"Plan to sell city hall to be reviewed - Mayor urges Troy's new Democratic City Council majority to expedite report"

By KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, December 5, 2007

TROY -- The City Council's new Democratic majority will name a special committee to review and report on the sale of city hall proposed by Republican Mayor Harry Tutunjian.

"It's not going to be something that's done in two days," Councilman Clement Campana, the council president-elect, said Tuesday about the study.

Campana said there is no schedule for when the committee will issue a public report on the proposed sale of city hall to Judge Development Corp. and the relocation of city government to the Verizon building at 1776 Sixth Ave.

Selling city hall was a major campaign issue, with the Democrats promising to review it thoroughly.

The Democrats will hold a 6-3 majority when the council meets for the first time on Jan. 3.

Tutunjian urged the City Council to move quickly on the study so the deal is not endangered.

The exchange of city hall for the Verizon building is valued at $2.5 million plus $16,000 per month rent that will be reimbursed to the city by Judge Development.

A value of $25 million was placed on Judge's plans to develop the city hall site, according to a report given the City Council in October.

"Without knowing the details of what the new council is proposing, I can only say that we are willing to work with them to make this happen," Tutunjian said in a statement.

"A panel is fine, but the council is going to have to make a decision in a short time period."

"Each day more concrete falls from this building."

"We do not want to pose a hazard to the people who work and do business here each day," Tutunjian said.

"The sale of city hall was never meant to provide political gain to any party, it is time to move it forward."

"I sincerely hope this is not a stall tactic," the mayor said.

The city hall study is part of the Democrats' effort to ensure city government is responsive to residents, Campana said.

The city hall study committee will be composed of council members, business owners and residents.

In addition to the study committee, the Democrats intend to go back to allowing residents to speak for 10 minutes each on any agenda item or government issue before the council meeting.

Appeals of freedom of information requests will be handled by the Law Committee instead of the corporation counsel.

"Village invests in upgrades - $15.15 million water and sewer improvements will largely be funded by interest-free loans"

By KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, December 5, 2007

HOOSICK FALLS -- Water and sewer upgrades that will cost $15.15 million are expected to help attract new businesses, according to Mayor Laura Reynolds.

The village of 3,346 residents received a financial break last week on its water and sewer projects when state Environmental Facilities Corp. awarded the municipality no-interest loans totaling $14.65 million.

EFC Executive Vice President Matthew J. Millea said the village will save about $6 million in interest payments.

The loans will be paid back over 20 to 30 years.

Reynolds said the water treatment and sewer improvements have long been needed.

Getting the systems modernized will improve living standards for village residents and quality for businesses.

"It's a lot of money with so few people to pay for it," Reynolds said about the advantages of getting the zero-interest loans.

The up-to-date systems, Reynolds said, will attract development.

"We will have state-of-the-art facilities."

"It will help bring people and small businesses," the mayor said.

Growth in the community will expand the tax base, the mayor said.

Assemblyman Roy J. McDonald, R-Saratoga, said small rural communities need the assistance provided by the no-interest loans to be competitive.

"The water, the sewers, the infrastructures is critical," said McDonald, whose district includes the village.

One loan is for $6.85 million for a new drinking water treatment plant, upgraded water mains and replacement of the water tank.

The short-term loan can be converted to a 20-year loan when work is finished.

Work is expected to begin in January and be completed in April 2009.

The village also received a $500,000 rural development grant to pay for the water project.

The other loan is for $7.8 million for 30 years for part of the project that has been completed: improvement of the 40-year-old sewer plant and pump stations, and repair of the sewer lines.

"$280M budget survives protests - Rensselaer County's 2008 spending plan carries a 5% tax increase"

By DAN HIGGINS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, December 4, 2007

TROY -- The Rensselaer County Legislature passed a $280 million budget for 2008 during a special meeting Monday night.

The spending plan calls for a 5 percent increase in the tax rate.

The budget passed by a vote of 11-8.

The budget includes pay increases for some department heads and cuts to the district attorney's budget.

Democrats criticized the budget and offered $2.5 million in proposed cuts, including eliminating retroactive pay raises for some high-ranking county employees and instituting a buyout incentive from the county health insurance plan.

Members of the legislature's Republican majority said halting the pay raises would be unfair, since raises had been frozen for several years.

And they were skeptical about whether the plan for those opting out of county health insurance would be practical or legal, or would actually save money.

All the minority's proposals -- including a resolution directing the county to explore including paid advertising on county-owned vehicles -- were rejected on party lines.

Democrats took issue with a Republican amendment, which passed, that removes $30,000 from the budget of incoming District Attorney Richard McNally, a Democrat.

The funds will be placed in a contingency budget that McNally might be able to reclaim, said Legislature Chairman Neil Kelleher.

But McNally would have to come to the legislature and make a case for it.

Republicans said the move gives them more oversight over the district attorney's expenditures.

Kelleher said the sheriff's department has a similar contingency budget for staff overtime.

As for next year's tax increase, Republicans blamed the state for forcing the county to pay for state-mandated programs.

"The 2008 county budget is another call for reform of state mandates."

"We need Gov. Spitzer to provide mandate relief as soon as possible," said Thomas Walsh Sr., the legislature's vice chairman.

Democrats said that county officials needed to take more responsibility for the tax increase, pointing to their own suggested cuts as proof that the county could have had no tax increase.

Dan Higgins can be reached at 454-5534, or by e-mail at dhiggins@timesunion.com.

THE NEW YORK OBSEVER

"Hillary Asks Wall Street Audience to Share the Burden on the Subprime Crisis"

by Jason Horowitz

December 5, 2007

Hillary Clinton just made her fourth speech so far this year at the Nasdaq Exchange, saying that Wall Street was partly responsible for the current home foreclosure crisis that is threatening the stability of the middle class.

"I'm here today to call on Wall Street to do its part," Clinton said in front of a small audience of dark-suited business leaders.

She talked about the interests of Wall Street versus Main Street, a common Democratic theme, peppering her speech with anecdotes of painful cases she has heard from around the campaign trail.

She made a point of refusing to heap all the blame on Wall Street investors.

"We can debate what was technically illegal, we can debate what should be defined as predatory," she said, adding that it was inarguable that the practice has had a negative effect on middle class homeowners.

She said there was "plenty of blame to go around" for the current situation, and placed responsibility at the feet of lenders, the administration's inattentive regulators, rating agencies, and borrowers who speculated to make money flipping houses.

"Finally," she said, "responsibility also belongs to Wall Street" which she said has practiced a "see no evil policy" when it came to predatory lending.

Following up on her policy roll-out earlier this week, she argued for a three-step, voluntary response to the crisis that she portrayed "as a comprehensive work out, not a bail out, of our most pressing economic problem."

First, she called for a moratorium on foreclosures of subprime occupied homes for 90 days.

Second, she said was to freeze monthly rates on subprime adjustable rate mortgages.

"A rate freeze is critical," she said because the rate resets are driving the crisis.

And third, she called for the mortgage industry to supply status reports on the number of modified mortgages.

"If we cannot reach a voluntary agreement I will consider legislation," she added.

"Too many American families are not sharing in the growth that is created and driven by this city.”

http://www.observer.com/2007/hillary-asks-...subprime-crisis

"City to pay $130,000 to settle cop lawsuits - Saratoga Springs reaches deal with police chief, ex-assistant chief over harassment claims"

By DENNIS YUSKO, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, December 6, 2007

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- The city has reached costly settlements with its police chief and retired assistant chief in federal lawsuits involving former deputy public safety commissioner Erin Dreyer.

Chief Edward Moore and his former assistant, James Cornick, will each receive $65,000 under the agreements approved by the City Council in a 3-2 vote Tuesday.

Public Works Commissioner Thomas McTygue dissented, saying he thought the amount was excessive, but other council members said they hoped the deal would conclude years of entanglements stemming from Dreyer's brief but tumultuous tenure.

"I hope this marks the end of a very regrettable chapter in the city's history," Public Safety Commissioner Ronald Kim said at the public meeting.

The city will pay $40,000 of the $130,000 in costs, and its insurance policy will cover the rest, city attorney Michael Engler said.

Specific terms of the settlement will become available after it is signed, he said.

The city has already spent about $34,000 defending Dreyer, and it has not yet received all of her legal bills, Engler said. The settlements include determining a final cost for her legal fees.

"I believe the rationale of the settlement is to stop the potential for what could be exorbitant attorney fees for all the parties over a lengthy litigation," Engler said.

Dreyer served under former Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Curley from 2003 to 2005.

In separate suits filed in U.S. District Court in Albany in 2005 and 2006, Moore and Cornick -- the city's top cops who each served more than 30 years on the force -- accused Dreyer and Curley of violating their civil rights by harassing them and attempting to force them from their jobs.

A Saratoga County grand jury report cited Dreyer for abusing her office's power and trying to force Moore to retire, punishing political enemies and not prosecuting people with connections to her.

At the time, Dreyer denied the findings, saying the report was filled with "unsubstantiated allegations and misrepresentations."

The report recommended Dreyer, who earned $60,152 a year, be disciplined or fired.

Curley refused to act, and the City Council abolished Dreyer's job.

Neither Moore nor Cornick could be reached for comment.

Moore is on vacation until the new year and didn't answer his personal phone.

Yusko can be reached at 581-8438 or by e-mail at dyusko@timesunion.com.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"No Charges of Perjury for Ex-Aide"

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: December 5, 2007

ALBANY, Dec. 4 — The Albany County district attorney has decided not to bring a perjury case against a former top press assistant to Gov. Eliot Spitzer at this point, though he has not ruled out revisiting the case next year, according to several people involved in the case.

The district attorney, P. David Soares, has been examining whether a statement by the former aide, Darren Dopp, to Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s office last July conflicted with testimony he gave to the state Commission for Public Integrity this fall.

Both offices were investigating Mr. Dopp’s use of the State Police to gather information about Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

But Mr. Soares’s investigation appears to have been hampered, the people involved in the case said, because Mr. Dopp’s statement to Mr. Cuomo’s investigators, which was drawn up by the governor’s legal counsel, may not technically be considered a sworn statement that could be used to bring a perjury charge, the people said.

Typically, perjury charges stem from statements given as part of an official proceeding, such as testimony at a trial, or in a sworn affidavit.

But David M. Nocenti, the governor’s legal counsel, drafted a statement for Mr. Dopp that appears not to contain the boilerplate language that would make it the basis for a perjury case.

“There is nowhere in it that says, ‘I swear to the truth of the statement,’ and I think for a sworn statement case, you need to swear to the truth of the statement,” said Susan Necheles, a lawyer for Peter Pope, one of the governor’s top legal advisers.

An administration official, however, said, “This was presented as a sworn statement.”

It is not immediately clear how the development will affect Mr. Spitzer.

Avoiding a perjury investigation of one of his former assistants would certainly be a relief.

But if the governor’s lawyer is viewed as having used a technical maneuver to prevent a full and truthful accounting of what happened, Mr. Spitzer’s public image could be damaged.

Mr. Soares is also said to be considering lesser charges than perjury that may not be affected by the wording of Mr. Dopp’s statement.

Mr. Nocenti declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the governor and Michael Koenig, a lawyer for Mr. Dopp.

In July, Mr. Cuomo’s office issued a bombshell report that found that Mr. Dopp and other members of the Spitzer administration misused the State Police as they sought to gather information about Mr. Bruno and provided it to The Times Union of Albany.

The report found no evidence that laws were broken but recommended discipline against Mr. Dopp and other top aides.

After the report’s release, investigations by the Commission on Public Integrity and Mr. Soares’s office were launched.

Mr. Soares issued his own report in September and said he did “not believe there was a plot to smear Senator Bruno.”

But last month, after the Commission on Public Integrity referred to him possible inconsistencies in Mr. Dopp’s accounts, Mr. Soares began his perjury review.

It focused on a portion of Mr. Dopp’s statement that reads:

“I now recognize that any requests for State Police records relating to those travels should have been handled through other channels, and I regret any appearance of impropriety that was created by the manner in which this information was sought and obtained.”

When he later testified before the Commission on Public Integrity, Mr. Dopp expressed second thoughts about that part of the statement and whether he had actually acted improperly.

That raised questions among investigators about whether he was pressured to sign the statement.

Mr. Dopp was suspended by Mr. Spitzer in July and later resigned.

He is the only one involved in the case who left the administration.

According to lawyers interviewed yesterday, a sworn affidavit typically contains language asserting that “the signatories attest to the statements under penalty of perjury.”

Mr. Dopp’s statement was notarized by Mr. Nocenti, and above Mr. Nocenti’s signature are the words “sworn to before me this 22nd day of July, 2007.”

That appears to indicate only that the statement was sworn to before Mr. Nocenti, as a notary.

While the maneuver might reflect deft legal work, it is likely to further inflame resentment among Senate Republicans, who say that the Spitzer administration has not been forthright about the matter.

Heather Orth, a spokeswoman for Mr. Soares, would not comment beyond refuting a report in The Daily News on Tuesday that said the district attorney would present evidence in the case before a grand jury on Wednesday.

“I can tell you that the story that he’s putting in a grand jury tomorrow is not the case,” Ms. Orth said.

The case has already fostered deep mistrust between the governor and Senate Republicans.

“All I know is this governor said he would go under oath twice, publicly—‘I’m ready now, I’m ready tomorrow’—and never has,” Mr. Bruno said this week, adding, “the people have a right to the truth.”

Nicholas Confessore contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Who's afraid of Eliot Spitzer?"

Wednesday, December 5th 2007, 4:00 AM

All the important people in Albany charged with getting the truth about Troopergate are afraid of Gov. Spitzer.

Bogging themselves down in by-the-book procedures and hiding behind excessive secrecy and selected leaks, the Albany district attorney and the Public Integrity Commission are turning a fairly straightforward case into an endless mystery.

Even Gov. Spitzer himself claims to be eager to tell all under oath, if only someone would invite him to do so.

"I'd love to."

"Wish I had when this first came up," he recently told The New Yorker magazine.

Think of the irony.

The state's top elected official says he wants to give the public what it wants - his testimony - but he can't.

And why can't he?

Neither the district attorney nor the integrity commission can even tell us that.

Secrecy and privacy and procedures and rules and blah blah blah.

Meanwhile, a huge cloud hangs over the administration.

The attempt by aides in Spitzer's office to use the state police to smear Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno has poisoned all relationships in Albany.

Nothing has gotten done since July, nor should it until we know what Spitzer's role was.

The case is that important.

But instead of acknowledging that obvious fact, the probers proceed as though they've got a run-of-the mill case on overtime padding or résumé fibs.

We could assume they're oblivious to the seriousness of the case.

Or we could conclude they are afraid of what they will find if they really dig into the case.

I vote for the latter.

After all, their approach is not neutral - it helps Spitzer if he's really got something to hide.

The longer it goes on, the greater the chance the public will lose interest.

The go-slow approach stands in stark contrast to the way the same two agencies breezed through the Alan Hevesi case last year.

Faced with accusations the then-state controller was using office workers to take care of his ailing wife, the public integrity panel, then called the Ethics Commission, concluded the case in about a month.

Hevesi testified, so did others, documents were produced and the commission concluded a crime was likely committed.

Then Soares promptly indicted Hevesi, who took a plea deal and resigned.

The difference then was that Spitzer, running for governor, indicated he wanted Hevesi gone.

Presto, case closed.

But now that Spitzer and his team are the focus, reasons for delay are found everywhere.

The latest is that the integrity commission handed to DA Soares the testimony of former Spitzer aide Darren Dopp with the suggestion he consider perjury charges.

We only know this from published reports, some in this newspaper, based on confidential information.

And the integrity commission is reportedly now waiting for the Soares case to be concluded before it gets back to taking testimony itself.

That's confidential, too.

Soares, meanwhile, punted on the entire case last summer, saying he saw nothing wrong with what Spitzer's team did.

He also leaked the results of his "investigation" before it was completed, then denied doing it.

And now he wants us to trust him again?

Why, so he can protect Spitzer again?

The integrity commission, dominated by Spitzer appointees, is also suspect, and it has thin skin to boot.

Any suggestion they are not doing God's work draws whining from Chairman John Feerick and his acolytes that reporters should - yep, you got it - trust them.

Trust is something they have to earn.

They can begin by taking the governor at his word that he wants to talk.

Put him under oath and ask every possible question about what he did and ask him to produce all e-mails and other documents.

And make the questions and answers public immediately.

Then we'll know who is telling the truth.

And who we can trust.

mgoodwin@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/1...ot_spitzer.html

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Dopp: Spitzer's Aides Silenced Me"

By JACOB GERSHMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun

December 5, 2007

Governor Spitzer's former communications director, Darren Dopp, has claimed in testimony that two senior aides to the governor sought to protect the administration in the Troopergate matter by pressuring him not to speak to investigators for Attorney General Cuomo, a source familiar with the proceedings said.

Mr. Dopp told the Commission on Public Integrity, which is conducting an ethics probe of the governor's office, that he informed the two aides that he felt it was important for him to talk to Mr. Cuomo's office to clear up what he believed were misperceptions about his role in the controversy, the source said.

On July 22, the aides, Peter Pope and Sean Maloney, urged him instead to sign a two-paragraph sworn statement denying any criminal wrongdoing but recognizing that he made misjudgments.

Details of the circumstances behind Mr. Dopp's decision not to speak to Mr. Cuomo's office — which conducted the initial probe of allegations that Mr. Spitzer's office sought to discredit the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, by using state police to collect records about his travels — have emerged as he faces possible charges of perjury related to the statement he signed.

The perjury probe stems from conversations Mr. Dopp had with integrity commission investigators in which he insisted that he did nothing improper, seemingly contradicting a sentence in his statement to Mr. Cuomo in which he recognizes "that any request for state police records relating to those travels should have been handled through other channels" and expresses "regret" over any appearance of impropriety.

While denying that he perjured himself, Mr. Dopp explained to ethics investigators that he came under tremendous pressure within the administration to sign the statement, a source said.

The commission last month forwarded the matter to the Albany district attorney's office, which was expected to present evidence before a grand jury and call Messrs Pope and Maloney as witnesses.

To the surprise of administration officials, the district attorney, David Soares, yesterday postponed bringing the case before a grand jury, at least until January.

In discussions with investigators for Mr. Soares and the integrity commission, Mr. Dopp claimed the Spitzer aides, who were deputized as special counsels during the investigation, warned him that Mr. Cuomo could not be trusted and that the attorney general aimed to charge several administration officials with criminal misconduct unless he cooperated, the source said.

Mr. Dopp said he vehemently insisted that he could clear his name by speaking directly with Mr. Cuomo's investigators, who were about to release a critical report suggesting that Mr. Dopp and another aide to the governor planned to generate a negative news story about Mr. Bruno based on the travel records supplied by the state police.

Mr. Dopp told Messrs. Pope and Maloney that he hadn't done anything improper but had simply responded to press questions about Mr. Bruno's usage of the state air fleet to attend fund-raisers in New York City, the source said.

Mr. Dopp told an Albany County investigator that Mr. Pope described Mr. Cuomo as "an animal" who would not listen to reason, the source said.

It wasn't the first time that the aides had expressed fears about Mr. Cuomo's intentions, the source said.

Mr. Dopp's personal notes, which have been subpoenaed by Albany investigators, include a July 16 entry in which he describes Messrs. Pope and Maloney warning him that an aggressive prosecutor wanted to charge him with official misconduct, according to the source.

Weighing on the aides were concerns about the fallout from the decision by governor's liaison to the state police, William Howard, to speak to Mr. Cuomo's office, the source said.

Mr. Howard's testimony ended up playing a central role in the attorney general's report.

Mr. Dopp also claimed that Spitzer officials told him that they had an assurance from Mr. Cuomo's office that it would complete its investigation and clear the administration of any criminal or ethical wrongdoing — including the charge of spying on Mr. Bruno — as long as Mr. Dopp consented to the statement.

The aides told him his punishment would not exceed a seven-day suspension, according to the source.

As it turned out, Mr. Dopp was suspended for 34 days and later resigned from his job to work for a lobbying firm in Albany.

That same day, Mr. Dopp, after seeking advice from his personal lawyer, Terrence Kindlon, signed the statement.

On July 23, Mr. Cuomo released his report, which faulted Messrs Dopp and Howard, as well as the acting superintendent of the state police, Preston Felton, for engaging the police in political activities but did not contain direct criticism of the governor and other senior aides.

Mr. Spitzer immediately endorsed it and announced the suspension of Mr. Dopp, who later told investigators that the governor directed the release of the documents to the press, a fact that did not appear in the attorney general's report.

Senate Republicans immediately pounced on the report, saying it was incomplete in part because investigators hadn't interviewed Mr. Dopp and Mr. Spitzer's chief of staff, Richard Baum, and because Mr. Cuomo's office lacked subpoena power.

Republican concerns triggered a criminal probes by Mr. Soares's office and an ethics investigation by the integrity commission.

Mr. Soares did not include in his final report Mr. Dopp's assertion that he was under pressure to sign the statement.

His report, which summarizes other statements made by Mr. Dopp, said the office did not find convincing evidence that the administration had gathered information about Mr. Bruno for the purpose of smearing him.

Even it had, the report said, the actions would not rise to the level of a crime.

The attorney general's office and the governor's office declined to comment.

http://www.nysun.com/article/67492?page_no=1

THE NEW YORK OBSEVER

"Cuomo 2010 Already? - Spitzer’s decline gives rise to a restoration fantasy"

by Azi Paybarah

December 4, 2007

This article was published in the December 10, 2007, edition of The New York Observer.

It hasn’t taken long for the Andrew Cuomo-for-governor storyline to re-emerge.

Prior to the last few weeks, it had last been seen by the light of day in 2002, when he ran a disastrous primary campaign against then-Comptroller Carl McCall, only to withdraw shortly before the vote to avoid what would have been a lopsided defeat.

But sure enough, Eliot Spitzer’s remarkable fall from popularity—a tumble precipitated, incidentally, by a critical report from Mr. Cuomo’s office about the behavior of the governor’s aides in Troopergate—has provided fertile ground for speculation about the attorney general’s intentions toward the state’s top office.

In a story last month, the New York Post—whose coverage of Mr. Spitzer has been severely critical, and whose coverage of Mr. Cuomo has not—put the attorney general atop a list of “winners” in a story about the governor’s poor poll numbers, explaining that “a 2010 gubernatorial run becomes more likely.”

The New Yorker, in a long profile of Mr. Spitzer this week, stated the zero-sum connection between the two officials more explicitly, saying of Mr. Cuomo’s Troopergate role that “he may as well have announced his candidacy for governor in 2010.”

And a recent New York Sun article cited an unnamed source “close to the governor” saying that Mr. Spitzer’s disastrous plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens “would help them ward off a Democratic primary challenge” by Mr. Cuomo.

There’s certainly no reason to think that Mr. Cuomo has lost any of his famous (infamous?) ambition.

But to be fair to him, there’s also no evidence that he’s got anything directly to do with the talk, just one year into the governor’s first term, of appearing at the top of the ticket in 2010.

Amy Dowell, the sole employee at Mr. Cuomo’s re-election campaign, Cuomo 2010, referred questions to the attorney general’s office.

Attorney general spokesman Jeffrey Lerner declined to comment.

http://www.observer.com/2007/cuomo-2010-already

CNN MONEY.COM

"New York State Attorney General subpoenas Wall Street firms: report"

December 05, 2007: 08:41 AM EST

NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2007 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has sent subpoenas to several Wall Street firms seeking information related to the packaging and selling of debt for high-risk mortgages, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Journal said the subpoenas were sent to firms such as Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER) (OOTC:MERIZ) , Bear Stearns (NYSE:BSC) and Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) , among others.

The review is examining how adequately the investment banks reviewed the quality of mortgages before packaging them and selling them to investors.

Cuomo's office is also examining how the debt was pooled into securities, including the firms' relationships with credit-rating firms, the Journal's sources said.

Last month, Cuomo subpoenaed mortgage giants Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM PRJ) (NYSE:FNM PRF) (NYSE:FNM PRI) (NYSE:FNM PRL) (NYSE:FNM PRH) (NYSE:FNM PRN) (NYSE:FNM PRM) (NYSE:FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) as part of the investigation.

Christie Rizk

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articl...13-21444046.htm

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 5, 2007, 9:07 am

"Cuomo Filling Spitzer Shoes, One Subpoena At a Time"

Posted by Peter Lattman

“The follow-the-money expression is, ‘follow the mortgage,’” said Andrew Cuomo at a press conference last month announcing supboenas issued to Fannie and Freddie.

Yesterday, Cuomo’s office continued to “follow the mortgage,” sending subpoenas to several big Wall Street investment banks seeking information related to the packaging and selling of debt tied to high-risk mortgages.

The banks — which include Merrill and Bear — declined to comment.

Here’s the WSJ story.

The subpoenas.

The soundbite.

The headline-grabbing investigations.

With each passing day it seems that the New York attorney general is following the playbook of predecessor Eliot Spitzer.

Spitzer junkies should click here http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12...n?currentPage=1 for a 12,000-word New Yorker piece, “The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer,” marking the governor’s first year in office.

Here’s an entertaining excerpt:

Spitzer is a lawyer, a logician, a tactician, a policy fanatic, but not a deep thinker or a self-doubter.

He is not inclined toward wistfulness or wonder, which is not to say that he isn’t caring or curious.

It is often said by those who know him, and by Spitzer himself, that what you see is what you get.

When I first met him, he said, with some disdain, “You going to write about my childhood?”

A month later, he said, “Let me ask you: is my life much more boring than people presume?"

"And don’t you think most lives are?”

He’s didactic.

He says “Look” a lot.

He’s a world-class square, but he can be funny and good-natured.

His humor relies on mockery, of others and of himself, although his self-deprecations often end in self-aggrandizement.

His stock “stupid story about missing class,” as he called it—about going back to Harvard Law School and being ribbed by two professors for not having ever gone to their lectures—ended with the punch line “Yeah, but has it hurt my career?”

The most commonly heard criticism of him, which has dogged him at least since his days as attorney general, is that he is a bully, which encompasses not just professional aggression but also what many regard as a preening rectitude and a tendency toward intellectual arrogance.

He understands that his idiosyncrasies, his hyperachiever habits, are both salutary and worthy of ribbing.

When you are followed around every day by a mob of reporters and aides, your mannerisms, however sincere, can soon seem like affectations.

Squareness can come off as shtick.

He wears only white button-down shirts, which he buys at Brooks Brothers.

He bought a blue one once:

“It was unnerving."

"Never wore it.”

He gets up at five in the morning to jog; he’s known for it, and wants you to know it, but if it’s a pose it’s a hard-earned one.

His first thought upon waking each day, he says, is a wish for two more hours’ sleep.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/12/05/cuomo-...time/trackback/

"Immunity weighed in travel probe - Senate panel considers offering a deal to former top Spitzer aide, but the path appears very difficult"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, December 5, 2007

ALBANY -- The Senate Investigations Committee is looking at the possibility of offering immunity to a former top aide to Gov. Eliot Spitzer in its probe of a travel records scandal, the panel's chairman said Tuesday.

But that would require approval by the full Legislature -- and the governor himself -- said Bennett Liebman, acting director of the Government Law Center at Albany Law School.

The Senate Investigations Committee has subpoenaed Spitzer's former communications director, Darren Dopp, and also the governor's office, for memos, letters, notes and other material relating to a scandal in which Spitzer aides directed State Police to compile travel records on Senate Republican Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

The committee's chairman, Sen. George Winner, R-Elmira, said the committee is exploring giving Dopp immunity from prosecution as an incentive to disclose more than has so far been revealed.

"We have talked about it, recognizing that it is an option," said Winner.

So far, investigations by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Albany County District Attorney David Soares have found no criminal wrongdoing.

Soares, however, is exploring possible discrepancies in what Dopp told Cuomo, the state Commission on Public Integrity, and the district attorney himself, and whether the former aide may have committed perjury or obstruction of justice.

Soares' office declined comment on Tuesday.

The possible offer of immunity underscores the Senate Republicans' questioning of whether the effort to have State Police compile the travel records on Bruno was known to Spitzer himself.

The governor has maintained he was unaware that Dopp and others had told Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton to get the records.

For district attorneys, an offer of immunity is one of several tactics that can be used in an investigation.

"That's a prosecutorial tool that's generally kept close to the vest," said Ray Kelly, a veteran Albany defense lawyer who, like other attorneys, stressed that he was speaking in general terms and not about the Dopp case.

"There would have to be some target in mind," said Brian Devane, an Albany lawyer.

But Abany Law School's Liebman said neither the committee nor the Legislature has the same power as a district attorney to grant immunity.

That was decided in a 1931 Court of Appeals decision, he said.

The decision said immunity could only be granted through a bill empowering the committee to do so and would require approval by the Senate and Assembly, and the governor's signature.

If the governor vetoed it, both chambers would have to override the veto for it to be enacted.

If the Senate, controlled by Republicans, tried to push such a bill in this instance, it could draw the Democrat-controlled Assembly into a heavily politicized affair it has mostly avoided.

A similar situation occurred almost two decades ago when the felony convictions of Oliver North, an aide to President Ronald Reagan, were vacated in the Iran-Contra Affair because Congress had granted him immunity.

But the powers of Congress and the state Senate are, as Kelly said, "apples and oranges."

State law offers two types of immunity: "Use immunity," which prevents prosecutors from using the particular testimony given by a witness against that witness; and the broader "transactional immunity," which protects the witness from any charges pertaining to his testimony, no matter where the information comes from.

Another possibility would be if the Senate committee requested Soares to offer immunity.

However, the Republican-controlled committee and Soares, a Democrat, have not been communicating.

"I've never spoken to Soares in my life," Winner said.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"No 'shake-up' of Spitzer team - Three key position changes among aides described as 'fine tuning' administration"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, December 7, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer's aides Thursday dismissed speculation of a "shake-up" within his central staff and portrayed three key position changes announced late Wednesday as the "fine tuning" of a team preparing for Year Two of Day One.

Paul Francis, Spitzer's budget director and senior adviser, is moving to the governor's chambers as director of state operations starting in the new year.

Francis will replace Olivia Golden, who has been cast by some people she's worked with as smart but not suited to overseeing all the state's agencies and seeing to it that the governor's directives and policies are enforced.

Over the past three years, Francis has consumed knowledge about the state agencies and is seen as a good choice for the post.

"It's not a shake-up, it's an evolutionary change," said Francis, who has been helping the governor develop policy since 2005 as a campaign adviser and as budget director.

Francis, who will keep his $175,600 salary (Golden was paid $169,000), will report to Rich Baum, chief of staff for the governor, but will have a direct line to Spitzer if necessary.

He said speculation that he desires Baum's job or that Baum is leaving is incorrect.

Aides to the governor say no substantial changes are envisioned.

"I have absolutely no desire than to be the director of state operations and work in a partnership with Rich ..."

"Rich trumps me ..."

"Both of us will be in these jobs for as long as the governor is the governor," Francis said.

He said Baum will focus on issues from a political or strategic perspective and he'll work on programmatic matters, using a new metric set up by Golden to measure agency performance.

Golden, according to several interviews of people within and outside of government, was a strange choice -- a child welfare expert and former Clinton administration assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Health Department.

To come to New York and work with government agencies employing 200,000 people was a tough task, the officials say.

Her departure, recommended by some of Spitzer's advisers, has followed a handful of exits this year of key administration figures, including Darren Dopp, the former director of communications, and Steven Mitnick, the governor's former energy adviser.

Both resigned amid accusations they abused their positions.

"I don't think it's a shake-up," said former budget director John Cape, who served Gov. George Pataki.

"It's the normal process every new administration goes through in deciding the highest and best use of their talent."

He said it seems Spitzer is figuring out where it makes sense to reposition people.

He said Francis has been an excellent budget manager and tactician and Laura Anglin, the incoming budget director, is "phenomenally talented and experienced."

The changes should solidify two important units of the administration at a time when agency finances and state spending will be under close watch.

Francis will be working with Kristin Proud, the former deputy secretary to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee who had been serving as an administration health care adviser.

In November Spitzer reassigned her as deputy director of state operations.

"The pairing of Paul Francis and Kristin Proud gives the administration a very powerful one-two punch in the operations area," said Patrick Bulgaro, who served as budget director under Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Francis' job as budget director fell to his top deputy.

Anglin, who has been working at top level government financial posts for nearly 20 years, will see her pay rise to $175,000 from $169,733.

She has essentially been running budget functions while Francis worked on issues not typically associated with the budget director, such as the state racing franchise.

"Laura has been the chief operating officer of the budget division while I've been the chief executive officer of the division," Francis said.

"The fact that she is so strong on all the details of the budget has given me the time to spend on a large number of other policy areas."

Francis, who comes from a business background -- he was chief financial officer of Priceline.com. -- is unlike a lot of the governor's other top advisers who are lawyers, including Sean Patrick Maloney, leaders of Spitzer's attorney general office such as David Nocenti and Peter Pope, and close allies, particularly Lloyd Constantine and wife Silda Wall Spitzer.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

"Spitzer says his scandal testimony won't become public"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 3:53 p.m., Friday, December 7, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he will not make public his expected testimony to the Public Integrity Commission on the political scandal in which his aides are accused of tracking the travels of Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno.

"The reason I can't is because it's their rules, not mine," Spitzer told The Buffalo News editorial board.

"And their rules don't permit it."

Commission spokesman Walter Ayres on Friday said the rules of the commission, like its precursor Ethics Commission, prohibit the body from releasing testimony.

Spitzer replaced the Ethics Commission as part of his government reform measures.

It is controlled by his appointees.

Asked if any person questioned by the commission could request that the testimony be made public, Ayres said:

"Although the law does not allow me to comment about ongoing investigations, I can confirm that it has not been the policy of the commission to provide transcripts of depositions or to allow witnesses to record their testimony."

Ayres declined to respond when pressed on whether a policy means public release of the testimony was prohibited by the commission.

Spitzer spokesman Errol Cockfield had no immediate comment.

"So much for sunshine and open government," said Sen. George H. Winner Jr., an Elmira Republican whose committee is also investigating the scandal that has halted bipartisan cooperation in Albany since early summer.

"It's a solar eclipse when it comes to his government."

Winner, who like Spitzer is a lawyer, said the governor could choose to waive his confidentiality in testimony to the Public Integrity Commission.

Winner also said the commission could establish rules for the testimony that would make it public, if Spitzer or commissioners desired.

Spitzer campaigned last year as a crusader to open up government.

He hasn't testified publicly in the scandal in which two of his top aides are accused of misusing state police to compile records of Bruno's use of state aircraft on days he mixed meetings with lobbyists with GOP fundraisers.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found no crimes were committed, but found the aides acted improperly.

Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares also found no laws were broken and found no proof of a political plot to smear Bruno by releasing the records to a reporter who had requested them.

"I have nothing to say that I haven't said," Spitzer told the Buffalo News editorial board in repeating that he wants to testify to the Public Integrity Commission.

He has not yet been asked to testify before the commission.

The Spitzer administration, however, continued to fight Winner's subpoenas in court on Thursday in Manhattan.

Winner seeks records from Spitzer and records and testimony from his former communications director, Darren Dopp, who has been accused of a leading role in the alleged plot.

"So the stonewalling continues," Winner said.

Earlier this week, Dopp avoided -- at least for now -- a possible perjury charge from a grand jury Soares was expected to impanel.

"I have reason to believe the matter has been delayed," said Dopp's attorney, Michael Koenig.

"I am not privy to the district attorney's decision-making process nor the status of their investigation."

"I would hope and expect that, based upon the facts of the law, charges are not brought against my client."

Soares wouldn't comment.

"Audit: NYRA shorted state $54 million in franchise fees"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 2:44 p.m., Friday, December 7, 2007

ALBANY -- The New York Racing Association -- which may be facing its final three weeks in business after running thoroughbred racing since 1955 -- was hit with more bad news Friday when auditors claimed it failed to pay the state $54 million in franchise fees since 2000.

The audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found NYRA shorted the fees by $10.9 million in 2004-2005 alone.

NYRA pays the state for the right to run the Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga race tracks under the franchise.

The fee is based on a calculation of revenue after expenses.

"Over and over again our auditors have found that NYRA has continually misinterpreted the mathematical formula for calculating the franchise fee and shortchanged taxpayers," DiNapoli said.

NYRA President Charles Hayward said the criticism is unwarranted, but he supports DiNapoli if he is calling for a review of how the franchise fee is calculated.

"We have sought legal and financial advice from lawyers and accountants who tell us we're doing it the right way," Hayward said.

NYRA has paid little or no franchise fee since 2000 because expenses have exceeded revenue.

"If the comptroller is asking for clarification, then we applaud it."

"But we think we're doing it right," Hayward said.

NYRA's franchise ends Dec. 31 and it is trying to win renewal over three competitors, each of which has less experience in running thoroughbred tracks but promises more money for the state.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who favors NYRA, continue negotiations.

The Legislature could make a choice as early as Thursday, when a special session is planned.

Earlier this week, the state Commission of Investigation subpoenaed the law firm NYRA hired as its "integrity counsel."

The Senate's Republican majority, which opposes Spitzer's plan, has criticized NYRA's $125,000-a-month, no-bid contract with the Manhattan firm of Getnick & Getnick.

"The comptroller's audit is another reason why we can't support the governor's plan to continue the status quo with NYRA," said Scott Reif, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

"It's imperative that we work towards a final deal that creates a stronger model for racing and is in the best interest of taxpayers."

NYRA, which has said its nonprofit status is outdated and keeps it from competing profitably with casinos and other gambling venues, is vying with Empire Racing, Capital Play and Excelsior Racing Associates for what is expected to be a 30-year franchise to operate New York's tracks.

"The state has exercised oversight over NYRA for the past 50 years and things keep going from bad to worse," said Empire's Jeffrey Perlee.

"At some point we have to acknowledge that trying to simply reform the business operations of a chronically dysfunctional organization is throwing more good money after bad."

------

On the Net:

http://www.osc.state.ny.us

"NYRA consultant target of subpoena - No-bid contract pays 'integrity counsel' $125,000 per month"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, December 6, 2007

ALBANY -- The State Commission of Investigation on Wednesday subpoenaed a consultant hired on a no-bid contract by the New York Racing Association.

Attorney Neil Getnick, hired last summer as NYRA's $125,000-per-month "integrity counsel," confirmed the subpoena.

The commission's chief counsel, Anthony Cartusciello, said he could not discuss matters before the panel, a six-person body dominated by appointees of former Gov. George Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

The commission received an anonymous letter claiming Getnick conspired with Gov. Eliot Spitzer's office to subvert the process for awarding the racing franchise for operations at Saratoga, Aqueduct and Belmont Park thoroughbred tracks and steer it to NYRA and Excelsior Racing Associates.

NYRA's contract to Getnick's law firm, Getnick & Getnick, was criticized by Senate Republicans in earlier hearings and by NYRA's competitors for the franchise.

Getnick was the court-appointed monitor overseeing NYRA during its deferred criminal prosecution in a federal tax fraud case in 2003.

"I regret that I was not afforded the opportunity to appear before the state Senate Racing Committee when it held its NYRA-related hearings earlier this fall," Getnick said.

"I would welcome the opportunity to testify before the state investigation commission."

"The facts are straightforward and should be heard by the public."

The subpoena calls for information on NYRA's process for awarding contracts and related matters.

The state comptroller in the past has faulted NYRA's failure to follow competitive bidding rules, and the Racing and Wagering Commission has specifically criticized the Getnick contract.

NYRA Chairman Steven Duncker has defended the five-year contract, saying Getnick is uniquely qualified, having worked as NYRA's monitor for 18 months, and that racing law allows some exemptions from competitive bidding.

He has called the letter "a pack of lies."

Duncker would not comment further Wednesday, but said NYRA has not been subpoenaed.

Bruno called on Spitzer to meet publicly Dec. 10 with legislative leaders to discuss the "future of racing."

NYRA's franchise to operate races expires at year's end, and the Senate is rejecting Spitzer's plan to extend NYRA's franchise for 30 years.

Spitzer's aides had no immediate comment.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

"Buyers' confidence lowest in four years - Consumers across New York state hit hard by high energy prices"

By ERIC ANDERSON, Deputy business editor, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, December 6, 2007

COLONIE -- The statewide index of consumer confidence hit its lowest point in more than four years in November, the Siena Research Institute reported Wednesday.

And it could have further to fall, said the institute's director.

"With high energy prices, the housing slump and the Fed predicting a slower economy next year, consumer confidence may not have found the bottom yet," said Douglas Lonnstrom, the institute's founding director and a professor of statistics and finance at Siena College in Loudonville.

"Just listen to the concerns of low-income citizens as well as women and older New Yorkers."

Confidence was lowest among those three groups, according to the survey.

Lonnstrom said high energy costs are likely hitting low-income households particularly hard, taking a bigger chunk of their budgets, while older adults on fixed incomes also are seeing less money left over after paying higher gasoline and utility bills.

"In a lot of households, women pay the bills," he added, "so they're seeing this before the men."

For some households, the bills are having a snowball effect, said Karen Dettbarn of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service in Colonie.

"Their heat, their electric, their gas, their car -- if they fall behind on one, all of the other credit cards can increase their interest rates," she said, boosting the finance costs on debt and putting the consumer further behind.

They're cutting back or eliminating holiday spending to make ends meet, she said.

Economists follow confidence surveys closely because they measure consumers' willingness to spend, and that spending makes up about two-thirds of the nation's overall economic activity.

The Siena survey is based on one conducted nationally by the University of Michigan, with the index set at 100 in the base year of 1966.

The statewide index fell 2.4 points to 69.5 in November, about 6.6 points below the nation's 76.1 index, which was down 4.8 points from October.

The state's reading was the lowest since the spring of 2003.

Lonnstrom said a separate part of the survey that measures buying plans for certain big-ticket items yielded one bit of positive news.

That was a slight uptick in consumers' plans to buy homes and furniture and to make major home improvements.

But buying plans for cars, trucks and computers were down.

Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.

Pessimism prevails

While Republicans felt more optimistic, overall confidence among other groups in New York state was flat or declined from October to November:

Group \\\ Index \\\ Change

Republicans \\\ 79.1 \\\ 0.3

United States \\\ 76.1 \\\ -4.8

Under 55 \\\ 75.4 \\\ -2.5

Higher-income \\\ 74.4 \\\ -2.9

Men \\\ 73.9 \\\ -0.2

Metro NYC \\\ 70.4 \\\ -3.7

New York state \\\ 69.5 \\\ -2.4

Democrats \\\ 68.5 \\\ -4.6

Upstate NY \\\ 67.7 \\\ 0.0

Women \\\ 65.1 \\\ -4.4

55 and over \\\ 64.5 \\\ -2.5

Lower income \\\ 60.5 \\\ -4.6

Source: Siena Research Institute; U.S. data from University of Michigan

"GOP should slam coffin lid on boring, costly Troopergate"

By FRED LeBRUN, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, December 9, 2007

After six months, Troopergate has become not just boring, but increasingly an expensive annoyance.

Continued, hysterical pursuit by Senate Republicans is becoming more and more about them, and not about revealing some higher, or even lower, truth concerning a long-ago incident that was more embarrassing than anything else.

What's the taxpayers' running tab, I wonder, for the imported legal gurus guiding our esteemed lawmakers in their hounding of Governor Spitzer's former communications director, Darren Dopp?

Because I'm confident that if it were up to the public, the Washington legal team behind Senate Republican efforts to keep this a hot political issue no matter what would be sent packing.

The simple truth is any significant point to the multiple inquiries still gasping for breath have already played out in the tabloids.

Every innuendo, truthful or otherwise, has been teased out to infinity.

So what's the point anymore?

What more can we learn, or be instructed by, that the public has not already absorbed and adjusted to?

The very worst the Republicans could possibly pin on Eliot Spitzer is that he knew more than he said about the ill-conceived plan to get the goods on Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's inappropriate use of state aircraft for personal and political business.

That's the very worst of it, and chances are they won't come close to that.

A month ago in a Siena College poll, a great majority of the public said they already believed the governor did know more than he said.

So what more is there to gain by prolonging this expensive agony?

From their perspective, Senate Republicans have the best of both worlds at the moment, anyway.

They've managed to poison the air enough so that most New Yorkers believe the blackest thoughts about Governor Spitzer and his administration, without ever having to actually prove anything.

So give us all a break, senators, and let this chicken-feed issue die a natural death.

Continue this nonsense at your peril, though.

That same Siena College poll showed only about 10 percent of the public consider Troopergate an important issue.

By now, that's probably well down into the single digits.

What the folks back in the home district ought to be asking is why are $100,000-a-year legislators wasting their time on this?

In its time, did Troopergate serve a purpose and reveal a sort of institutional arrogance about the Spitzer administration?

The answer is yes, no question.

Spitzer has taken a beating over it, and should have, and I believe he has made adjustments because of it.

But I'll go out on my customary limb here and assert that in five years time, what will be remembered as equally significant if not more so is that Troopergate marked the end of the frightfully expensive abuse of state aircraft by politicians, notably Joe Bruno.

Finally those helicopters and airplanes are radioactive for the pols.

Mario Cuomo couldn't do that, George Pataki didn't want to, but now Eliot Spitzer will be credited with a true, quantifiable reform.

At a heavy price, obviously.

The latest meaningless blip that's got Senate Republican shorts in a knot is that Albany County District Attorney David Soares won't pursue perjury charges against Dopp over alleged inconsistencies in statements to various investigators.

First off, proving perjury is tough under the best of circumstances, lawyers tell me.

In this case, there's a question whether one of the statements was sworn.

If it wasn't, perjury couldn't happen.

Beyond that, the Dopp statements supposedly at variance are hardly a smoking gun.

They amount to wording about impropriety versus appearance of impropriety.

Only stuff a lawyer, or an opportunistic pol, would give a rat's whiskers about.

The short of it is David Soares did exactly the right thing.

Which brings us finally to our much ballyhooed state Commission on Public Integrity.

Where is it?

The commission has had the better part of three months to give us the definitive word on Troopergate so we can slam the coffin closed.

We're not talking Pentagon Papers here, or Watergate break-in.

All the players are well-known, the incident pretty straight forward.

Come on, already.

You're making this look like state work.

Fred LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

"For Spitzer, Day 1 seems so long ago - On Jan. 1, the Sheriff of Wall Street rode into town with plans to clean up the Capitol; results have been mixed"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, December 9, 2007

Everything changed on "Day One," but not the way people thought it would.

Last year around this time, when Eliot Spitzer rode into town as the triumphant candidate, his reputation preceded him.

Hopes were high for the new governor.

He'd do for Albany's infamous dysfunction what he did as attorney general, the job in which he earned the moniker "Sheriff of Wall Street."

He would clean up the Capitol and shatter the "status quo," even if it meant stepping on toes or knocking heads.

Even Republicans cheered the Democrat, who seemed like a breath of fresh air following the increasingly detached style of three-term Gov. George Pataki.

Fast forward to November.

After months of blunders, battles and missteps, his political status was summed up in a Buffalo News headline:

"As Spitzer Arrives, Democrats Cringe."

If nothing else, Spitzer may have set a record for how far a governor could fall in both opinion polls and in the eyes of fellow politicians.

According to one poll, from the Siena Research Institute in November, Spitzer's favorability-unfavorability rating was 41 percent to 46 percent, compared with 75 percent to 10 percent in January.

The question is: Can he turn that around?

The answer might sound like one of those old psychiatrist jokes: Yes, he can change, but he'll really have to want to.

Certainly, the governor had some early successes, such as pushing through workers compensation reforms, passing a civil confinement law and simplifying school funding -- all of which Pataki had sought, but not achieved.

But Spitzer also used up his goodwill at the same frenzied pace as he went after reforms.

First, there was his effort to control the selection of a new comptroller when Alan Hevesi was forced to resign after last year's Chauffeurgate scandal.

Spitzer lost that battle to the Democratic Assembly, which chose one of its own, Tom DiNapoli.

Next came the still-raging war with Senate Republican Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

That fight actually started in the winter, when Spitzer hired Republican Sen. Michael Balboni as his homeland security czar and worked to get Craig Johnson elected in his place.

Johnson won, reducing the Republicans' already tenuous hold on the chamber, its last bastion of power in state government.

With Bruno and other Republicans on notice that more efforts to unseat them were coming, the GOP was looking for a way to go on the offense.

They didn't have to look hard.

By summer, Spitzer was caught up in a travel records scandal in which his aides had State Police gather records on Bruno's state-funded travel.

Bruno charged the governor with "political espionage."

That battle continues, although it was briefly overshadowed this fall when Spitzer tried to enact a plan giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

Even the way Spitzer backed down in the license fight angered people.

Fellow Democrats complained that the governor changed course without warning.

His personal style hasn't helped build bridges.

First there was the tirade where Spitzer told Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco he was a "(expletive) steamroller."

Then came an elliptical remark referring to Bruno as an "old senile piece of (expletive)."

The governor, in the words of political consultant Doug Muzzio, had turned "toxic."

Pundits, consultants and other members of the chattering class offer a common explanation: Spitzer may have been good as a prosecutor, but has yet to grasp that the governor's job is a lot different.

Perhaps the best indication of that were his personnel choices.

Spitzer put the governor's office largely in the hands of prosecutors he had worked with previously, either as a federal lawyer or as attorney general.

That was a recipe for problems.

A prosecutor can threaten a business with legal action, and even if the business owner thinks he's right, he may settle a case out of pure practicality.

Lawmakers, though, can't be shut down or put out of business by a zealous governor.

Some politicians even relish a good fight.

Spitzer fell into other traps, noted Albany Assemblyman Jack McEneny.

He might have assumed the Legislature's reputation for dysfunction meant he could pick off lawmakers at will.

But public distaste for a group rarely applies to individual members, who work to build personal connections with voters.

And, Spitzer might have mistaken his nearly 70 percent electoral margin as a personal mandate, when voters might have simply wanted a change after 12 years of Republican leadership.

"Did they vote for Spitzer or a Democrat or did they vote for a change?" asked McEneny.

Still, McEneny and others note this is just the first of three years in Spitzer's term.

"This better be the learning year because in year two he flunks out," Muzzio said.

The test in 2008 will be twofold: Can Spitzer get the policies he wants, such as campaign finance reform, even in a tough budget year?

And, can he help Democrats take over the Senate after decades of Republican control?

On the second count, Spitzer has numbers on his side: Enrolled Democrats outnumber Republicans 5-3.

And, many Republican senators are in their 70s.

So how would the governor use this to his advantage?.

First, pundits say, he needs to learn from past mistakes by not inciting what could be viewed as unnecessary confrontations, such as the comptroller issue.

There are some indications he's doing that.

His secretary, Richard Baum, has been contacting lawmakers who've been critical of the governor, listening to their concerns and trying to smooth things over.

"Every day in politics is a learning process," said Assemblyman Keith Wright, D-Manhattan, among the vocal Spitzer critics Baum recently reached out to.

Like others, Wright noted lots of office holders have had rough first terms.

President Bill Clinton, for example, struggled early on with battles over gays in the military, and with Hillary Rodham Clinton's aborted health care overhaul.

One veteran Capitol lobbyist and observer, who asked not to be named because he deals with state agencies, compared Spitzer to Gov. Al Smith, who served through the 1920s.

Like Spitzer, Smith was a reform-minded Democrat from Manhattan who faced an entrenched Legislature that had even more power than today.

Smith traveled the state, frequently blasting lawmakers in his efforts to streamline government, which was riddled with even more opaque commissions, regulatory boards and fiefdoms controlled by lawmakers.

Eventually, he noted, Smith simply wore down many of his opponents.

Spitzer certainly seems to have the energy and wherewithal to wage such a long-term fight, and recently, he's exhibited a willingness to change course to avert a needless political dust-up.

Case in point: When Assembly Republican Minority Leader Jim Tedisco complained in October that a free health clinic in Schenectady had its funding cut by the governor's office due to political pique, the money was eventually restored.

And, after the Times Union reported on plans for a downsized Martin Luther King Day celebration in Albany, the governor's office switched course on that, too, when it quickly became apparent the idea didn't sit well with the public.

"Even in the last couple of weeks I think you've seen a softening of positions and more of a collegial governor," said Sen. Neil Breslin.

So is there a kinder, gentler Eliot Spitzer and will there be harmony with people like Bruno?

That might be a stretch, Spitzer indicated in an interview Friday with the Times Union.

The main thing he learned during his first year in office, he said, is there is a lot of "push-back" when you're trying to force a change.

Spitzer ran through a list of accomplishments, including stem cell research funding, school finance reform, laws against human trafficking, and budgeting reforms, adding, "you can get all those things done, but people push back."

That's a lesson he learned as attorney general, when he took on Wall Street brokerage firms and insurance companies.

He said it won't deter him.

"There was enormous push-back, greater push-back than what I've gotten here," he said.

"I believe in sticking to principles and we will continue to drive forward a reform agenda."

As for Bruno, spokesman Mark Hansen said the Senate's priorities next year will continue to be property tax relief, education, health care and job creation.

"We will be looking to see what the governor proposes to see how he addresses those priorities."

So what's the best advice?

To really turn things around, the governor should recall what he did after he ran -- and lost -- his first race for attorney general in 1994, said Steve Pigeon, who served as Erie County Democratic chairman at the time.

After the defeat, Spitzer regrouped and spent part of the next four years traveling the state and keeping touch with county chairs and others in preparation for another run.

"Don't hit a panic button, but go back to the basics," Pigeon said.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"Housing slump damages state revenue: report"

Mon Dec 10, 12:46 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. housing slump has damaged many states' revenue streams, leaving some with shortfalls and worries about funding education and health care, according to a report released by the National Conference of State Legislators on Monday.

Legislative fiscal directors from 24 states said their states' revenue was affected last quarter by the housing market's plummet.

Florida reported the slowdown directly or indirectly hurt all of the state's major revenue sources.

Local governments generally collect property taxes, but states can levy related charges such as mortgage taxes.

More than 12 states and Puerto Rico had declines in real estate transfer and recording taxes, according to the survey, which was conducted in November and covered the first four months of fiscal 2008 for most states.

"Many states anticipated a slowdown in this revenue source, but the drop is even higher than expected," the report said.

The overall revenue picture was mixed with some states, particularly in the west or Midwest, raising their fiscal 2008 forecasts, while others, most notably California, Florida and New York, lowering theirs.

Florida has dropped its general fund estimate by $2.1 billion since August.

"Although early warning signs do not portend immediate bad news, concerns for current year budgets are mounting with even greater concern for some states in (fiscal) 2009," the report said.

"If the economy takes a turn for the worse, state finances undoubtedly will decline from the situation reported here."

Last week's report from the National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers reached the same conclusion.

Only nine states had optimistic revenue outlooks for the rest of their fiscal year, compared to 16 states that had positive expectations in November 2006, according to the survey.

Nearly 20 states expressed concerns about revenue, compared to just six last year.

In Arizona for example, overall tax collections were 7.3 percent below the state's forecast, according to the NCSL report.

Surpluses from past years' revenue surges may help those states that built up a financial cushion, NCSL said.

Meanwhile perennial spending pressures like Medicaid, the federal and state-funded health care program, remained.

Education was also a burden, according to the report.

California may have to make up for some education funding shortfalls, while Connecticut and Kansas must cover swelling special education costs.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by James Dalgleish)

"Spitzer officials say no policy change in violent felon paroles"

By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press

Last updated: 12:52 p.m., Sunday, December 9, 2007

ALBANY -- Ailing at age 89, Charles Friedgood will leave prison this month after more than three decades behind bars.

The wife killer with terminal cancer had been denied parole five times when a board finally granted him release last month.

Friedgood's parole comes as inmates convicted of the most violent crimes are being released at a higher rate under the first-year administration of Gov. Eliot Spitzer compared to his predecessor.

Parole officials stress there is no policy change and that they merely are making careful decisions based on the law.

But early numbers suggest a change since the Pataki administration.

Parole boards through October of this year interviewed 1,087 so-called "A-1" violent felons -- those convicted of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping or arson in the first degree -- and granted release to 118, or 17 percent.

That compares to release rates in the 5 to 6 percent range for those inmates during the last two complete fiscal years of the Pataki administration.

The Republican governor came into office promoting a tough-on-crime philosophy and parole boards began granting releases at a lower rate after he succeeded Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1995.

While there was no formal policy to deny release to inmates convicted of violent felonies, critics say that was the practical effect.

Spitzer's parole chairman, George Alexander, would not speak to The Associated Press about release rates under the new administration.

Spokesman Mark Johnson said 10 months of data available is not enough time to discern if there is a trend.

He added that the parole board operates independently of political pressure.

"The Board of Parole, by law, operates as independent quasi-judicial body that functions outside of politics," Johnson said in an e-mail.

"Decisions made by the board are done independently on a case-by-case basis."

"All cases are different and considered on their own merits."

In fact, Alexander in April reminded parole board members in a memo that, by law, they must consider a number of factors when deciding whether to grant supervised release to an inmate.

Factors include not only the applicant's crime, but his institutional record and prior criminal record.

Parole has always been a sensitive issue for public officials.

A release policy viewed as too lenient can inflame public opinion, while a lockdown on releases can lead to other problems.

Pataki was sued in federal court in 2006 by inmates who claimed they had been denied parole improperly.

Lawyers for the inmates claimed there was an "unofficial policy" of making blanket denials for A-1 violent felons based solely on their crimes.

Settlement talks in the lawsuit ended last month when the state pulled out.

Robert Isseks, attorney for the inmates, said a finalized settlement was imminent when the state suddenly withdrew without an explanation.

The withdrawal came shortly after details of the pending deal began leaking out.

The Daily News published a story about the possible settlement under a headline that read in part:

"Eliot Eyes Deal in Suit to Spring State's Most Heinous Killers."

Spitzer spokesman Paul Larrabee did not say why the state broke off talks, but stressed that officials were guided by public safety.

"The state absolutely has a right to deny parole to some violent felons in order to protect the citizens of the state," Larrabee said.

The inmate lawsuit is pending in White Plains before a federal judge, who on Thursday denied the state's motion to dismiss based on a change in administrations in Albany.

Isseks said that despite anecdotal evidence that some inmates are being granted parole after proper consideration by parole boards, other inmates continue to be denied parole based solely on the nature of their offense.

"It appears to be a random sort of thing," Isseks said.

"Some people get released, some people don't."

He said the lawsuit is still relevant.

Despite Spitzer's election, Pataki nominees continue to dominate the 19-member parole board.

Members are appointed to six-year terms and Spitzer appointees are not likely to gain a majority during this term.

Two slots are currently vacant.

Still, Friedgood's release suggests the administration in Albany can affect parole decisions.

Friedgood, convicted of killing his wife in 1976, was denied parole for a fifth time in October.

The three-member board said there was a good chance he would break the law again.

Within weeks, parole officials ordered a do-over, citing the pending lawsuit, which included Friedgood as a co-plaintiff.

A board consisting of three new members conducted a separate interview of Friedgood and granted him release on a 2-1 vote.

The initial three-member board that denied Friedgood parole included two Spitzer appointees.

The second board that released him consisted entirely of Pataki appointees.

"DiNapoli: NYRA Underpaid Franchise Fees by $10.9 Million - Urges Governor and Legislature to Ensure Strong Oversight of Future Race Track and VLT Operators"

State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli today urged the Governor and Legislature to include strong oversight provisions in the legislation for the operation of the state’s racetracks and related video lottery terminals (VLT).

DiNapoli’s recommendations follow the release of an audit today that found the New York State Racing Association (NYRA) underpaid franchise fees owed to the state in 2004 and 2005 by a combined total of $10.9 million.

Comptroller audits have found that NYRA failed to pay the state nearly $54 million in franchise fees from 2000 to 2005.

“NYRA is legally required to pay taxpayers a reasonable amount in exchange for operating the state’s thoroughbred race tracks."

"But over and over again our auditors have found that NYRA has continually misinterpreted the mathematical formula for calculating the franchise fee and shortchanged taxpayers,” DiNapoli said.

“NYRA appears to have cleaned up some of its past practices but they’re still shortchanging taxpayers on franchise fees.

“The horse racing franchise is a valuable state asset."

"In any new proposal, the Governor and the Legislature should include provisions for strong oversight of the operators and clearly stipulate how any payments owed to the state are calculated so the operators can’t play games with what they owe taxpayers.”

Under state law, the Comptroller is required to certify NYRA’s annual franchise fee, which the Comptroller does every two years.

NYRA is required to perform certain year-end tests of expenses (106 and 90 percent tests defined in law) to determine its entire net adjusted income.

The franchise fee is calculated based on NYRA’s entire adjusted net income, less $2 million, which is to be allocated for horsemen’s stakes and purses.

If the adjusted net income for the year is less than $2 million, the entire amount is to be allocated for horsemen’s stakes and purses, and NYRA pays no franchise fee to the state.

When verifying the franchise fees for 2004 and 2005, auditors found that instead of using actual expenses (those expenses which comply with generally accepted accounting principles) as intended, NYRA calculated the fee using tax-basis expenses (those expenses which are deductible on its federal corporate tax return).

As a result, auditors found that NYRA did not pay $14.3 million it owed the state in 2004 because it calculated the franchise fee to be $0.

In 2005, auditors found that NYRA actually calculated it owed the state $3.3 million when auditors found that it did not owe anything to the state for that period.

Auditors note that specific tests exist in law to limit the amount of expenses incurred by NYRA.

Using only tax-basis expenses allows a significant amount of NYRA’s expenses to escape the budget and spending limitations set forth in statute.

For example, on NYRA’s 2005 tax return, its total tax-basis operating expenses were $146.4 million, while its actual operating expenses were $167.3 million, a difference of $20.9 million.

NYRA’s flawed methodology for calculating the franchise fee has also been used for developing its budgets.

Therefore, the NYRA Board of Trustees has not had an accurate picture of its financial situation when they voted on its budget.

Auditors found in 2005 NYRA started providing the board with both anticipated actual and tax-basis expenses when it prepared its budget.

Auditors noted that it was NYRA’s actual, and not tax-basis, expenses which have resulted in its current dire fiscal condition, deficits and bankruptcy.

Auditors also questioned NYRA’s practice to deduct accrued interest on its annual federal tax returns for a $74.5 million loan.

One of the Comptroller’s prior audits also questioned this practice and urged NYRA to obtain an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruling.

In a recent ruling, the IRS agreed with Comptroller auditors and also took issue with other deductions NYRA made over the years.

IRS auditors initially identified a tax liability of $1.6 billion; however, the IRS recently notified NYRA that it anticipates adjusting its claim against NYRA to below $25 million.

NYRA’s franchise to operate the state’s three tracks ends December 31, 2007.

The Governor has recommended that a newly reconstituted NYRA be awarded a new franchise for 30 years to operate the tracks, while another yet to be named entity would run the VLTs.

The final agreement requires legislative approval.

To ensure strong oversight and address problems identified by past Comptroller audits, DiNapoli recommended the Governor and the Legislature include the following recommendations in the enabling legislation:

Confirm the Comptroller’s broad audit authority and stipulate the Comptroller’s right to examine all financial and operational matters associated with racing and gaming activities.

Clearly define all financial terms, including revenues, expenses and all other payment obligation terms to ensure that all racing and gaming operators fully understand and meet their fiscal responsibilities.

Ensure all contracts meet guidelines consistent with applicable state procurement laws.

NYRA disputed the audit’s findings and the auditors’ calculation of the franchise fees.

NYRA’s full response is included in the audit.

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/releases/dec07/120707.htm

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

December 10, 2007

"Um, Governor? About Those 'Rules'..."

A reader with a much better memory than mine wrote in to question Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s recent claim to The Buffalo News Editorial Board that his testimony under oath (which has yet to occur) to the state Commission on Public Integrity must remain secret because the commission’s “rules don’t permit it.”

The reader recalled that former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s testimony before the now-defunct state Ethic Commission had been posted on the Web, perhaps even on the commission’s own site.

Actually, the commission only made public excerpts of Hevesi’s testimony in its 2006 report on Chauffeurgate, which touched off the Albany County DA’s probe that led to Hevesi’s guilty plea to a felony charge of drefrauding the government and subsequent resignation.

However, three months ago - about nine months after Hevesi’s departure - The Times obtained from the State Archives and posted all 800+ pages of the full Ethics Commission Chauffeurgate file.

The Ethics Commission no longer exists, merged with the state Lobbying Commission earlier this year to create the Public Integrity Commission, which is dominated, and therefore controlled, by Spitzer appointees.

But it seems there is a precedent for the public release of testimony by a seated statewide elected official to a state investigative body.

Public Integrity Commission spokesman Walter Ayres (who used to handle press for the Ethics Commission) released the following statement last week:

“Although the law does not allow me to comment about ongoing investigations, I can confirm that it has not been the policy of the commission to provide transcripts of depositions or to allow witnesses to record their testimony.”

When pressed, however, Ayres declined to say whether this policy was a strict prohibition.

Spitzer spokesman Errol Cockfield told the TU: “By law, the commission’s investigations are confidential.”

I talked to Ayres today, and he told me the rules regarding the confidentiality of investigations haven’t changed with the merging of the Ethics and Lobbying commissions.

By statute, the commission is required to keep testimony confidential if, by the end of a probe, no violations have been found.

No commission has ever released testimony, techincally speaking.

The State Archives did the releasing.

How did that happen?

After Hevesi pleaded guilty and waived his right to appeal, it was determined that his case had so much historical value that it should not molder in the filing cabinets of the Ethics Commission, but rather be available for public perusal.

One could argue that a similar decision would have to be made after a seated governor testified before the Commission on Public Integrity - if and when he ever does, and if and when this messy case ever gets closed for good.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...hose-rules.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

IF Eliot "STEAMWHISTLE" Spitzer really wanted to get this messy case closed for good ....

Then, citing New York State Criminal Procedure Law section S 190.25(4)(a):

"Nothing contained herein shall prohibit a witness (to a Grand Jury proceeding) from disclosing his own testimony (to a Grand Jury)" ....

"STEAMPIPE" Spitzer should TELL the Ethics Commission that HE intends to make his testimony before the Ethics Commission public ...

And if they say he can't ....

Then by God, he should sue their @#$%$ in State Supreme Court for the right to make his testimony public ...

And Spitzer would win that lawsuit hands down ....

AND THAT WOULD BE THAT ...

This messy case would then be closed for good ....

But let's all get real here, folks ...

Spitzer is not going to do any of that ...

For if he was, this mess would have been over long ago .....

Instead, as Jacob Gershman of the New York Sun noted ...

All the Spitzer dude is doing, instead of being forthright and forthcoming, is ducking and dodging and bobbing and weaving all over the place ...

And making LAME EXCUSES ...

LIKE A GUILTY MAN ....

And the Spitzer dude, instead of being forthcoming and assertive with the Ethics commission here ...

Is feeding us this BULL@#$% EXCUSE that the Ethics Commission won't let Spitzer make his own testimony public ....

And so ....

What a loser this Spitzer is ...

PUTZ!

And so ...

Posted by John Galt on December 10, 2007 4:45 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...hose-rules.html

"Spitzer's standing with NY voters continues to slide"

Associated Press

Last updated: 4:53 p.m., Monday, December 10, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer has reached a new low in the eyes of voters, drawing a 51 percent unfavorable rating in a new poll.

He was given a favorable rating by 36 percent of voters polled by the Siena College Research Institute, down from 41 percent last month.

"A majority of voters, 56 percent, are not prepared to re-elect the governor," Siena spokesman Steven Greenberg said.

"Only one in three Democrats is prepared to re-elect him, while 42 percent prefer 'someone else.'"

In New York City, 45 percent view him favorably and 40 percent unfavorably.

Only 26 percent of upstate voters view him favorably and 62 percent gave him an unfavorable rating.

His job performance was rated 27 percent positive versus 70 percent negative.

That's a slide from last month's 33-64 rating.

"The governor has always been clear that his leadership decisions are unaffected by polls."

"The same is true today," said Errol Cockfield, spokesman for the governor, in a written statement.

The poll also found that 82 percent of New Yorkers want the governor and Legislature to cut spending.

Only 13 percent would support increasing taxes.

"The voters' clear message to Albany: do not increase our taxes," Greenberg said.

"They would strongly prefer spending cuts, preferably not in health or education."

"And by a margin of 67 to 28 percent, voters are opposed to legislators giving themselves a pay raise."

The Dec. 3-6 poll of 625 voters has a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

In the Associated Press article "Spitzer's standing with NY voters continues to slide", last updated 4:53 p.m., Monday, December 10, 2007, it was stated that only 26 percent of upstate voters view Eliot "STEAM CALLIOPE" Spitzer favorably and 62 percent gave him an unfavorable rating ...

Which makes "STEAMPIPE" Spitzer the most reviled and disrespected Governor in NYS history, I believe ....

And the prime reason for it, according to my own informal polls ...

Is "STEAMVENT" Spitzer's continued BULL@#$% concerning his public testimony about his involvement in TROOPERGATE ...

The promised public testimony that JUST NEVER COMES ...

JUST NEVER HAPPENS ...

DESPITE ALL THE EMPTY PROMISES BY SPITZER TO BE FORTHRIGHT AND FORTHCOMING ...

Instead, all people hear coming from this "STEAMTRAIN" is a RAFT OF @#$% ....

Excuses ....

LAME EXCUSES ...

"OH, HOW I WANT TO!"

"BUT THEY WON'T LET ME!"

"EVEN THOUGH I REALLY DO WANT TO!"

And so ...

Spitzer is in FREEFALL alright when it comes to his reputation for integrity ...

The MAJORITY of upstaters are now convinced by Spitzer himself that Spitzer doesn't have any integrity whatsoever ...

Because if he did ....

He would have acted like it by now ....

Instead of acting like a GUILTY MAN trying to hide something from the authorities ...

So upstate people don't want to have anything more to do with this deceitful Spitzer dude ....

And his recent poll numbers reflect that fact ....

Where only 26 percent of upstate voters view Eliot "STEAMSHOVEL" Spitzer favorably and 62 percent gave him an unfavorable rating ...

And so ...

Posted by John Galt on December 10, 2007 5:27 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...hose-rules.html

THE NEW YORK POST

"SPITZ PROBE A JOKE - PANELIST RIPS 'DIRTY TRICKS' SECRECY"

December 10, 2007 -- THE state Public Integrity Commission gives the appearance of being "involved in a cover-up" of Gov. Spitzer's role in the Dirty Tricks Scandal because its probe has been slow and secretive, a member of the group has told The Post.

"Many of us are getting frustrated at the glacial pace and the secrecy within the secrecy that has come to define our investigation, not to mention the growing perception that we're involved in a cover-up," said the commission member, who has ties to Spitzer.

"I took this job to serve the state, not to help cover up for the governor or anyone else," added the member, who insisted on anonymity.

The unprecedented comment by one of the 13 unpaid commission members comes after months of confused and ineffective investigative efforts by the Spitzer-controlled panel into the use of the State Police by top gubernatorial aides to gather purportedly damaging information on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer).

It also follows Spitzer's claim to the Buffalo News that his long-expected commission testimony won't be made public because of a supposed prohibition in the panel's "rules."

Legal experts told The Post that while state law bars the commission from disclosing certain investigative information, the law does not bar Spitzer from disclosing his own testimony.

"I don't know of anything that would bar the commission from allowing the governor to record his own comments, which he could then make public," said a well-known expert on state ethics laws.

"At the very least, the governor could agree to step outside and answer questions from the press the way he says he's prepared to answer questions from the commission," the expert said.

Spitzer has publicly claimed he wants to testify in public, but privately, he and his aides are fighting efforts by the commission and the Senate Investigations Committee to obtain scandal-related documents and testimony.

Two top Spitzer aides, Chief of Staff Richard Baum and Darren Dopp, the governor's former communications director, refused to be interviewed about the scandal by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's investigators.

The Post disclosed in October that commission Chairman John Feerick had created a special "subcommittee" of Spitzer-friendly members to oversee the investigation.

The move led some investigators to conclude that Feerick, a former Fordham Law School dean, was seeking to shut out commission members appointed by Bruno, Republican Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco and Cuomo, a Democrat who issued a bombshell report on the scandal in July.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12102007/news/...joke_196503.htm

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"State Senate to pressure Sheldon Silver"

Monday, December 10th 2007, 4:00 AM

State lawmakers are headed for an end-of-year showdown over pay raises.

The Republican-led Senate plans this week to pressure Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose downstate-dominated members are squeezed the hardest by the lack of a salary hike.

"We're going to increase the heat in his kitchen," crowed one Republican senator, adding, "This will drive his members cuckoo right before Christmas!"

The Senate's plan: to pass a bill when senators return to Albany on Thursday that would provide immediate raises for judges but no one else, breaking the long-held tradition of coupling judicial and legislative pay hikes.

The $79,500 base pay for legislators hasn't changed since 1999.

State judges, who also haven't had a raise since 1999, earn $136,700.

The Senate bill would boost them to $165,200, bringing them in line with their federal counterparts, and include a retroactive salary increase.

The Senate GOP hopes to embarrass Silver and squeeze him between the judges, several of whom have sued over their lack of a raise, and his members, who are unlikely to back a measure that doesn't increase their own bottom line.

Silver Sunday rejected the move as "pure political posturing" by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, adding, "I don't think he's real on that."

"Joe Bruno's members want a pay raise as much as any other member."

"To save themselves politically, they don't want to vote for it."

Bruno's plan would also potentially drive a wedge between Silver and his fellow Democrat, Gov. Spitzer.

Spitzer unsuccessfully advocated for the decoupling of legislative and judicial raises during the 2007-08 budget battle.

However, he pledged his support for a pay hike for lawmakers while seeking to woo Assembly Democrats at a recent closed-door meeting in Brooklyn.

Silver, who hasn't yet committed to bringing his members back to Albany, said there's a 50-50 chance the Assembly won't return before the end of the year.

Silver also added some fuel to the smoldering fire between himself and Bruno, who has repeatedly referred to the speaker as a "wimp" in public and has so far refused to apologize.

"He's wrong on the facts."

"He can only call me names because he can't debate issues with me," Silver said of Bruno.

"You learn this in law school: When you're wrong on the facts, all you can do is dazzle them with your baloney."

Bruno spokesman John McArdle retorted, "Why should [Bruno] apologize?"

"It's true."

"This is about the speaker doing what he is elected to do, which is to represent the Legislature, and he hasn't done that in the last year."

ebenjamin@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2...don_silver.html

NEW YORK MAGAZINE

"Party Hacks Still Wait for Career Day - Spitzer’s distaste for patronage has left Pataki’s people in place."

By Geoffrey Gray Published Dec 10, 2007

As Eliot Spitzer approaches the end of a wildly tumultuous year in office as governor, many loyal Dems are wondering where the cushy jobs are.

The governor has yet to replace many of the rank-and-file workers hired by George Pataki.

“It’s really crazy, the day-to-day people running his administration are Pataki Republicans—it’s no wonder he’s having such a hard time getting anything done,” says one politico who worked for Spitzer when he was AG.

While the idea of doling out patronage doesn’t jibe with Spitzer’s reformer image, there’s a reason why it’s an Albany tradition: By hiring the relatives of party hacks, you ensure the loyalty of the Legislature.

“Many big Dems do think Eliot needs to give Dems patronage jobs."

"Eliot doesn’t believe in giving unqualified people jobs,” one administration source says.

“He simply won’t do it—even if its good for politics.”

But isn’t good politics what you need to get good policy?

One Dem consultant concludes, “If there’s one thing Eliot’s learned in his first year, it’s that he’s not as special as he thought he was."

"Albany changes for nobody.”

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/41827/

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Tax Tips Spitzer Could Use"

By JACOB GERSHMAN

December 10, 2007

The advice that Governor Spitzer is getting is that he should start hitting singles.

After a year of humiliating strikeouts and bench-clearing brawls, the thinking is that the governor needs to rack up small accomplishments in order to rebuild confidence in his leadership.

The problem is the game's not close.

New York, as a whole, has slipped too far behind other states.

If it's going to stage a rally, Mr. Spitzer will have to produce more than a few slaps to left field, while keeping in mind the difference between a wild swing for the fences — i.e., illegal immigrant licenses — and a good, solid stroke.

An early sign of disappointment with the Spitzer administration was the lack of big ideas in his first budget.

The governor tried to pretend otherwise, touting his "Contract for Excellence," which accompanied a record surge in education spending.

Neither a binding contract nor conditioned on excellence, the program is a costly layer of bureaucracy masquerading as accountability.

The early indication is that Mr. Spitzer will be even more cautious and unimaginative in his second budget, which he will submit to lawmakers in January.

If the governor changes his mind and starts to wonder if a platform of humility will be enough to run on in 2010, here are a few ideas he could try out:

For starters, how about a property tax cap?

As noted by the Citizens Budget Commission, more than a dozen states cap the annual growth of property tax collections.

The Spitzer administration has stuck with the Pataki model for lowering property taxes by putting more money into the School Tax Relief program, which uses state funds to pay for local property tax exemptions.

As the commission noted, the program has failed to lower taxes by encouraging school districts to spend more money more wastefully.

A cap on local school property taxes wouldn't cost the state any money but would encourage efficiency by forcing Albany and local governments to tackle the union contract and pension mandates that are responsible for New York's high-levels of municipal spending.

The most successful version is Massachusetts's Proposition 2 1/2, a 25-year-old statute that limits annual increases in local property tax levies to 2.5% of aggregate property values.

In the first 10 years of its existence, Massachusetts went from having a tax burden that was 22% above the national average to one that was 1% below average.

A cap would meet resistance from the state teachers' union.

(In New York City, the cap would have less of an impact because school budgets don't depend on property taxes.)

The governor could counter the anger by sticking with his pledge to hike state school aid by $7 billion over his term, money that would make it easier for local school districts to swallow a cap.

Another idea, one championed by the most prominent fiscal analyst in Albany, E.J. McMahon, is to abolish the corporate franchise tax in upstate New York, establishing one of the only regions in America free of a state tax on capital formation and profit-making.

Mr. McMahon would phase in the plan during three years and estimates a net revenue loss of $1 billion, which he said could be replaced by scaling back on failed upstate aid efforts, such as the Empire Zone program.

Downstate is already increasingly subsidizing upstate, Mr. McMahon points out.

"The more they sink, the more rope you have to give them," he said.

His idea is to give the area help in a way that will draw more capital investment so that in the long-term, upstate will become more self-sufficient.

Along similar lines, a former top aide to Mayor Bloomberg suggested that Mr. Spitzer get rid of the 4% sales tax in upstate.

It's an idea that would certainly catch Joseph Bruno and the Senate Republicans off guard and neutralize their accusation that the governor has no plan to revive the region.

Lawmakers would complain that the plan is unfair to New York City metropolitan area residents.

Mr. Spitzer, as the aide suggested, could respond by co-opting Governor Cuomo's "family of New York" theme of compassion.

If Mr. Spitzer is to make a big splash in January, it's more likely that he will favor programs, such a universal health care package, that appeal to various left-wing constituencies.

The governor has been more concerned about redistributing state funding than limiting how money is spent.

Part of the thinking behind this approach is that Mr. Spitzer will likely have a more competitive Democratic primary in 2010 than a Republican one.

The catch is that by moving leftward, the governor only strengthens the position of the Senate Republicans, who can portray themselves as a check on Mr. Spitzer's excesses.

The governor will be in an even weaker political position if the Republicans hold on to their majority next year.

Our shell-shocked governor, most likely, is thinking small.

My guess is that he prefers to bunt rather than risk another whiff at the plate.

If that's the case, it will take another governor to pick up the bat and get New York back in the game.

jgershman@nysun.com

http://www.nysun.com/article/67756?page_no=1

"Governor owes state for aircraft use - Dec. 5 trip included fundraisers; once cost is known, spokesman says, Spitzer will reimburse taxpayers"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, December 11, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer owes taxpayers for using a state aircraft to pick up thousands of dollars in two fundraising stops in western New York last week.

Spitzer flew from Albany to Buffalo on Wednesday with five aides and a state trooper aboard the state King Air 200 eight-seater.

Besides some state business the next day, such as meeting with the Buffalo News editorial board and announcing a plan for universal broadband, the governor raised campaign funds at political events in Buffalo and Rochester on Dec. 6.

He was driven by his New York State Police detail from Buffalo to Rochester for one of the events, according to Errol A. Cockfield Jr., his press secretary.

Cockfield said the governor realizes he must reimburse a portion of the cost of the plane but hasn't figured out how much yet.

According to a State Ethics Commission opinion issued Aug. 16, which was adopted by Spitzer, use of state aircraft must be for a trip that has a "bona fide" state purpose.

The state purpose must be the primary purpose of the journey.

The public official using the state transportation must make an accurate apportionment of the time spent between state and non-state business and "promptly" reimburse the state for the portion of the trip not related to state business, the policy states.

Reimbursement must be based on current airplane charter costs and details of the trip must be available to the public.

"We do not yet have the cost," Cockfield said.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno who regularly used state aircraft for years for private, state and political business, discontinued doing so this summer after revelations of his use of state helicopters and State Police drivers on days he attended major fundraisers in Manhattan.

He has since discontinued use of the state drivers and aircraft.

For instance, he traveled to Buffalo Nov. 14, where he announced his opposition to proposed Thruway toll increases.

His aide, Scott Reif, said Bruno did not use a state aircraft for the trip but declined further details.

Spitzer also met with leaders of the Seneca Indian Nation during the trip and received $135 million in payments from slot machine revenues for the state from Seneca casino operations, according to Seneca officials.

Walter Ayres of the Public Integrity Commission said he lacked enough details to comment.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

"State of the State speech will tell a lot about State of Spitzer"

By FRED LEBRUN, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Siena College's latest poll on Eliot Spitzer's standing shows the governor continues to be in free fall.

If it's possible, his unpopularity is actually accelerating, a fall from grace among New York voters nothing short of dazzling when you consider he's been in office for only 11 months.

When Spitzer took office on New Year's Day, 75 percent of the electorate had a favorable opinion of him and only 10 percent did not.

As of Monday that was down to 36 percent favorable, Siena's Research Institute found, with 51 percent unfavorable.

As of right now, a great majority of voters, and among those two out of three Democrats, would rather see someone else in the statehouse than re-elect Eliot Spitzer.

Twenty-three percent would re-elect him, and 56 percent wouldn't.

Those are alarming negatives.

Speaking of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the same poll shows him to be steadily in command of favorable ratings from the same electorate, 52 percent favorable, 29 percent unfavorable.

Arguably, Cuomo's numbers, to some degree, come at Spitzer's expense -- a critical report from the Attorney General skewered the governor, but all's fair in love and politics.

On balance, this was a devastating poll for the Sheriff of Wall Street.

But don't chisel a tombstone for Spitzer just yet.

That's today's poll, based on yesterday's news.

Spitzer doesn't run for re-election, if he chooses to, until 2010.

As a grizzled old Albany pol told me recently, "in politics, three years is an eternity."

Or as former Gov. Mario Cuomo famously observed, "between now and then a new pope may be born."

This month, media across the state will be airing and writing up Spitzer's first year in office and that has to be a brutal assessment.

It's been a disaster by anyone's measure, top to bottom.

Not only did Spitzer choose the wrong fights at the wrong times with the wrong people, the public got an eyeful as to his behavior during those fights.

Spitzer repeatedly came off looking petulant, arrogant and not at all a nice guy.

So all those year-ender pieces on TV and in the papers, coupled with recent unflattering major write-ups in national magazines, will do nothing to turn around Eliot Spitzer's unpopularity in December.

He can write off year one altogether.

At some point very soon, though, he has to show us he has the ability to pull out of free fall.

I'm amused to see there is no lack of suggestions from think-tank types and other politicians on what Eliot Spitzer needs to do to turn it around.

Spitzer knows what Spitzer needs to do, but can he do it?

Does he have what it takes to re-invent himself on the fly and in the face of so much negativity over his recent performance?

In three weeks, the governor will deliver the most important speech of his political life.

At its best the State of the State address sets the tone and vision for the administration for the coming year.

A new tone and a more mature vision are desperately needed by this governor in order to get back on track.

This will be his best chance before the Albany governing wars begin anew to reassert his leadership, extend an olive branch to the Legislature, and make himself believable and likeable to the electorate.

He needs an over-the-top, blockbuster speech full of inspiration and chock full of ideas and proposed legislation to make life better for New Yorkers.

Nothing like the touch of personal arrogance and hubris that was his first State of the State.

Granted, he can be forgiven a certain cockiness last January.

He had just been crowned after a landslide election.

That is a mocking, dim memory now.

What Spitzer can best use right now are the very skills and people he disdained coming into office, the political professionals who know the turf.

And he needs the best political speech writers he can find.

This is the time to move his most powerful pieces -- his ideas -- to the front of the board.

Not imperial decrees like in the first year, but ideas and a vision.

"White House nominates prosecutor in Bruno case to become judge"

Associated Press

Last updated: 8:12 p.m., Tuesday, December 11, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The federal prosecutor investigating state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno has been nominated for a position on the federal bench.

The White House announced the nomination of Glenn Suddaby Tuesday.

Suddaby has been investigating links between Bruno's business associates and their dealings with the state.

He was appointed U.S. attorney for New York's Northern District in 2002.

Presidents of both parties often pick new federal judges from the ranks of U.S. attorneys.

Suddaby's nomination is supported by Charles Schumer, New York's senior senator and an influential Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Schumer called him "an accomplished professional with an impressive career in law enforcement."

Bruno is the state's top Republican elected official.

He acknowledged a year ago he was under investigation by the FBI -- by which point the probe had already been under way for six months.

Bruno has insisted he has done nothing wrong, and no one has been charged in the case.

The grand jury probe stems from an earlier inquiry by the state lobbying commission into the relationship between Bruno and Albany-area businessman Jared Abbruzzese.

Abbruzzese, who contributed more than $70,000 since 2000 to New York Republicans and even more to the national party as well as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, has made corporate jets available to Bruno and hired him as a consultant.

Abbruzzese's wife has bought land from a real estate investment company that had ties to Bruno.

Meanwhile, businesses with links to Abbruzzese have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funding controlled by Bruno and, until the end of last year, by Republican Gov. George Pataki.

New York's Northern District stretches from Ulster County in the southern half of the state north to the Canadian border, and as far west as Syracuse, where Suddaby lives.

It consists of seven courthouses, including one in the state capital.

"Spitzer defends aide in line for $46,000 raise"

Associated Press

Last updated: 5:03 p.m., Wednesday, December 12, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Wednesday defended a former campaign aide who is married to his insurance superintendent, saying she is well qualified for the state job that has put her in line for a $46,000 raise.

Spitzer called Priscilla Almodovar a "spectacular talent," but wouldn't comment on whether she deserved a raise to $250,000 as head of several state affordable housing agencies.

The raise was reported in Wednesday's New York Post.

Spitzer said that decision is left to an independent oversight board.

Her salary is paid by fees from mortgages, not tax dollars.

"That's a lot of money," said Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno, who has been feuding with Spitzer much of the governor's first year in office.

"On the merits?"

"She may deserve that."

But Bruno added at a news conference:

"What is very distressing about the chief executive is he seems to ... think politically first, then governing second."

Almodovar was a private sector lawyer and a top Spitzer campaign aide who's now president of the State of New York Mortgage Agency and other state housing agencies.

State officials said she turned the offices around and brought in millions of dollars more in federal funds.

The Post reported the story on the morning Spitzer and Almodovar's husband, Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo, had scheduled a news conference to announce new ethical standards in the operation of the state pension fund.

Dinallo was a top official in the attorney general's office under Spitzer, but had left for a private sector job six years ago before returning to head the insurance department at $127,000 a year.

Dinallo said criticism of his wife's raise was "bordering, if not on the wrong side of, sexism."

"NYRA could continue racing under last-minute `handshake' deal"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:24 p.m., Wednesday, December 12, 2007

ALBANY -- New York leaders may make a last-minute handshake deal to award a thoroughbred racing franchise that would give new life to the New York Racing Association.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno says he could accept an oral agreement with Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver involving NYRA before its current franchise ends Dec. 31.

Bruno said the Legislature could then return after Jan. 1 to approve a formal agreement in its regular session.

"It's conceivably the case that you could have no resolution by the 31st, but we could have agreements that keep us moving forward and a resolution in the first week of January," Spitzer said Wednesday.

"We all have a common objective," Spitzer said.

"The racing industry, as I've said over and over, is a vital part of our economy."

"It generates jobs, tourism, so we're excited about it and we're going to keep working."

"I think we can do that," said Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno, who had planned to a special session for Thursday to award a racing franchise.

Bruno said he could support a plan in which NYRA continues to run racing at Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga race tracks, which is what Spitzer has proposed and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has supported.

Bruno and Spitzer also want a reconstituted NYRA board of directors, but disagree on how to do that.

NYRA has spent much of the last decade battling state and federal investigations into mismanagement as well as criticism that it failed to run sufficient revenue to the state.

NYRA has blamed its nonprofit structure, which it said didn't allow development of lucrative video slot machines as casinos and others forms of gambling eclipsed wagering on horses.

NYRA avoided a federal indictment under its new management, although it remains in bankruptcy court pending a state bailout.

NYRA's leverage, however, includes its claim that it owns Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga race tracks, even though the private agency was created by the state in 1955 to run the existing tracks.

Still, NYRA would use its record of paying taxes on the property and other records to argue in court that it owns the tracks worth more than $1 billion.

Spitzer has a deal with NYRA to continue the franchise for another 30 years, help choose a video slot machine operator for Aqueduct, and give up its claim of track ownership.

Bruno, however, also said he wants to spinoff major elements of the racing franchise to NYRA competitors including the sale of the "simulcast" report of NYRA races beamed to gambling outlets worldwide and the operation of video slot machines at Aqueduct and potentially at Belmont.

Bruno also wants to include the New York City Off-track Betting agency in a single state racing authority, and perhaps the other half-dozen OTBs around the state to end counterproductive competition with NYRA.

NYRA's competitors are Empire Racing, Capital Play and Excelsior Racing Associates and their partners.

Bruno also wants to change the length of the franchise from 30 years to 15 or 20 years, with performance reviews every three years.

Even a handshake agreement on the racing franchise, however, may be enough for Spitzer and legislative leaders to agree on several other issues that the Senate had sought to take up in Thursday's special session.

Among them are proposals to raise the salaries of state judges and lawmakers pushed by the Assembly's Democratic majority, reducing campaign contribution limits and other reforms sought by Spitzer, and a $200 million rebate for senior citizens paying property taxes sought by Bruno.

Without agreements, the Assembly never ended up scheduling a special session for Thursday.

But members said they could return Monday, if deals are struck by the leaders.

------

AP Writer Valerie Bauman contributed to this report from Albany.

"State tightens oversight of pension fund"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:54 p.m., Wednesday, December 12, 2007

ALBANY -- The state Insurance Department has tightened ethics controls over New York's massive public employees' pension fund and is expected to consider similar safeguards for the public pension funds supporting retired teachers and New York City public employees.

The new measures announced Wednesday target conflicts of interest that led to scandal in the fund under the previous comptroller, Democrat Alan Hevesi, who resigned under pressure earlier this year.

State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo has bolstered regulations to make ethical standards more strict for all workers in the comptroller's office, ban campaign contributions by staff members, and create a permanent inspector general's position to investigate ethics complaints.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli ordered many of the changes after he succeeded Hevesi, who quit after a scandal involving his use of state workers to drive for his wife.

State and federal investigators are also investigating whether Hevesi's friends and relatives received lucrative fees in deals involving the pension fund.

Fees paid by companies seeking investments by the fund -- and who received them -- will now be reported, Dinallo said.

"If you know whose being paid, you can ask the question, 'Why?'" Dinallo said.

Dinallo led many of the biggest cases in the Attorney General's office under Eliot Spitzer, including probes that ended several conflicts of interest on Wall Street.

Dinallo said the law allows for regulations to "grow and change" with the times, but this is the first major change in decades.

Next up for review and more extensive auditing are the state teachers' retirement fund and the five public pension funds in New York City, Dinallo said.

He said he will likely increase his pension fund auditing staff to handle the new, more extensive evaluations.

DiNapoli, who took office in February, said Wednesday the pension fund, valued at more than $150 billion, hasn't been hurt by the scandals.

He said that fund, which pays the retirement checks of state, local and many public school workers, is funded at 104 percent of its future obligations.

That compares to a national average of 88 percent, DiNapoli said.

"The fund is sound and secure," he said.

His assessment comes as public and private pension funds have been raided or dissolved, leaving workers without their retirement benefits.

"Recent events have illustrated the importance of protecting the integrity of the state pension fund," Spitzer said in announcing the changes Wednesday.

"The new regulations increase reporting and transparency, create independent committees to oversee key areas, and strengthen supervision by the Insurance Department."

"Spitzer names ex-head of organized crime force to waterfront post"

Associated Press

Last updated: 5:43 p.m., Tuesday, December 11, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer is nominating the former head of the state's Organized Crime Task Force run investigations of New York City's storied waterfront.

Ronald Goldstock would be New York's next commissioner of the Waterfront Commission created in 1953 to investigate and stop criminal enterprises at the Port of New York and New Jersey.

Goldstock's nomination could be considered by the Republican-led Senate as early as Thursday.

Goldstock, now a faculty member at Cornell, New York University and Columbia law schools, was director of the state Organized Crime Task Force for 13 years under Gov. Mario Cuomo.

"Truckers may steer clear of Thruway if tolls are raised"

By RICHARD RICHTMYER, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:02 p.m., Tuesday, December 11, 2007

ALBANY -- The New York State Thruway Authority's plan to raise tolls to make up for fewer-than-expected drivers could push even more traffic off the highway, according to truckers.

The authority -- which operates and maintains the 641-mile superhighway -- last month floated a plan to increase cash tolls by 5 percent in 2009, and another 5 percent in 2010.

A 10-percent hike is already scheduled to begin next month.

Thruway managers say the hikes are needed because there haven't been enough drivers using the highway to pay for a $2.1 billion highway and bridge repair plan.

Terry Button, who delivers hay from his family's western New York farm to race tracks and feed stores throughout the East Coast, said he's been doing his best to keep off the Thruway since a 35 percent toll hike for trucks in May 2005.

Although alternate routes take longer, in the end they can be more cost effective, after figuring in the cost of fuel and other expenses that an independent operator has to cover, Button said.

"If they raise the tolls again, I'll avoid the Thruway altogether," he said.

In 2006, trucks paid $220.7 million in Thruway tolls, up from $200.1 million in 2005, according to the Thruway Authority.

The Thruway collected $554.4 million in tolls in 2006.

The Thruway Authority on Tuesday initially provided numbers to the Associated Press that showed 29 million trucks traveled on the Thruway in 2006, down 10.8 percent from 2005.

Later, John Bryan, the agency's finance chief said those figures aren't accurate because in 2005 trucks pulling two-trailers were counted twice.

He said truck traffic has been flat from 2005 through 2007 but he couldn't immediately provide data to support that claim.

Betsy Graham, a Thruway Authority spokeswoman, said a consultant is analyzing the potential for trucks avoiding the Thruway because of higher tolls, and said its report will be available before any new hikes are imposed.

Assembly Republicans this week finished a series of hearings on the toll hikes that focused on how higher tolls would affect the state's economy.

Todd Smith of Priority Transportation was among those who testified at a hearing in Rochester Monday, telling area lawmakers that many of his company's trucks would likely divert to secondary roads to avoid the higher costs, according to a report in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Bill Joyce, president of the New York State Motor Truck Association, did not return calls seeking comment.

In Ohio, officials lowered tolls about 25 percent and raised the speed limit for trucks on the Ohio Turnpike to lure big rigs back after a series of hikes over five years raised tolls 80 percent.

"We told them that the trucks would leave the turnpike, and sure enough that's what happened," said Larry Davis, president of the Ohio Trucking Association.

"All the parallel routes where it's free to drive just got crushed."

Truck traffic is up about 23 percent since the toll rollback and other changes were made in 2004, said Lauren Hakos, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Turnpike Commission.

"Upstate transmission parts plant lays off 313"

Associated Press

Last updated: 3:22 p.m., Tuesday, December 11, 2007

EAST SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- New Process Gear will lay off 313 workers at its suburban Syracuse plant because of reduced demand for its products.

New Process is a division of Magna Powertrain and employs about 2,700 people making transmission parts.

Magna Powertrain officials did not provide any details of the layoffs.

Company spokeswoman Tracy Fuerst says she can offer no other comment beyond confirming the layoffs, which are to begin Jan. 2.

All 313 workers are hourly employees.

United Auto Worker Local 624 and Local 2149 represent about 2,500 of NPG's workers.

Union officials were not immediately available for comment.

"Silver wants Thruway Authority Board to step down"

Associated Press

Last updated: 6:15 p.m., Thursday, December 13, 2007

ALBANY -- Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver called on the board of directors of the state Thruway Authority to step down.

Assembly Transportation Committee Chair David Gant joined Silver Thursday in the reproach of the authority's planned toll hikes.

Silver said the hike shouldn't be considered until state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli can evaluate the idea.

Officials from the authority issued a statement saying no board member plans to resign before the end of their terms.

Neither Spitzer nor the Legislature control the authority, which was legally created by the Legislature to be independent.

"AMD secures option on Luther Forest site - Company says action is 'a good step' in a proposal to locate a $3.2B plant in Saratoga County"

By LARRY RULISON, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, December 13, 2007

MALTA -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. secured an option Wednesday to purchase land at the Luther Forest Technology Campus, another milestone in the company's $3.2 billion plan to build a computer chip factory in Saratoga County.

The contract was signed by both parties and was expected to be filed with the Saratoga County clerk's office, AMD spokesman Travis Bullard said.

"It's a good step," Bullard said.

"We're just getting our ducks in a row."

Bullard said he couldn't reveal the cost of the option, but said that like a standard option agreement, its cost was nominal.

"The amount really isn't material," he said.

AMD is planning to build on about 200 acres, but Bullard said the company would not disclose how many acres are covered in the option.

The Luther Forest site in Malta and Stillwater has a total of 1,350 acres.

AMD, which is the No. 2 microprocessor maker in the world behind Intel Corp., is still potentially a year and a half away from making a decision about whether it will build at Luther Forest.

The company has until July 2009 to make a decision and still be eligible for $1.2 billion in financial incentives being offered by the state.

Construction would begin six months after AMD announces its decision, and the total project would take about 2 years to complete.

AMD would buy the land in a separate transaction after it officially committed to the project.

A summary prepared by state economic development officials last year pegged AMD's real estate costs at $7 million, but Bullard cautioned that is just an estimate.

New York's incentive package includes $650 million in cash, which AMD is allowed to use for land at Luther Forest, construction and equipment costs, and research and development related to the proposed factory, known as Fab 4X.

Company officials are in the Capital Region this week through Friday to update local political leaders and business executives about the project, which was first announced last year.

AMD has already started obtaining state and local approvals to become eligible for tax breaks under the Empire Zone program that are included in the state's incentive package.

AMD executives also plan to tour the Saratoga Technology & Energy Park, a 280-acre state-owned tech park that is inside Luther Forest, Bullard said.

AMD officials have a vested interest in STEP because Hudson Valley Community College in Troy plans to move its semiconductor manufacturing training program there in 2009, where prospective AMD factory workers could be trained.

Larry Rulison can be reached at 454-5504 or by e-mail at lrulison@timesunion.com.

"Upbeat outlook on chip factory - AMD officials say Luther Forest project still a key part of company's vision"

By LARRY RULISON, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, December 14, 2007

SCHENECTADY -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. CEO Hector Ruiz gave the company's $3.2 billion computer chip factory planned for Saratoga County a boost Thursday at an analyst conference in New York City.

As Ruiz and other company executives were outlining the company's plans to return to profitability, Ruiz gave his unequivocal support to the chip "fab" planned for the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta.

"As a management team, we're looking forward to the day that we ship the greatest products in the processing arena out of New York," Ruiz told analysts.

His strong statement came as a handful of AMD executives were in the Capital Region providing local business and political leaders an update on the Luther Forest plant.

AMD had previously planned to unveil a proposed timeline for the project, which would take about 2 years to complete once started.

But company officials, who flew into Albany International Airport Wednesday afternoon, have been unable to provide such detail as the company works to transform its manufacturing strategy in the face of a fierce price war with rival Intel.

That has led to $1.6 billion in losses for AMD through the first nine months of the year.

AMD hinted that it may be tinkering with the mix of manufacturing done at its two existing factories in Dresden, Germany, and the amount of production it outsources to so-called "foundries" in Asia, although it has said this new plan, known as "asset smart," will not impact its plans for New York.

During their three-day visit, AMD officials have been stressing to local officials that the company remains strongly committed to building the factory, which would employ 1,200 people in high-paying semiconductor manufacturing and engineering jobs.

While some people have worried about AMD's financial woes and what might appear to be a lack of progress on the project, first announced more than a year ago, AMD spokesman Travis Bullard said those worries are unfounded.

The company still expects to need a new facility by 2012 to handle expected customer demand for its computer chips.

Bullard noted that AMD executed an option to acquire land at Luther Forest on Wednesday and will start seeking approvals for the project from local planning and town boards early next year.

Earlier in the month, the company started the process to make the project site eligible for state Empire Zone tax credits.

"From our perspective, we're not taking any steps backward, and nothing is postponed," Bullard said.

"We're moving forward."

"We have the same momentum that we anticipated from the beginning."

Bullard, as well as other company executives including Terry Caudell, the head of wafer manufacturing strategies for AMD, were hoping to attend the annual meeting of the Center for Economic Growth in Schenectady Thursday night at the historic Proctors complex.

But the snowstorm that socked the Capital Region kept them in Saratoga Springs where they are staying.

They were still planning to attend a business event this morning in Glens Falls.

Bullard said the AMD contingent met Thursday with officials from the towns of Malta and Stillwater as well as officials working on infrastructure improvements at Luther Forest, a 1,350-acre tech park that is largely undeveloped except for a former missile testing site.

"We had a couple of great meetings," Bullard said.

"We were very pleased."

CEG, an Albany-based regional economic development organization, has played a critical role in helping promote the region to AMD and other technology companies over the years.

CEG board chairman Thomas Geisel said after the annual meeting that AMD remains "a priority" for CEG even though the company has announced its intention to build here.

"There really needs to be a continued vigilance with the process," he said.

AMD, which has not officially committed to the site, has until July 2009 to make a decision and still be eligible for $1.2 billion in state incentives, including $650 million in cash.

F. Michael Tucker, CEG's president, said Thursday that AMD's recent steps are a "positive sign," but more has to fall into place for the project, which could transform the region's economy, to become a reality.

"We also realize that a final decision has not been made," Tucker said.

Rulison can be reached at 454-5504 or by e-mail at lrulison@timesunion.com.

"Chip-shrinking may be nearing its limits"

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press

Last updated: 12:22 p.m., Saturday, December 15, 2007

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Sixty years after transistors were invented and nearly five decades since they were first integrated into silicon chips, the tiny on-off switches dubbed the "nerve cells" of the information age are starting to show their age.

The devices -- whose miniaturization over time set in motion the race for faster, smaller and cheaper electronics -- have been shrunk so much that the day is approaching when it will be physically impossible to make them even tinier.

Once chip makers can't squeeze any more into the same-sized slice of silicon, the dramatic performance gains and cost reductions in computing over the years could suddenly slow.

And the engine that's driven the digital revolution -- and modern economy -- could grind to a halt.

Even Gordon Moore, the Intel Corp. co-founder who famously predicted in 1965 that the number of transistors on a chip should double every two years, sees that the end is fast approaching -- an outcome the chip industry is scrambling to avoid.

"I can see (it lasting) another decade or so," he said of the axiom now known as Moore's Law.

"Beyond that, things look tough."

"But that's been the case many times in the past."

Preparing for the day they can't add more transistors, chip companies are pouring billions of dollars into plotting new ways to use the existing transistors, instructing them to behave in different and more powerful ways.

Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, predicts that a number of "highly speculative" alternative technologies, such as quantum computing, optical switches and other methods, will be needed to continue Moore's Law beyond 2020.

"Things are changing much faster now, in this current period, than they did for many decades," said Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner.

"The pace of change is accelerating because we're approaching a number of different physical limits at the same time."

"We're really working overtime to make sure we can continue to follow Moore's Law."

Transistors work something like light switches, flipping on and off inside a chip to generate the ones and zeros that store and process information inside a computer.

The transistor was invented by scientists William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain to amplify voices in telephones for a Bell Labs project, an effort for which they later shared the Nobel Prize in physics.

On Dec. 16, 1947, Bardeen and Brattain created the first transistor.

The next month, on Jan. 23, 1948, Shockley, a member of the same research group, invented another type, which went on to become the preferred transistor because it was easier to manufacture.

Transistors' ever-decreasing size and low power consumption made them an ideal candidate to replace the bulky vacuum tubes then used to amplify electrical signals and switch electrical currents.

AT&T saw them as a replacement for clattering telephone switches.

Transistors eventually found their way into portable radios and other electronic devices, and are most prominently used today as the building blocks of integrated circuits, another Nobel Prize-winning invention that is the foundation of microprocessors, memory chips and other kinds of semiconductor devices.

Since the invention of the integrated circuit in the late 1950s -- separately by Texas Instruments Inc.'s Jack Kilby and future Intel co-founder Robert Noyce -- the pace of innovation has been scorching.

The number of transistors on microprocessors -- the brains of computers -- has leaped from just several thousand in the 1970s to nearly a billion today, a staggering feat that has unleashed previously unimagined computing power.

"I think (the transistor) is going to be around for a long time," Moore said.

"There have been ideas about how people are going to replace it, and it's always dangerous to predict something won't happen, but I don't see anything coming along that would really replace the transistor."

But there have been considerable stumbling blocks in recent years.

One problem has been trying to prevent too much heat from escaping from thinner-and-thinner components.

That has led chip companies to look for new materials and other ways to improve performance.

Earlier this year, Intel and IBM Corp. separately announced that they discovered a way to boost transistor efficiency.

The solution involves replacing the silicon dioxide used for more than 40 years as an insulator, but has since been shaved too thin, with various metals in parts called the gate, which turns the transistor on and off, and the gate dielectric, an insulating layer, which helps improve transistor performance and retain energy.

Still more novel ways to prevent electricity leakage -- and other problems -- are being pursued.

And nobody has won a bet against maintaining the pace of innovation in technology.

"The only thing that's been predicted more frequently than Moore's Law has been its demise -- everybody's been wrong," said Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Technology Officer Greg Papadopoulos.

"It's a pretty robust set of observations and really it's about techno-economics ..."

"It's a dangerous thing to bet against because of the economic investment cycle that's in there."

THE NEW YORKER

"Profiles - The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer - The Governor’s rocky rookie season."

by Nick Paumgarten

December 10, 2007

“I feel sometimes like I’m sinking into quicksand,” Spitzer says of life as governor.

New York State’s notorious resistance to efficient governance owes a lot to geography.

The state is vast, by Eastern standards, and its cities are far-flung.

Seen one way, it is a rural state, with a right-angled corridor of denser settlement and industry which more or less follows the course of the Hudson River and the Erie Canal, from Manhattan to Lake Erie.

Imagine a backward, rotated L, or a mirror image of a long-division tableau.

In recent decades, Buffalo, at one end, has suffered a steep decline, while New York City, at the other, has flourished, as though good fortune had flowed down along the L, draining Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica along the way.

The capital, Albany, is at the joint of the L, and seems to benefit—thrive would be too strong a word—whichever way the fortune flows, but it is still remote, in the way of capitals, like Brasília or Canberra, that were designed not to favor one constituency over another, except perhaps the one in residence.

As such, Albany is the arbiter in New York’s ceaseless upstate-downstate tug-of-war, which simultaneously pits rural Republicans against big-city liberals, and Rust Belt Democrats against supply-side suburbanites.

The proliferation of cross-purposes and strange bedfellows makes for pernicious and complicated arbitrating.

This is one (but far from the only) reason that Albany is home to what may be the most dysfunctional state government in the nation.

A year ago, Eliot Spitzer, the real-estate scion and crusading attorney general, won a lightly contested race for governor, against a Republican named John Faso, by promising to put an end to that dysfunction.

Since then, Albany has in many ways become more dysfunctional than ever.

The addition of an aggressive personality with an ambitious agenda has, perversely, gummed up the works.

The acrimony between Spitzer and his enemies, born of scandal, policy disagreement, political desperation, tactical blundering, and personal animus, has all but stalled the workings of the government, or at least those which require the collaboration of the executive chamber and the Legislature.

To be continued ....

THE NEW YORKER

"Profiles - The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer - The Governor’s rocky rookie season." (cont'd)

by Nick Paumgarten

December 10, 2007

The Governor’s aides like to refer to “the Spitzer brand.”

Before his first year in office, Eliot Spitzer was a populist avenger, a media darling, a rising Democratic star, a progressive’s Rudy Giuliani, a panacea-in-waiting, a front-runner in the first-Jewish-President race.

Somehow, he’s become an unpopular governor careering from mess to mess.

Allegations that his office used the state police to smear Joseph Bruno for misusing state aircraft (an affair known as Troopergate), and a doomed proposal to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, have compromised the brand.

His head shot has appeared repeatedly in the Post over the words “DIRTY TRICKS.”

Lou Dobbs spent a month ridiculing him on CNN.

The throngs of Wall Streeters who despised him for his unyielding prosecutions when he was attorney general have been joined by scores of affronted political professionals, whose egos, customs, or survival instincts demand that they indulge their negative reactions to his way of doing things.

Against Faso, he got sixty-nine per cent of the vote; a few weeks ago, a poll found that only twenty-five per cent would vote for him if an election were held today.

The common perception—the dominant story line—is that Spitzer doesn’t have the collaborative temperament or the tactical elasticity to be a governor.

To his critics, who complained that he exploited the attorney general’s office to gain the governor’s mansion, he was too political to be a prosecutor and yet is now too prosecutorial to be a politician.

But amid all the rancor, the bad press, and the souring of his prospects, the Governor has kept at it, admitting little in the way of doubt or regret, and seeing the “pushback,” as he and his circle describe it, as evidence of headway.

He has continued to conduct whatever business he can, drawing on the ample power granted him by the office, while travelling around the state, announcing initiatives and presiding at groundbreakings, as though taking refuge in the expanse of his obligations and the far reaches of his domain.

He has not spent a great deal of time in Albany, the epicenter of his troubles, availing himself of the state-owned air fleet—a source and symbol of geographic freedom and power (and of its occasional abuses).

As the early astronauts observed, altitude and distance bring a certain cohesion into view.

“The enormity of this state, it’s awesome,” Spitzer said one afternoon in October, while passing over it in an airplane, on his way from Buffalo to LaGuardia Airport—an Albany-less trip along the L’s hypotenuse.

The plane, a twin-turboprop Beechcraft King Air, can seat eight passengers comfortably.

Gray cloud cover around Lake Erie had given way to clear skies and sprawling inland vistas in high-autumn orange.

“I think we’re seeing the Finger Lakes right up here,” Spitzer said, looking out his window.

“Sometimes you can see the windmills.”

He unfolded a tattered highway map.

“I’ve had this in my briefcase going on nine years now."

"It’s from back when I was driving myself around, campaigning for attorney general, in ’97, ’98.”

He pointed out where he thought we were (near Geneva), as well as where he’d been the day before (Albany, Potsdam, Camden), where he’d started in the morning (Syracuse, to speak at a conference of entrepreneurs), where he’d flown next (Buffalo, to make the first in a blitz of announcements of “City-by-City” upstate development projects), and where his family’s farm was (on a crease in the map, in Columbia County).

The map was dense with gubernatorial significance and opportunities for Spitzer to demonstrate a prodigious grasp of policy detail.

To be continued ...

THE NEW YORKER

"Profiles - The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer - The Governor’s rocky rookie season." (cont'd)

by Nick Paumgarten

December 10, 2007

Spitzer, who is forty-eight, has a prominent nose, chin, and forehead, a hard jawline, and deep-set eyes whose intensity can give the extremely mistaken impression that he wears eyeliner.

When he smiles or gets angry, his jaw juts out, underbitishly.

The vigor in his features and in his manner, and his lean frame, tend to inspire descriptions of a man tilting into the wind.

On the flight, he was fidgety, in keeping with his reputation for impatience and hyperactivity, but he displayed an acuity for brisk small talk: sports, kids, Bruce Springsteen.

From the first time I’d met him, however, a month before, and in the course of a half-dozen interviews this fall, he strove to devote our conversations to the substance of governing, to assess his first and next year in terms of his accomplishments and goals.

He had, it is true, got a lot done (especially by Albany standards) before the acrimony took hold.

He had recently looked at his State of the State speech from last January and concluded that he’d accomplished three-quarters of what he’d hoped to do.

He had reformed the budget process, the workers’-compensation system, and the financing of health care and education.

Like politicians everywhere, he seemed frustrated that the media was so focussed on the tumult—that his message wasn’t getting out.

For months, the papers had been full of intricate accounts of political or legal maneuverings, many involving his deepening feud with Bruno.

On the day of the Governor’s flight from Buffalo, the Post ran a picture of Bruno and Spitzer at a memorial service for firefighters, in which Bruno is standing with his back to Spitzer, with the headline “BACK ‘BURNER’: JOE GIVES SPITZ THE TAIL END.”

“The stuff with Bruno?"

"That hasn’t distracted me,” Spitzer said.

“Look, I know what this is."

"It’s about nothing."

"This is an effort to distract us from governing."

"I’m not going to let that happen.”

To be continued ...

THE NEW YORKER

"Profiles - The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer - The Governor’s rocky rookie season." (cont'd)

by Nick Paumgarten

December 10, 2007

An anxious supporter of the Governor’s had told me, when he heard I was going to see Spitzer, “Ask him, how does he learn.”

Spitzer is known to be a fast and thorough absorber of information.

He remains the capable and diligent student he was in school.

(His sister remembers him doing his homework with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth.)

On television, he speaks in long, complex sentences and hews to a rigorous line of logic, and when you tell him things he remembers them.

Learning would not seem to be an issue.

But the supporter’s question seemed to contain a note of “Will he ever learn?”—as in, learn when to let an opponent take a round, when not to antagonize people, when not to act as though he needed to prove that he’s the smartest man in the room.

“How do I learn?"

"I call people,” Spitzer told me.

Recently, he had been soliciting counsel from an array of eminences (Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Jerry Speyer) and old Albany hands.

But when I asked him what was the best advice he’d received so far, he said, “ ‘Ignore most of the advice we’re giving you.’ ”

He went on, “What I have found is that the toughest decisions and the right answers to those tough decisions are still the ones that you come to when you just sit down and you say, ‘O.K., what are we trying to do?'"

"'What are the right moral values to guide it?’"

"Ignore all the politics."

"Ignore the screaming and shouting.”

He certainly put that principle to work on his driver’s-license initiative.

On September 21st, Spitzer decreed that any immigrant here illegally be given the right to get a New York State driver’s license.

An applicant would have to produce a foreign passport (in lieu of a Social Security card), the legitimacy of which would be verified by state-of-the-art technology.

Eight other states had similar policies.

In Spitzer’s view, since the federal government had failed to deal with the influx of immigrants, the responsibility fell to the states.

With an estimated million undocumented aliens in New York, he reasoned, it would be best to get them licensed.

The roads would be safer, and immigrants’ vital information would be added to the Department of Motor Vehicles database, an essential investigative tool for law enforcement.

During his campaign, Spitzer had promised to make this change, but it seemed to take everyone by surprise.

He had not briefed the Legislature, arguing, technically correctly, that the D.M.V. is the executive chamber’s responsibility.

In the early days, it hardly seemed controversial.

“Even Joe Bruno, of all people”—as Spitzer put it on NY1—said that he could see the merits of it at first, as did the editorial boards of most of the newspapers in the state.

Aweek later, Mayor Bloomberg raised questions about the plan, citing worries that it would diminish a license’s value.

In a characteristic display of excessive rhetorical aggression, Spitzer responded, “He is wrong at every level—dead wrong, factually wrong, legally wrong, morally wrong, ethically wrong,” at which point the story moved to the fore.

In Buffalo, where I’d watched him make the City-by-City announcement, the driver’s-license issue dominated the media scrums.

Spitzer seemed to be relishing the opportunity to re-state the virtues of his proposal (bringing undocumented aliens “out of the shadows”), resolute in the idea that sound logic—or his logic, at least—would prevail.

Already, though, the plan was gathering third-rail heat.

Spitzer’s opponents had begun to frame it as a terrorism issue.

James Tedisco, the minority leader in the Republican Assembly—to whom Spitzer had said, earlier in the year, “I’m a f***ing steamroller, and I’ll roll over you”—declared, “Osama bin Laden is somewhere in a cave with his den of thieves and terrorists, and he’s probably sabering the cork on some champagne right now, saying, ‘Hey, that governor’s really assisting us.’ ”

To be continued ...

THE NEW YORKER

"Profiles - The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer - The Governor’s rocky rookie season." (cont'd)

by Nick Paumgarten

December 10, 2007

On the flight back from Buffalo to the city, I asked Spitzer if he’d had any doubts about his tactics or his timing—why take on such a volatile issue when he was already weakened by Troopergate?

“Nah!” he said.

I later learned that there had been some debate within his administration, but in the end Spitzer had decided that, as he put it, “If it’s right, it’s right."

"We’d done the work; let’s move on it.”

After a turbulent descent over northern New Jersey—another opportunity for a display of unflappability—we flew alongside Manhattan, down the Hudson River, past the West Side rail yards, for which the state was collecting development proposals, and the construction site at Ground Zero, another state project, and he gave upbeat mini-dissertations on the status of each.

Over Brooklyn, I asked him whether he ever thought, surveying the state from the air, “Mine, all mine.”

“Yeah, that’s just what I think,” he said.

These days, the state is teeming with political gurus, of both the paid and the armchair varieties, who can offer up the kind of metaphorical advice that a man as literal-minded as Spitzer may have trouble integrating into his grand strategy or his daily life.

A close friend suggested that he bring more “poetry” to governing.

When I mentioned this one day to Spitzer, who had just announced the reopening of a long-moribund airfield in Orange County, he said, “Well, I’m not sure if the poetry is the speech, or if the poetry is the reality that suddenly Stewart Airport is open and transportation from there will permit business to thrive in the Hudson Valley.”

When he speaks about his goals and beliefs, he cites Alexander Hamilton, Theodore Roosevelt, and Al Smith, who to his mind represent the three pillars of progressivism:

“My job is to invest, the way Hamilton did; make sure the rules are enforced, the way T.R. did; and make sure everyone has a chance to play by those rules, which is what Al Smith stood for.”

Spitzer’s agenda, broadly and loftily speaking, is to make the workings of Albany more transparent: to disentangle the corrosive influence of the special interests and to combat, if not eliminate, the nest-feathering that flourishes in the dark.

Campaign-finance reform is an essential part of this.

More specifically, he aims to overhaul the state’s health and education systems, streamline local governments, and resuscitate the upstate economy.

Avi Schick, a senior economic-development official in the administration, told me, “Eliot wants to transform the government."

"But it’s hard to encapsulate this in a sound bite or to see the results immediately."

It’s hard to explain to people how competence affects their lives.”

Spitzer’s progressivism, distilled a certain way, is a will to competence, which raises the question of whether competence can be willed.

Bruce Gyory, a longtime Albany lobbyist, lawyer, and amateur historian, told me, on the day before he was hired to be a special aide to the Governor, “I see Spitzer as a young Koufax.”

Early on, Sandy Koufax had great stuff but was inconsistent, until he was advised to loosen his grip on the ball.

“If Spitzer learns to relax his grip a little, trust his stuff, he’ll be fine."

"Get ahead of the hitters.”

(“I hope Bruce has better stuff than that,” Spitzer remarked, when I repeated it to him.)

Some of the comparisons aren’t as flattering.

An Albanian who is in Spitzer’s party but no longer in his camp compared the Governor to an alcoholic who can’t be helped until he acknowledges that he has a problem.

Another assessed what he felt were Spitzer’s shortcomings in graphic terms:

“Spitzer lunges."

"He seems not to be a person of strategy."

"He slipped on a banana peel, or six, and once down has thrashed around.”

To be continued ....

THE NEW YORKER

"Profiles - The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer - The Governor’s rocky rookie season." (cont'd)

by Nick Paumgarten

December 10, 2007

Gyory is a font of analogies.

“Be General Grant—even if everyone wants Robert E. Lee and cavalry charges,” he said.

“Politics is like trench warfare."

"Defense wins."

"We don’t have the political equivalent of a tank that lets you roll over the opposition."

"The question for Spitzer is, can he develop the tank?”

Spitzer is a lawyer, a logician, a tactician, a policy fanatic, but not a deep thinker or a self-doubter.

He is not inclined toward wistfulness or wonder, which is not to say that he isn’t caring or curious.

It is often said by those who know him, and by Spitzer himself, that what you see is what you get.

When I first met him, he said, with some disdain, “You going to write about my childhood?”

A month later, he said, “Let me ask you: is my life much more boring than people presume?"

"And don’t you think most lives are?”

He’s didactic.

He says “Look” a lot.

He’s a world-class square, but he can be funny and good-natured.

His humor relies on mockery, of others and of himself, although his self-deprecations often end in self-aggrandizement.

His stock “stupid story about missing class,” as he called it—about going back to Harvard Law School and being ribbed by two professors for not having ever gone to their lectures—ended with the punch line “Yeah, but has it hurt my career?”

The most commonly heard criticism of him, which has dogged him at least since his days as attorney general, is that he is a bully, which encompasses not just professional aggression but also what many regard as a preening rectitude and a tendency toward intellectual arrogance.

He understands that his idiosyncrasies, his hyperachiever habits, are both salutary and worthy of ribbing.

When you are followed around every day by a mob of reporters and aides, your mannerisms, however sincere, can soon seem like affectations.

Squareness can come off as shtick.

He wears only white button-down shirts, which he buys at Brooks Brothers.

He bought a blue one once:

“It was unnerving."

"Never wore it.”

He gets up at five in the morning to jog; he’s known for it, and wants you to know it, but if it’s a pose it’s a hard-earned one.

His first thought upon waking each day, he says, is a wish for two more hours’ sleep.

To be continued ...

THE NEW YORKER

"Profiles - The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer - The Governor’s rocky rookie season." (cont'd)

by Nick Paumgarten

December 10, 2007

He comes from a family of achievers.

His father, Bernard, and his mother, Anne, both the children of Jewish immigrants, grew up in cold-water flats on the Lower East Side.

Bernard built a half-billion-dollar real-estate empire, consisting primarily of residential apartment buildings in Manhattan.

Eliot, born in 1959, is the youngest of three children; his sister, the eldest, is a lawyer, and his brother is a neurosurgeon.

The Spitzer clan is eccentric only in its heightened devotion to attainment and argument.

On the spectrum of rich-kid gumption, he and his siblings are at the extreme end.

They grew up in the Fieldston section of Riverdale, a well-to-do corner of the Bronx, where Eliot attended Horace Mann, a private school.

It can seem churlish to call attention to a man’s privileged background, unless that man, either out of embarrassment or political expediency, takes pains to gloss over it.

Spitzer sometimes makes more of his outer-borough credentials than any son of Riverdale should.

During a dispute at a conference several years ago, the California attorney general challenged him to a fight, saying, “Let’s go—I’m from Oakland,” to which Spitzer replied, “Come on—I’m from the Bronx!”

The Spitzer family dinner table has become legendary.

Bernie Spitzer was a demanding father, and he expected his children to come to supper with a topic for debate and a well-researched argument.

“Conversation was a competitive sport,” William Taylor, Spitzer’s roommate at Princeton and a co-founder of the magazine Fast Company, told me.

Taylor has said that he prepared harder for those dinners than he did for any of his classes.

“Bernie Spitzer in his prime was both thrilling and terrifying,” he said.

It was not an emotionally indulgent household, or a religious one.

(The potential first Jewish President was not bar mitzvahed.)

At Princeton, Spitzer cultivated a friendship with the president, William Bowen.

An avid tennis player, Spitzer once tried to play squash with Bowen, and thought, being young and fit, that he’d lick him, but Bowen ran him all over the court.

“He gave me a lesson in tactics over strength,” he told me, apparently oblivious of the metaphorical application of his words to his Albany travails.

As a sophomore, he won, precociously, the presidency of the student government, but he has always claimed that he was not interested in politics—just policy.

He attended Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, then Harvard Law, where he made the Law Review and became, with his close friend Cliff Sloan, who is now the publisher of Slate, an acolyte of Alan Dershowitz.

Cliffeliot, as the duo was known, assisted Dershowitz in his defense of Claus von Bülow, the socialite who had been accused of the attempted murder of his wife (he was eventually acquitted).

In the film about that case, “Reversal of Fortune,” Cliffeliot became a team featuring a female duo played by Felicity Huffman and Annabella Sciorra.

To be continued ...