Cuomo blames Staten Island, but data says something else

From AMNY:

Not for lack of political willpower, Staten Island has come to represent 25% of all COVID-19 deaths in New York City amid the second wave of the pandemic, even though the borough represents just 5% of the city's population. Governor Andrew Cuomo, during a Wednesday press conference, emphasized the political nature of this reality as a direct result of misdirection from local leaders taking opposition to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which have influenced some of the measures put in place by the state limiting dining and other activities.

Okay, now here's the actual data from NYCDOH's site as of yesterday.

Looks like a total of 20 COVID deaths per day in the entire city.

Bronx has about 3 deaths per day, Brooklyn has 4.

Manhattan has about 2 deaths per day, Queens and Staten Island have 4.

So it's been a while since I had 3rd grade math, but how does Staten Island have 1/4 of the deaths in NYC when 4/20 is not 25%?

Isn't 20 deaths a day relatively small compared to where we were back in April?

Now, let's do hospitalizations.

This doesn't really look all that skewed.

On 12/1, the city had 4088 new cases, while Staten Island had 342. This translates to ~8% of infections. Two other boroughs have roughly the same number of deaths that SI does but a lot more cases. If the death rate on SI is worse than anywhere else, the reasons probably have more to do with the overall health of the population and the quality of the care there than "if only they had worn masks!"

So, why are you reading all of this here rather than in the paid media who investigates nothing Cuomo says?

Governor Cuomo proposes isolation based education system to be run by Prinicipal Bill Gates

 

NY Post

Remote learning could replace the practice of a teacher standing in front of a classroom instructing students in the post-coronavirus area, Gov. Andrew Cuomo suggested Tuesday.

Cuomo dropped the bombshell while announcing a partnership with the Gates Foundation to “reimagine” education in the post-COVID era.

“One of the areas we can really learn from is education because the old model of our education system where everyone sits in a classroom is not going to work in the new normal,” the governor said at a press briefing Tuesday at his Manhattan office.


“And you do that all across the city, all across the state, all these buildings, all these physical classrooms,” he said. “Why? With all the technology you have?”

“When we do reopen our schools let’s reimagine them for the future, and to do that we are collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and exploring smart, innovative education alternatives using all the new technology we have at our disposal.”

What's this "the new normal" shit he keeps bringing up? Obviously to justify then implement privatization of all government departments and services while maintaining a climate and culture of fear and a stranglehold on power. This is dangerous.

Governor Cuomo taps billionaire Bloomberg to implement a COVID-19 tech surveillance apparatus

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and Mike Bloomberg today announced a new nation-leading COVID-19 contact tracing program to control the infection rate of the disease. Mike Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies have committed organizational support and technical assistance to help build and execute this new program. The contact tracing program will be done in coordination with the downstate region as well as New Jersey and Connecticut and will serve as an important resource to gather best practices and as a model that can be replicated across the nation. There has never been a contact tracing program implemented at this scale either in New York or anywhere in the United States. The program will launch immediately.

As part of this effort, The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University will build an online curriculum and training program for contact tracers. The New York State Department of Health will work with Bloomberg Philanthropies to help identify and recruit contact tracer candidates for the training program, including staff from the State Department of Health, investigators from various state agencies, hundreds of tracers from downstate counties and SUNY and CUNY students in medical fields. Bloomberg Philanthropies will also work with New York State to establish an expert panel to review the work of the program, and create a best in class model that other states can use for contact tracing.

 We're all eager to begin loosening restrictions on our daily lives and our economy. But in order to do that as safely as possible, we first have to put in place systems to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus and support them as they isolate," said Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bloomberg LP, three-term mayor of New York City. "I'm honored to partner with Governor Cuomo and New York State to help do that, by creating a new contact tracing program on a widespread scale. Coupled with far more testing, it will help us drive the virus into a corner -- saving lives and allowing more people to begin getting back to work."

Governor Andrew Cuomo signs paid sick leave for all New Yorkers

NY Post

 State lawmakers voted on bills Wednesday in empty chambers following airtight emergency COVID-19 protocols put in place after two lawmakers recently tested positive for the deadly virus.

The state Senate and Assembly passed a bill that will expand paid sick leave to all public and private sector workers forced into precautionary or mandatory quarantine due to the coronavirus.

The legislation covers a 14 day period.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law — which takes effect immediately — shortly after.

But politicians were given strict guidelines to reduce social interaction.

The state Capitol is closed to the public and staff have been cleaning the building around the clock.

Most of the 63 member state Senate voted from their offices, with the exception of leadership in both conferences.

“Every aspect of our lives are changed, and changed probably for a very, very long time,” Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said on the chamber floor before voting ‘yes’ on the measure, which passed 50 to 6.

This post is for all you readers of Queens Crap that pay property taxes in this state

Gothamist


Governor Andrew Cuomo's latest pitch to expand Penn Station is an overflowing grab bag of promises to commuters and city residents to improve what the governor called in his budget speech yesterday the station’s “seven levels of hell”. The governor is proposing 40 percent more train capacity, airier concourses and unspecified new development in a "cohesive transit-oriented district." 

The plan also boasts an accordingly mammoth price tag: $8 billion to buy up an entire block of Midtown property, according to one estimate, most of which Cuomo hasn't yet identified specific funds for beyond the idea of siphoning off future retail rents and property taxes.

Meanwhile, sitting atop the now-buried train station is one of the state's biggest poster children for corporate tax giveaways: Madison Square Garden, which thanks to a state law passed at the behest of then-mayor Ed Koch in 1982 has now gone 37 consecutive years without paying property taxes. 

The total cost in lost revenue to the city over that time period is now $555 million, according to the latest calculations by the city's Independent Budget Office. If current property value trends continue, MSG's total tax break could clear $1 billion by 2030.

It's an alarmingly high figure, made even more so by the fact that the tax break, first proposed by Koch in order to encourage the Knicks and Rangers to renovate rather than moving to New Jersey, was, according to the mayor, initially supposed to end after just ten years. ("I went to bed at night believing it was a 10-year abatement," Koch told the Times years later.)

In the decades since, MSG's eternal tax break has become a white whale for budget reformers and enraged Knicks fans alike; possible repeal has become a recurring feature of IBO's annual budget options documents offering ways to saving the city money.

Asked for an explanation of the continued need for the tax break, a Madison Square Garden spokesperson provided this statement to Gothamist: "We appreciate that people have their opinions about our location, but the truth is that Madison Square Garden’s tax abatement pales in comparison to the billions in public benefits received by the other New York sports venues.”

 The decades-long inaction can partially be explained by the odd nature of the tax break: It's the city losing tax revenue as a result, but the city council has no say over state law. While the state legislature could repeal the law at any time, it's under little pressure to do so given that none of the money would go toward filling state budget holes.

And then, there is the considerable pressure the legislature is likely under from Cuomo, who has long counted MSG owner James Dolan and his family as major campaign donors, though that seems to be on the wane since they sold off Cablevision to Dutch telecom giant Altice for $17.7 billion in 2016. (Then-MSG business partner Irving Azoff did give $10,000 to Cuomo's reelection campaign in 2017, and MSG itself is a regular donor to both Democratic and Republican state legislative campaign committees.)

 

The biggest and ugliest state budget bill of all includes congestion pricing, plastic bag ban, and more authoritarian powers and an undeserved fat raise for Mario's son Governor Cuomo

New York Times

 After weeks of intraparty bickering, the New York State Legislature and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Sunday signed off on a $175 billion budget that was wreathed with progressive initiatives, including changes to the cash bail system, a new tax on high-end homes and a groundbreaking plan to charge motorists to drive into Manhattan’s busiest stretches.

The budget deal was immediately hailed as “transformative” by Mr. Cuomo, and it will clearly have an impact felt far beyond taxpayers’ wallets. The agreement included deals that will likely change the way millions of New Yorkers shop, commute and vote: bans on plastic bags from retail stores, billions in new funds for New York’s troubled subway system and a new paid three-hour break on Election Day.

The budget’s progressive theme was a victory for Mr. Cuomo and the newly elected Democratic majority in the State Legislature, most notably Democrats who helped give the party control of the State Senate for the first time in a decade. They largely lived up to pledges to address big money in politics, raise taxes on the wealthy and overhaul a criminal justice system that disproportionately targets minority communities.

But the deal announced in the wee hours of Sunday morning also showed the limits of those 
campaign promises. Activists criticized a plan to empower small campaign donors as halfhearted. A measure to tax luxury homes was refashioned at the last minute after the powerful real-estate industry intervened. And, perhaps most significant, hopes for legalizing the recreational use of marijuana were dashed, though lawmakers could still approve that later in the legislative session.

Still, for veteran observers of Albany, the sheer variety of issues settled since January — from infrastructure to the environment, from voting rights to transgender rights — was a relief from years of divided government, when interests of Republicans in the Senate often stood in contrast to the state’s overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.

“The process seems very similar,” said Blair Horner, the executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, and a former aide to Mr. Cuomo. “But the product is obviously very different because you have a new majority in the Senate.”

Most of the deals announced on Sunday were largely made behind closed doors, and left to the 11th hour: Voting was likely to push right up to, and perhaps past, the midnight deadline.

Chief among the new policies was congestion pricing, which is likely to affect the habits of anyone who works or plays in Manhattan. Under the plan, the first of its type in the nation, vehicles traveling below 60th Street will be subject to a toll, revenue that will be funneled into the city’s beleaguered subways and other regional transportation needs.


Another saw a proposed pied-à-terre tax, an annual recurring tax on second homes that were valued at $5 million or more, eliminated. Although the tax had the backing of state leaders, it evaporated under pressure from real estate interests and legal concerns.

In its place, lawmakers and Mr. Cuomo agreed to a “mansion tax” coupled with a real estate transfer tax, two one-time levies that would be charged at the point of sale on multimillion-dollar homes. The tax rate would top out at 4.15 percent on the sale of properties worth $25 million or more.

A plan to ban plastic bags in the state was also included in the budget, but it makes a fee on paper bags optional, which some environmentalists worry will lessen the popularity of reusable bags. New York would be the second state, after California, to ban plastic bags. (Hawaii also effectively has a ban in place, since all the state’s counties bar such single-use bags.)

New York Post

 Gov. Cuomo just scored a 40 percent pay hike — and it’s not even the Legislature’s biggest gift to him in the new budget.
 
The late-night vote to increase the gov’s compensation — making New York’s chief executive the nation’s highest-paid — was just icing on a very fatty cake:
 
A six-member Traffic Mobility Review Board will fill in all the devilish details on the new tolls for driving in Manhattan below 60th Street — and it’s clear that Cuomo will dominate that panel while preserving his deniability.
 
 The Cuomo-controlled MTA board will get final say over the tolls, as well as how the revenues are used, new MTA Chairman Pat Foye announced. That guarantees the gov will get his way.
 
New rules boost Cuomo’s power by making it easier to replace MTA board members.
 
Mayor de Blasio and the City Council thus wind up with zero power over the new tolls in the town they supposedly run — and no say in how those funds, or the take from new “mansion taxes,” get spent. Yet these are all revenue sources that city agencies, not state ones, should control.
 
The gov also won the ability to remove unruly members from the state’s Public Authorities Control Board — further increasing his power over millions in state grants.
 A new commission will draw up the framework for public financing of state campaigns. Bet that Cuomo will either call the shots, or see that the whole thing blows up if he doesn’t like the results.

With the passage of this budget, Albany has created a gubernatorial monster.

Governor Andrew Cuomo sends grovelling make up letter to Jeff Bezos.

 

AMNY

Just pathetic. And all these people actually were willing to put their names and reputations on this.

What, no mention of Gianaris removal from Public Authorities Control Board?

 "Come back Mr. Bezos! We got rid of Gianaris! Please baby come back!"

CBS NY:

In a stunning offer to get the Amazon deal back on track, Governor Andrew Cuomo joined dozens of business leaders, unions, and elected officials who published an open letter in the New York Times asking the retail giant to give the Big Apple a second chance.

Even though Jeff Bezos and co. may have landed a Valentine’s Day sucker punch, Iron Mike Tyson Cuomo isn’t close to throwing in the towel. He’s launched an all out campaign to woo the company back to Long Island City.

“You punch until you hear the bell, and the bell hasn’t sounded,” the governor said. “Until somebody rings the bell, I’m going to keep pushing.”

In addition to personally sweet talking top Amazon officials, Cuomo pledged to side step the elected officials who opposed the deal — primarily State Senator Michael Gianaris (D-12th) and Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-26th), who both represent Long Island City.

“At this point they are irrelevant because there are other ways that the state can get it done, and I told Amazon that,” Cuomo said.

I presume Andrew Amazon told them that in those initial secret meetings and Bezos still abandoned the city and notably the entire HQ2.

Well, well, well. There it is, Queens. The governor doesn't give a shit about the state senator and the city councilman's constituents. Which also happen to be his constituents too. This should show why the subways and highways are the way they are and how they got worse under Mario's arrogant son.

Amazon pulls out of Long Island City "HQ2" deal and pathetically blames elected officials and protesters.

NY Daily News

Following months of community and political opposition, Amazon on Thursday announced it was canceling a $3 billion plan to open a headquarters in New York City — a massive blow to Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo, who rolled out the red carpet for the company just months ago.

The project would have brought 25,000 jobs to a campus in Queens, state and city officials had said — but it was met with fierce opposition from some elected officials, on whom Cuomo heaped blame Thursday.

"[A] small group politicians put their own narrow political interests above their community — which poll after poll showed overwhelmingly supported bringing Amazon to Long Island City — the state's economic future and the best interests of the people of this state. The New York State Senate has done tremendous damage. They should be held accountable for this lost economic opportunity,” Cuomo said.

In a statement, the online retail giant blamed the Valentine’s Day breakup on the frosty reception it had received from local pols.

“After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” the statement said. “While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.”

 Amazon's anti-union stance did not help its case with critics. While it had committed to using union labor to build its offices and for building services — earning the support of the Building and Construction Trades and SEIU Local 32BJ — a top Amazon executive testified before the City Council that it would fight any union bids by New York staff.

But union officials said they’d made progress in the 24 hours before the deal imploded. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Teamsters and AFL-CIO met with four top Amazon executives and Cuomo Wednesday, according to RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum.

“I think the richest man on Earth feels that nobody is supposed to tell him anything,” Appelbaum said. “I think that on Valentine’s Day, Jeff Bezos showed his contempt for New Yorkers. He says I'm going to tell you what it's going to be, you either accept it or I leave. we were in negotiations — he doesn't feel he has to negotiate with anyone. It's a shameful performance by the richest man in the world. It's a worse scandal than the National Enquirer.”

An anonymous reader made an nice observation on this a few days ago:

 "The deal should've been negotiated transparently, with pros and cons discussed publicly, including what jobs and benefits (GED completion, skill training, childcare, etc.) Amazon would provide."

But #poorBezos and amazon decided, along with the idiots governor and mayor, to do all this in secret. And you know what, this LIC deal was as big a hoax as their nationwide city exploration pageant. Really, why else would they decide on two other cities for what's suppose to be a second headquarters, which is an oxymoron itself. This was to poach more data from the government and also to make pariahs of their opponents, notably on the rising progressive movement and unions.

I know a lot of people hate Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez here, but this isn't her district. She only made a few comments on this rancid deal and amazon and the local news media are trying to tie her for their abrupt departure. That is cheap manipulation of the public.