heard he's looking at it. He hasn't made any determination," says State Senator Marty Golden, a Republican from Brooklyn, who is friendly with the former governor. "Pataki in this vacuum setting would be good."

Pataki considering Senate run

Pataki Said to Hear Senate Suggestion
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALBANY (AP) — The leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee approached former Gov. George E. Pataki this week about running for the United States Senate in 2010, according to a person who spoke to Mr. Pataki about the private meeting.

The person confirmed that Mr. Pataki met on Tuesday in New York City with Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who leads the party’s national Senate campaign committee. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.

The seat in question will be up for election in 2010. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a Democrat, was recently appointed to fill it after Hillary Rodham Clinton left to be President Obama’s secretary of state.

Mr. Pataki has not yet accepted or rejected the idea, the person said. Mr. Pataki did not immediately respond to a request for comment at his law office.