"Campaign finance reform debated - Republican-picked speakers say governor's efforts are a waste of time"

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

First published: Thursday, June 28, 2007

ALBANY -- Two of three experts brought for a campaign finance reform roundtable by Senate Republicans said Wednesday it's a waste of time, and that restrictions on such donations may be headed for extinction.

"Campaign finance regulation is not what you think it's about,'' said John Samples, who heads the Center for Representative Government at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Usually, he added, it's "about the two parties messing with each other.''

Their comments appeared to boost Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's argument that Gov. Eliot Spitzer's campaign finance reform proposal is wrongheaded, although reform supporter Barbara Bartoletti, legislative director for the New York League of Women Voters, contended that opposition from Samples and election lawyer James Bopp Jr. was predictable.

"They were there to give Senate Republicans cover,'' she charged.

Convened by Senator Joseph Griffo, R-Rome, the discussion kicked off several statewide talks on campaign finance reform.

Reforming the system that regulates political contributions in New York has been one of Spitzer's priorities, and failure to reach agreement on it is one reason a slew of other measures, including pay hikes for judges, reforming public works contracting regulations under the Wicks law and creation of a bigger DNA data base, were held up in this year's legislative session.

Bopp and Samples outlined several reasons why they thought limiting political donations was a poor idea: it violates First Amendment rights of free speech and gives an advantage to wealthy self-funded candidates as well as incumbents.

Moreover, Bopp, who has worked for the national Republican party, wondered how long any finance reforms will be around, given recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Just this week, the high court in a 5-4 decision overturned part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign reform act that prevents organizations from naming candidates during the so-called blackout period, 30 days and 60 days before federal primaries and general elections.

"That five vote majority is not going anywhere soon,'' said Bopp, who represented the winning side, the Wisconsin Right to Life organization, in that dispute against the Federal Election Commission.

Bartoletti, though, repeated her contention that the current system, in which a tiny minority of people and organizations doles out the bulk of campaign dollars, breeds "public cynicism instead of respect.''

One comment no one disagreed with, though, came from Bopp, who noted the complexity of New York's finance laws.

"I've read campaign finance laws across the country and I find New York state's the hardest to read and understand,'' he said.

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

"County imposing tax on cellphone numbers"

By LEIGH HORNBECK, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, June 28, 2007

BALLSTON SPA -- Get ready for a new tax on your cellphone bill, Saratoga County residents.

The Saratoga County Board of Supervisors voted to impose a 30 cent surcharge on all cellphone users whose billing address is inside the county.

The money will help support the county's new 911 center where desk officers can pinpoint a cellphone caller's location using satellites and a geographic information system.

Early estimates say the monthly surcharge will bring in about $100,000 a year.

The tax will be collected on each cellphone number registered in the county, even if calls made to multiple numbers are shown on the same bill.

County Administrator David Wickerham said establishing the tax has been complicated.

The supervisors' vote was the third time the board has taken action to approve a home rule bill that Assemblyman James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, won backing for in the state Legislature that allows the county to impose the surcharge.

The bill passed both houses and now awaits Gov. Eliot Spitzer's signature.

Land lines already carry the extra fee.

Wickerham said it is not clear when the fee will go into effect, but he asked cellphone users to watch for the surcharge on their bills along with the words "Saratoga County.''

If it doesn't say the 30 cents is going to Saratoga County, residents should call Director of Emergency Services Paul Lent because the payment might be going to another county.

At the monthly supervisors meeting, the board voted to pay a consulting firm $20,000 to write a request for proposals for a fixed base operator at the Saratoga County Airport.

A 20-year lease with Richmor Aviation, the company that lands planes and offers gas and hangar space, will end this year.

So too, will the county's lease with North American Flight Services, a second fixed base operator at the airport.

In a separate project at the airport, the supervisors are planning to resurface the runways at the airport, add fire protection at the hangar and install a water line.

"Former Buffalo official admits taking paid trips from contractors"

Associated Press

Last updated: 4:42 p.m., Thursday, June 28, 2007

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The former commissioner for public works in Buffalo admitted accepting paid trips from contractors and pleaded guilty Thursday to receiving unlawful gratuities, a prosecutor said.

Joseph Giambra, 56, was charged with taking eight trips from representatives of several consulting and engineering firms that did millions of dollars in business with the city, Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark said in a press release.

The investigation began with a complaint from a company that noticed it was paying "extraordinary expenses associated with marketing" in its dealings with Giambra's department, Clark said.

State and city investigators found four companies spent more than $7,000 for trips by Giambra to Saratoga Springs, Toronto, Las Vegas, Biloxi, Miss., and the Florida cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa.

Giambra, who became commissioner in 1998 and retired in January, pleaded guilty to three counts of receiving unlawful gratuities, a misdemeanor.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 10 and faces up to a year in jail.

In a prepared statement after the plea, Mayor Byron Brown said his administration has established new rules for employees making travel requests and provided an ethics training program for city officials.

"Spitzer nominee facing skeptical Senate drops out"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:05 p.m., Friday, June 29, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer's nominee to lead the state Public Service Commission withdrew from consideration Friday, another possible casualty of the Democratic governor's conflict with the Republican-led Senate.

Angela Sparks-Beddoe withdrew her nomination to the $129,000-a-year job a week after the regular legislative session ended without a Senate confirmation hearing, the procedure for any governor's nominee.

"I believe it is time for me to move on and refocus my attention on my family and professional life," she wrote in a letter to Spitzer that was released by his office.

Sparks-Beddoe was president of Energy East Management Corp. in Saratoga Springs.

She previously served as director of government affairs at New York State Electric & Gas Corp.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said the Senate delayed action on the nomination while awaiting a state Inspector General's Office review into "serious allegations of improper activities and inappropriate pressure brought by the governor's staff."

The state Inspector General's Office is investigating a claim made in April by commission member Cheryl Buley, a Pataki appointee, who claimed Steven Mitnick of the Spitzer administration threatened her career five or six times.

She claims Mitnick wanted her to vote a certain way and possibly to resign to make way for a Spitzer appointee.

The withdrawal of Sparks-Beddoe, who has industry experience, is a blow to Spitzer's effort to fill board positions with experts.

He has criticized his Republican predecessor for hiring people based on politics.

The Public Service Commission regulates utilities and the telecommunications industry in New York.

There was no immediate comment from Spitzer.

Spitzer has embarrassed some Senate Republicans recently, going to their districts and telling voters their senator went on vacation despite important work left undone in Albany.

On June 18, while Spitzer and Bruno haggled over end-of-session priorities, Republicans in a senate committee grilled Spitzer's upstate economic czar, Dan Gundersen, over his performance, responsiveness and even for living in Saratoga Springs instead of Buffalo where the upstate office is based.

The Senate so far has not confirmed dozens of Spitzer appointees including Gundersen and his downstate counterpart, Pat Foye, and Avi Schick, nominated to run the Empire State Development Corp.

Schick was a top lawyer for Spitzer when the governor was attorney general.

This year, Senate committees, all headed by Republicans, began to press nominees more aggressively than they did Pataki selections.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

"Spitzer's PSC Nominee Withdraws"

Angela Sparks-Beddoe, a former energy industry lobbyist and co-chairwoman of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's transition team whom the governor tapped to serve as commissioner of the Public Service Commission, has withdrawn her name from consideration for the $129,000-a-year post.

In a letter to Spitzer, Sparks-Beddoe cited the fact that the Senate has failed to confirm her nomination as the motivation behind her decision.

"Since the regular session has ended and my confirmation did not take place, upon reflection, I believe it is time for me to move on and refocus my attention on my family and professional life," she wrote.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said in a statement that Sparks-Beddoe's appointment was "controversial from the start," adding that the Senate held off on her confirmation because it is awaiting the outcome of an Inspector General report into "serious allegations of improper activities and inappropriate pressure brought by the governor’s staff."

Bruno is referring to an allegation made by PSC Commissioner Cheryl Buley (a Pataki holdover) that Spitzer's energy and telecommunications advisor, Steve Mitnick, threatened to have her removed from her job if she didn't back off her efforts to investigate ConEd's handling of last year's Queens blackout.

Mitnick is reportedly poised to depart his post.

Spitzer's selection of Sparks-Beddoe raised eyebrows, given that she was, at the time, a registered lobbyist for Energy East Management Corp., and director of New York State Electric & Gas Corp.'s legislative affairs unit.

NYSEG has made more than $87,000 worth of political contributions to various candidates and committees since 1999 and Sparks-Beddoe herself contributed $9,000 to NYSEG's PAC and GOP candidates.

Some worried Sparks-Beddoe would have a conflict of interest in the case where NYSEG was fighting with the PSC over its mandate that the company cut utility rates by $37 million annually.

Posted by Elizabeth Benjamin on June 29, 2007 4:08 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...s.html#comments

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

With respect to this issue of Spitzer appointees like this Sparks-Beddoe having conflicts of interest, that comes as no surprise, actually, for in September of 2006, while he was still AG, “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer gave an address to the NYS Business Council at Bolton Landing on Lake George in upstate NY where he informed the NYS Business Council that he was going to make NYS into “the best place to do business in the world” ….

And that address to the Business Council was no secret …

To the contrary, it was posted on his website and a copy of it is still available at:

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...cil&st=1240

In that speech, entitled “Improving the Business Climate”, “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer informed the Business Council that:

Ken, I look forward to working with you to make New York the best place to do business in the world.

But today, I want to speak about what I believe should be our first priority, and that is making New York companies more competitive by improving our business climate.

And in too many other respects, our government bureaucracy hinders rather than assists businesses.

Well, I have a message for you: If I am elected Governor, on Day One of next year we are going to begin to implement an aggressive strategy to reduce the cost of doing business in New York and make New York the best place to do business in the world.

And we will streamline regulations to make them friendly to business.

Fifth and finally, New York State can also improve the business climate by making its government offices, regulations and programs much easier to deal with.

We have much more to accomplish than what I discussed today if we are to restore our State to its historic position of economic strength.

But the starting point of any economic development strategy is creating a climate that is friendly to business instead of hostile to it.

It’s time that our State government becomes part of the solution, not part of the problem.

end quotes

And then, as was made clear in a press release from the NYS Business Council entitled “Spitzer taps Council president, staff, board members to serve on transition committees” by Claire Hazzard, Business Council staff (November 16, 2006) at:

http://www.bcnys.org/whatsnew/2006/1116transition.htm

Eliot Spitzer selected Business Council president and CEO Kenneth Adams to serve as a co-chair on one of several policy transition committees.

According to the press release, Adams was selected to serve as co-chair on the labor and workforce development advisory committee, and Adams, who met with Governor-elect Spitzer after last week’s election, said he was honored.

“This shows how serious Governor-elect Spitzer is when he says he will help to make New York a better place to do business,” Adams said.

end quotes

And when one takes a further look at the relationship between “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer and the NYS Business Council while he was still NYS AG:

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...cil&st=1240

It really comes as no surprise that he would intentionally try to appoint people like Sparks-Beddoe because of their conflicts of interest in an effort to fulfill his pledge to the NYS Business council to “make NYS the best place in the world to do business” ….

And so ….

As to Sparks-Beddoe’s departure from the scene, all this citizen can think to say is GOOD RIDDANCE ….

And so …

Comment by John Galt — June 29, 2007 @ 5:53 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=4952#comments

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

If NYSEG has made more than $87,000 worth of political contributions to various candidates and committees since 1999, it is obvious that it is overcharging its rate-payers, since it is they who are providing NYSEG with this money in the first place, and by charging this extra money to put in the pockets of politicians, NYSEG is forcing its rate-payers to have to subsidize its political activities without them having any say in the matter of where this money goes, or what it buys for NYSEG ...

And if I am not mistaken, NYSEG is about to be bought out by some Spanish company, which may or may not be a side issue here ....

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | June 29, 2007 7:43 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli..._withdraws.html

And talk about HOGS coming to the political trough up here in the State of New York ....

And talk about state-sponsored RIP-OFFS ...

We have ...

"Paying for tickets can be hair-raising - Scalpers flourish under new law, but some music fans are singing the blues"

By GREG HAYMES, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, July 1, 2007

Back in May, Live Nation -- producer of the pop and rock concert series at Saratoga Performing Arts Center -- announced that the Aug. 14 concert by the Dave Matthews Band was officially sold out.

"No tickets will be released," the announcement read.

"Nonticket holders are asked not to come to the venue."

Of course, if you really want to attend the concert, you can still buy tickets.

But it's going to cost you -- big-time.

All you have to do is log onto any number of online secondary ticket sales Web sites and open your wallet very, very wide.

At StubHub.com, for example, ticket resellers -- a friendly corporate term for merchants known more commonly as scalpers -- are offering general admission lawn tickets to the Dave Matthews show for anywhere from $134 to $219 apiece.

These same lawn tickets went on sale to the general public for $40.

Or, if you want to make the SPAC concert a truly unforgettable experience, you could spring for reserved seats in the amphitheater's orchestra pit -- so close to the stage that Dave might actually sweat on you.

Those tickets were originally sold at the box office for $65 each.

At StubHub.com, however, the resale prices for those same seats have escalated to $1,150 to $1,471.

That's right: an astronomical markup of 2,263 percent above the ticket's face value.

"Oh, my god!"

"A thousand dollars for one ticket?," said music fan Chris Grigsby of Schenectady, reeling from the sticker shock.

"I don't understand that."

The 18-year-old Grigsby has never paid more than about $70 for a concert ticket, and he can't think of any musical act that could possibly persuade him to part with $1,000.

"Well, maybe I'd spend $1,000 to hang out with someone like Donald Fagen for a year," he finally admits, "but not for a concert ticket."

Just a few weeks ago, charging $1,000 (or even $150) for a Dave Matthews ticket would have been illegal, according to the New York state anti-scalping law.

Although it's been modified and updated every few years, there's been an anti-scalping law on the books in New York for more than 80 years.

Under the previous law signed by Gov. George Pataki two years ago, the resale price of a ticket was limited to a 45 percent markup for venues with a capacity of more than 6,000, which would include performance venues such as SPAC and Albany's Times Union Center, as well as sports facilities such as Yankee Stadium.

The legal markup was restricted to 20 percent for smaller venues like the Palace Theatre, Proctor's Theatre and Broadway theaters.

But this spring, the Democratic-led state Assembly passed a bill rolling back restrictions on ticket resales, and the Republican-controlled Senate followed suit.

On June 1, Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed the bill.

"Scalping laws did not make sense," he said after the signing.

"This will be good for the venues, good for consumers and good for the artists."

Assemblyman Joseph Morrelle, a Rochester Democrat who sponsored the new bill, says it "allows ticket resellers and consumers to interact freely while maintaining the necessary safeguards against unsavory and unethical conduct."

"It strikes the right balance between free market practices and consumer protection."

Some resale restrictions still apply, including the ban on flesh-and-blood scalpers selling tickets within 1,500 feet of the larger arenas and within 500 feet of smaller venues.

And high-volume ticket brokers like TicketsNow.com are now required to register with the state.

But other than those few minor restrictions, scalpers are now free to resell tickets for any price they choose.

And it's all perfectly legal.

Music fans like Grigsby aren't the only ones up in arms over the new law.

"This is a bum deal for consumers," said Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"Since the early 1920s, the anti-scalping law has been on the books, and the goal was to protect people of modest means and insure that they could get access to popular sporting and entertainment events."

"But increasingly, for these events, consumers end up competing against corporate expense accounts."

Under the new law, Haven said, "essentially all the seats will get diverted to the highest bidder -- and in most cases, that's either someone with a lot of disposable money or someone who can write it off as a business expense."

To explain what he means, Haven cites the report "Why Can't I Get Tickets?" a comprehensive review of ticket scalping released in 1999 by then-Attorney General Spitzer's office.

The report uncovered one incident in 1994 in which a Wall Street brokerage firm paid $360,000 to a scalper in New Jersey to buy tickets.

"That's essentially $1,000 a day that this one company was spending on tickets to wine and dine clients, reward staff members and attract new business."

"They were vacuuming up all the best seats to the hot shows, and then writing it all off as a business expense."

According to Haven, the new law allows scalpers to price shows out of the reach of average consumers.

"That's not a good thing, and it's not a fair thing," he said.

"It's not fair to the fans who buy the CDs and pay to download the music, but can't afford to pay a week's salary to go to see their favorite performer."

"It's also not fair because taxpayer money either built most of the facilities or continues to subsidize the venues."

"The Times Union Center is owned by Albany County."

"Madison Square Garden gets big tax breaks."

"The Nassau Coliseum, Jones Beach and SPAC are all publicly supported."

"So that gives the public a vested interest in a fair distribution system and a fair crack at getting decent seats."

Gary Adler, legal counsel for the National Association of Ticket Brokers, disagrees with Haven's assessment of the situation.

"I think that New York state's new law is great," Adler said.

"I think you'll find that more brokers will be coming into the state because of the law, and that will generate more revenue for the state through licensing.

"And I also think it's great for the consumers," he added.

"I know for a fact that there were a significant number of ticket brokers who wouldn't sell tickets to New York residents for New York events because of the previously existing New York state laws."

While that may mean more tickets will be available to New York ticket buyers on the secondary market, Adler doesn't think the removal of resale limits will necessarily lead to ticket price increases.

"The ticket resale market was opened up in Illinois, for example, within the past five years," he said, "and there's empirical data that shows that when that happened, it actually lowered the price of secondary market tickets to consumers."

Morrelle agrees with Adler on the price point.

"By allowing greater competition for the resale dollar," the assemblyman said, "we may actually see a decrease in secondary prices, which is ultimately best for the consumer."

Bob Belber, general manager of Albany's Times Union Center, takes the middle ground on the law's possible effect on ticket pricing.

"I don't think that this new law is going to make any difference as far as ticket prices are concerned," he said.

"I don't think that artists' managers are going to increase their ticket prices because this law exists."

"In fact, we've seen it go the other way."

"Live Nation, for example, has taken strong measures to try to reduce ticket prices."

"And Kelly Clarkson, for example."

"Although she ended up canceling her tour, all of the tickets were priced at $29.50."

Belber also downplays the number of tickets for events at the Times Union Center and other Capital Region venues that make their way into the hands of scalpers or ticket brokers.

"The percentage of people who go to the secondary market to purchase tickets -- online at eBay or whatever site, where they most often pay more than face value for the tickets -- for shows here in the Albany market is so small," Belber said.

"The vast majority of people buy their tickets at face value, and they attend the event.

"Those who go to the secondary market for tickets are probably only about 1 percent."

"And I think they often go to a ticket broker because they think the show is sold out, when in fact it might not be."

"Or they might want better seats than what is available through the box office."

The new ticket resale law will remain in effect for at least two years, and it's too early to tell what impact it's going to have on consumers.

"In the long run, I think this new law is probably bad for the whole live entertainment industry," Haven said.

"I grew up in a generation where seeing a live show was the greatest thing."

"But with all of the other entertainment options that kids have these days -- from the Internet to video gaming -- I think there's a strong possibility that this new law is sending the wrong message to the next generation of entertainment consumers."

"I think the risk is that they'll turn away from the live concert experience because it's simply beyond their financial reach.

"As a kid, I spent way too much time standing in line, sleeping out, camping out, waiting to buy tickets at the box office or the old Ticketron," Haven said.

"And when I got up to the window, they'd hand me my tickets and they'd be way up in the nosebleed sections."

"I used to wonder, 'How did that happen?'
"
Well, now I know -- and it's not pretty."

Ticket shock

Markups for Capital Region venues:

James Taylor at Tanglewood 8/24/07 StubHub.com $530 Face value $81 (section 7, row A)

Kenny Chesney at SPAC 7/25/07 StubHub.com $1335 Face value $77.50 (section 1, row G)

Josh Groban at Times Union Center7 /28/07 StubHub.com $618 Face value $96 (Section 3, row H)

American Idols Live at Times Union Center 8/30/07 StubHub.com $412 Face value $70 (Section 1, row F)

"Turmoil unabated despite new dam - Hadlock Pond slowly being refilled two years later amid lawsuits"

By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, July 1, 2007

FORT ANN -- Hadlock Pond, a mile-long lake which vanished in a destructive torrent two years ago when a dam broke, is slowly making a return.

But the damage lingers.

Town engineers began filling a rebuilt dam June 4 after the state decided it was safe, said Supervisor Gayle Hall.

It is a process that will take months.

Lakefront homeowners like Greg Fowler, high and dry for his third summer in a row, probably won't be swimming this year either.

When Fowler, who lives on Red Johnston Road, looks out from his dock, he sees a meadow.

Far off, a languid creek once again being held back by a dam is slowly rising.

"I've been watching the Doppler radar for storms for some rain to help fill the lake, but they all seem to be passing to the south," said Fowler, vice president of the 70-member Lake Hadlock Association.

He's resigned to the return of the lake in time for summer 2008.

Meanwhile, downstream below the dam, Ralph Colb looks out of his home at stream banks scoured by flood waters into a lifeless tumble of boulders.

He wonders who is going to restore what once was a shady trout stream.

Two bridges that Colb used to reach property on the other side of the creek were washed away when 30 feet of water, filled with broken trees and other debris, roared through the afternoon of July 2, 2005.

A billion onrushing gallons scoured out 14 feet of lake bottom and blasted a 120-foot breach in the dam, destroying four homes, damaging a dozen others and washing out part of state Route 149.

"It sounded like a hurricane going past," said Colb, whose home was spared when the water crested nine yards short of his door.

When it subsided, there were wrecked boats stuck in trees.

He guessed it will cost $300,000 or more to replace his bridges, not to mention stabilize an access road now perched atop a badly eroded hillside.

"This is beyond our means," said Colb, who works as an English teacher overseas and has lived in Fort Ann for 30 years.

"So far, I not seen one penny from the perpetrators of this faulty dam," said Colb, who also is angry that none of the $1 million in state aid announced announced last year to help victims will help him.

"Because I don't live here year-round, they said I was a seasonal resident, and not eligible," he said.

The state ended up awarding about $490,000 to 33 downstream property owners, according to Daniel MacEntee, a spokesman for state Sen. Betty Little, a Queensbury Republican, who pushed for the aid.

That's less than $15,000 each on average.

The legal logjam left behind when the dam burst remains unresolved after the town's efforts to mediate settlements failed, Hall said.

Dozens of homeowners, including Colb, have have filed lawsuits against Fort Ann, which owned the dam; the dam's designer, HTE Northeast Inc.; and its builder, Queensbury-based Kubricky Construction.

The town has also sued the designers and builders.

Damages to the lakefront property owners are in the "millions of dollars," said Paul Wein, a Guilderland lawyer who is representing more than 80 clients.

"People are being taxed as having lakefront property, when that isn't the case."

"Some people used the lake for drinking water, and still don't have water," he said.

And property values could have taken a hit permanently because of the stigma left behind by the flood.

"If someone is looking to buy a house on Hadlock and another lake (not created by a dam), why would they pay the same price?" Wein said.

Downstream, much of the destruction was uninsured, said Eileen Haynes, a lawyer with Bartlett Pontiff Stewart Rhodes, a Glens Falls firm representing 14 property owners.

"Their losses were significant -- homes, personal property," she said.

"We've got people who have huge pits in their front yards."

Five separate lawsuits over the flood are pending in state Supreme Court in Washington County, Haynes said.

A conference involving 10 lawyers from all sides is set for August.

The previous dam failed just two months after it was completed, and about three weeks after the pond had been filled.

In October 2005, a consultant hired by state environmental officials concluded the dam burst due to "internal erosion," most likely caused by improper use of earth, gravel and other materials during construction.

It did not assign blame.

Town officials must refill the pond gradually under a schedule approved by DEC, which allows the water level to rise naturally until it is 10 feet below normal.

After that, the level can be raised by no more than six inches each day.

It cost about $5.5 million to rebuild the dam, which was constructed by Massachusetts-based Northern Construction.

The state provided $1 million for the project, in addition to the assistance earmarked for property damage.

Hall said the balance of the dam project is being paid for by a special assessment on the 280 owners whose properties adjoin the lake, which has no public access along its 4.6 miles of shoreline.

The assessment will continue for 30 years until it is repaid.

For Fowler, that means a bill of about $1,800 a year.

"The dam looks great."

"You can't even compare it to what was there before," he said.

Colb, who unsuccessfully lobbied for the dam not to be replaced, hopes it's done right.

"I wish them more success with this dam than they had with the last one," he said.

Brian Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.

"State flies Bruno to fundraisers - Taxpayers finance trips of Senate majority leader to New York City political events"

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

First published: Sunday, July 1, 2007

ALBANY -- Three times this year, Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno has used taxpayer-funded state aircraft to fly to political fundraisers in Manhattan while certifying he was on official state business, according to documents obtained by the Times Union.

In addition to routinely using state helicopters to fly from Albany to New York City for years, almost weekly, Bruno has also received ground transportation downstate from State Police, even when traveling to fundraisers.

Bruno's staff claims he faces constant threats to his life and safety and is therefore provided security details.

This year, Bruno requested the state planes in writing for "legislative business meetings," and signed, or had someone stamp his signature, on documents asserting that his use of state aircraft was for official business.

The disclosure forms are required under a new rule instituted by Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

According to flight documents and State Police Aviation Unit request forms obtained through a request under the Freedom of Information Law, Bruno and his top aides used the state air fleet 11 times in the first five months of the year compared with 19 flights by Spitzer during the same period.

The flights for both elected leaders continued in June, according to interviews.

Each helicopter flight is worth thousands of dollars, according to aviation consultant Bill de Decker, who said the State Police Bell 430s Bruno and Spitzer use would cost $3,000 hourly if hired from private firms.

Three of Bruno's 145-mile, one-hour helicopter flights to Manhattan in May were on dates that Republicans hosted major fund-raisers, two of which featured Bruno, the effective head of the state GOP:

On May 3, Bruno and three aides -- Michael Avella, Jeff Lovell and John McArdle -- were flown by two State Police pilots and dropped at a helipad at West 30th Street, the records state.

They were then driven by a State Police investigator to the Sheraton Hotel at 7th Avenue and 52nd Street at 2 p.m.

Bruno hosted the 33rd Annual Spring Reception of the State Senate Republican Campaign Committee at the Sheraton that day.

A reception, costing $1,000 per person, began at 5 p.m.

A private reception costing $5,000 per person began at 5:30 p.m.

The investigator said in a memo that he picked up the foursome at the hotel at 7 a.m the next day, took them to Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, and delivered them to Laguardia Airport at 10 a.m. when a State Police aviation crew flew them back to Albany.

On May 17, Bruno and his three aides left the Exit 23 helipad at the Thruway Authority headquarters in Albany at 11 a.m. aboard one of the executive Bell helicopters.

At 12:30 p.m. a State Police investigator in Manhattan brought Bruno to a meeting at C.V. Starr & Co. on Park Avenue.

The company's leader is former AIG Chairman Maurice Greenberg.

AIG has been a generous contributor to state Republican campaigns.

State Police then transported Bruno to the Sheraton, where he spent the night.

From 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., Bruno and numerous Senate Republicans attended the Annual New York Republican State Committee Dinner at the Sheraton.

Participants paid at least $1,000 per person and up to $10,000 per couple to hear U.S. Sen. John McCain and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani speak.

State Police flew Bruno's group back to Albany the next morning at 9 a.m. with Bruno's spokesman Kris Thompson replacing Avella on the one-hour return trip.

On May 24, Bruno and his aides -- Avella, Lovell and Steve Boggess -- left Albany on the helicopter at 3:30 p.m.

A State Police investigator drove them from a downtown helipad to New York City Hall.

They were transported to a meeting at the Sheraton Hotel and then to next door to Russo's Restaurant, the investigator's memo said.

From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. the Food Industry Reception at Russo's Restaurant honored Bruno.

Checks were collected for the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee's housekeeping account at Russo's.

The invitations noted that corporate contributions did not apply toward the $5,000 corporate calendar year limit.

The State Police investigator picked up Bruno at the restaurant around 7 p.m.

His group was taken back to Albany on the helicopter about 7:20 p.m.

Bruno spokesman Mark Hansen would not discuss the trips or provide Bruno's itinerary.

"Sen. Bruno uses the transportation services provided to him in his role as majority leader for state purposes," Hansen said.

"As he has, and continues to receive, death threats and other threats to his safety, based on what people read in the Times Union and other negative reports, he is provided with State Police protection when traveling."

The Code of Ethics of the State Public Officers Law prohibits a public official from using or attempting to use his official position to gain unwarranted privileges "for himself of others."

Violators are subject to fines, removal from office or suspension, or a civil penalty of up to $10,000 and the value of the gift or benefit.

The state penal law can also come into play when someone defrauds the state, as former Comptroller Alan Hevesi was found to have done last year.

Disclosures last fall of Hevesi's use of state personnel to chauffeur his wife, who he claimed needed security, led to the end of Hevesi's three-decade career in government.

He made restitution of more than $200,000, pleaded guilty to fraud and paid a $5,000 fine for his crimes.

Last fall, Bruno forcefully called for Hevesi to resign and reimburse the state for using a staffer as his wife's driver before prosecutors completed an investigation.

He also declared that it wasn't "an appropriate question" to ask him if he had ever used drivers, too.

At least part of one of Spitzer's trips was political.

And a portion of one of the seven flights Lt. Gov. David Paterson took included a brief political stop.

But neither Democratic leader engaged in personal fund-raising, and their spokesmen said they would not do so on the state taxpayer's dime.

Other top elected and legislative officials -- including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver -- did not request or receive rides aboard state aircraft, records show.

Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp said the planes are provided when available, and are supposed to be used only for government business.

The governor, he said, would only use private planes for his fund-raising events.

The Spitzer administration requires documentation of the purpose of state-related trips by non-executive staffers, a departure from previous administrations.

Dopp would not discuss Bruno's use of the planes.

"We will review this matter carefully before commenting," he said.

He and State Police officials wouldn't say if senators are entitled to regular State Police security details or if the administration had been alerted that someone had threatened Bruno's life.

David Catalfamo, a spokesman for Gov. George Pataki, said Bruno, who used state planes dozens of times each year during the Republican governor's tenure, would call to place a request for the aircraft.

"We'd assume that they were using it for the appropriate government business," Catalfamo said.

"Everyone knows the rules: You're not supposed to use it for political events."

He said he had never heard of any death threats against the senator.

Spitzer and Paterson provided daily itineraries for the days they used public planes.

During a day of stops in Binghamton and Rochester on April 10, the State Police Aviation Unit brought Spitzer and four aides to the Monroe County Democratic Committee dinner, the records show.

The Democratic event, one of 13 stops on the first-term Democrat's schedule that day, was a fund-raiser for the county party costing $75 for committee members and $300 for all others.

More than 500 people attended, said Derek Murphy, a committee staffer.

Paterson, during a multi-event day in Washington, D.C. for the National Lieutenant Governor's Association Winter Meeting, also veered from government business.

He scheduled a half-hour with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean at Dean's office near the Capitol.

But the visit was cut short.

"The trip had nothing to do with fund-raising of any kind," said Charles J. O'Byrne, a spokesman for Paterson.

He said Paterson spoke with Dean for about three minutes on the sidewalk outside his office.

Dopp, the Spitzer spokesman, said the governor conducted several public and private meetings during the two-county trip that included the Monroe County party dinner.

The trip did not involve personal fund-raising, he said.

Bruno's refusal to detail his activities is troubling, said Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"We've always called for an independent entity to oversee cases like this, or any allegations of breach of the ethics laws or the Public Officers Law," said Russ Haven, legislative counsel to the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"At a minimum there needs to be a public explanation."

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

"Day 183: Has anything changed?"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 1:23 p.m., Sunday, July 1, 2007

ALBANY -- Robert Evans of Pulaski has seen another two big employers in central New York close so far this year.

His 24-year-old son, with a new computer degree from Morrisville State College, is still talking about moving out of state for a job he figures will pay him two or three times what he makes in Oswego County.

But the 50-year-old bus driver said turning around the upstate economy and keeping young educated New Yorkers here -- two of freshman Gov. Eliot Spitzer's biggest campaign pledges -- won't be a quick fix even for the Democrat who promised to change everything on Day One.

"That's being idealistic," said Evans, an independent who voted for Spitzer and supports Republican President Bush.

"There's nothing that changes overnight."

Evans reflects polls continuing to show Spitzer's high popularity, although the success of his hard-charging with the Legislature is now questioned by most voters in a Quinnipiac University poll a week ago.

Six months into the Spitzer administration -- 183 days to be exact -- comes with mixed results that have disappointed even Spitzer supporters.

It adds up to an uncertain future for what was supposed to be an uncommon time for state government and New Yorkers.

"The public doesn't watch with a scorecard like insiders do."

"But I think there is a general sense he didn't accomplish what he set out to do," said pollster Lee Miringoff, head of Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion.

But he added: "He's trying a different way ..."

"That jury is still out."

"The first six months aren't telling the future as much as they are saying there was a little bit more of a learning curve than expected."

The message was delivered in bold face: A recent New York Post headline put it: "Eliot a `loser' since Day 1," referring to legislative leaders' wins over Spitzer in a "disastrously unproductive legislative session."

A Glens Falls Post Star editorial stated: "New Gov. Eliot Spitzer's promising first semester recessed with a surprising lack of accomplishment."

Grumpy Albany insiders can eventually affect even a governor more focused on popular support outside the capital.

As Republican Gov. George Pataki and Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo learned, the general public tends to eventually listen to the negative and blame the governor for gridlock.

Certainly Spitzer, the gang-busting attorney general whose campaign soundtrack was Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down," set high expectations.

He targeted Albany for reform and promised to reinvigorate the Empire State.

"No opponent of Spitzer was able to get a toe hold," said Erika Rosenberg of the independent Center for Governmental Research in Rochester.

"Certainly he set that as a high bar for himself, to be a very strong force right the beginning."

She said business leaders who supported Spitzer are now divided because although he drove property taxes down, the business breaks he promised have met compromise or gridlock.

Government reform groups are disappointed in the ethics reform law and lack of change in campaign finance law, but still consider him their best hope.

Schools, however, are ecstatic that Spitzer helped break the logjam for billions more in aid.

Spitzer maintains everything did change Day One, because the "thing" most important was not playing Albany's game, but breaking it.

That included calling the Legislature cowardly, prisoners of special interests, and lazy -- and facing the backlash.

"We have made dramatic progress," he said last week, acknowledging there are "other issues where we have yards to go, maybe football fields to go."

Spitzer said his top priorities, including reviving the upstate economy, depend on reform of Albany.

"Changing the ethical construct of our government is an objective that we must rise to," Spitzer said.

"Until we do that, the public won't have the necessary confidence in our decision making."

In his first month, Spitzer brought legislative leaders together for agreements on long-standing reforms of lobbying, ethics, and budget crafting.

But in February, he lost a nasty standoff with the Senate and Assembly over selection of a state comptroller.

And in June, he lost another name-calling showdown with Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno when Spitzer's campaign finance reform was blocked in the Senate.

"What did he do in six months?" asked Bruno, Spitzer's most vocal opponent.

"Nothing."

Bruno accuses Spitzer of plotting to flip the Senate majority to Democrats and has called the governor a rich kid too used to getting his own way, a bully, and dictatorial.

The feud appears to have strengthened Bruno in his conference after early 2007 included talk of a challenge to his leadership and a continuing FBI investigation into his relationship with a businessman who is a Republican donor.

"Obviously," said Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Spitzer ally, "there is a difference between being attorney general and governor."

"I think he had a great transitional year and he'll do bigger and better things."

"There are cuts and bruises," Silver of Spitzer's learning curve.

But now, "I think he understands who he's dealing with."

State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long, who has sided with Spitzer on a few issues, called the Democrat's first six months "a failure."

"The issues were very similar when Pataki came in: Tax cuts were needed, spending cuts were needed."

"To Gov. Pataki's credit, he really did an excellent job in doing that the first year."

"But it wasn't Pataki who rode into Albany and did that all by himself."

"He had a lot of institutional people who knew how to get it accomplished."

Pataki's first six months in 1995 included: A three-year, 25-percent cut in the income tax worth $4 billion; a state budget two months late with a 2.2 percent increase in spending; movement on a death penalty (ultimately adopted in September).

Spitzer's first six months included: $1.3 billion in property tax relief; changes in worker's compensation that cut employer costs and increased benefits; civil confinement of the most dangerous sex offenders after their sentences; tighter ethics; a budget that was a half-day late with an 8.2 percent increase.

"I think he regained his balance," said Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

"I'm not willing to say this guy isn't an effective governor."

"I'm going to wait and see."

"I think he needs to fight," said Evans, the Pulaski bus driver.

"I haven't given up on him.

"N.Y. Senate leader accused of using state aircraft on fundraisers"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:04 p.m., Sunday, July 1, 2007

ALBANY -- State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno is accused of using state aircraft to attend Republican fundraisers, a possible violation of state ethics codes and of state law, according to a newspaper's report.

The case will likely be referred to the state Inspector General's Office or state Attorney General's Office on Monday, according to a state source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the referral hadn't yet been ordered.

Bruno, Albany's top Republican, was accused of misuse of taxpayer-paid aircraft to fly to Manhattan fundraisers while certifying that he was on official state business, according to a report in Sunday's Albany Times Union citing state records.

Bruno has a state Senate office in Manhattan.

Bruno also used state cars with a state driver to get from heliports in Manhattan to fundraisers and elsewhere, according to the newspaper.

In detailed accounts, the newspaper reported three occasions in May when Bruno used state aircraft on trips to Manhattan that included fundraisers.

In all, documents showed Bruno and his top aides used state aircraft 11 times in the first five months of this year, according to the newspaper.

"On those days, we met with government officials and did legislative business," Bruno spokesman John McArdle said Sunday.

"The notion that he uses the helicopter for personal use is nonsense."

McArdle said that on the three trips Bruno spoke with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, officials in the New York Racing Association and toured Aqueduct race track.

In general, he said Bruno routinely also meets with civic groups, newspaper editorial boards and others related to state business.

McArdle wouldn't release details of the government business done on each of the three days that were the basis of the article in the biggest circulation newspaper in his district.

He said Bruno won't release that detail because Gov. Eliot Spitzer doesn't.

The Rensselaer County Republican's spokesman told the newspaper that the senator has received numerous death threats and so is provided state police security details.

If the trips are proven to be for political fundraisers rather than authorized state business, Bruno could have violated the Code of Ethics of State Public Officers Law and could face a fine or removal from office.

Any violation could also break state laws against defrauding government, the kind of case that was brought against Democratic state Comptroller Alan Hevesi last year.

Hevesi resigned in December following a scandal in which he used state employees as drivers and companionship for his wife for years.

Hevesi pleaded guilty to a felony in an agreement that allowed him to avoid prison time but pay a $5,000 fine.

Hevesi also agreed not to take office Jan. 1 for the second term he won in the November election despite the scandal.

In October, Bruno said Hevesi should resign before conviction or state action because his failure to reimburse the state for the use of the staffer represents "a serious breach of the public trust."

Bruno and Spitzer have been in conflict this year, clashing over spending and legislation since February.

Bruno also is contending with a continuing FBI investigation into his relationship with a businessman who is a Republican donor.

The newspaper also examined the travel records of other statewide officials.

It found Spitzer used state aircraft 19 times in the first five months of the year alone, and at least part of one trip was political, according to the Times Union.

A portion of the seven flights by Democratic Lt. Gov. David Paterson included a brief political stop, but neither used the trips to raise money for their own campaigns.

Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver didn't use state aircraft, according to the records.

------

Information from: Times Union, http://www.timesunion.com

THE NEW YORK POST

"GOV PLAYS DIRTY POOL VS. BRUNO"

July 2, 2007 -- GOV. Spitzer's repeated attacks last week against Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno were filled with distortions, half-truths and, in one case, an outright falsehood, a review of his claims shows.

Spitzer, in a mocking PowerPoint presentation delivered to audiences around the state, claimed Bruno (R-Rensselaer) and the Senate Republicans had voted to raise their own pay even while refusing to undertake official business, had approved the building of "dirty coal" power plants, and had prematurely ended the legislative session in order to begin their summer vacations.

The governor made the pay-raise claim based on the Senate's approving a measure its leaders said was submitted by Court of Appeals Chief Judge Judith Kaye, seen as a Spitzer ally.

The measure, which has not been approved by the Democratic-controlled Assembly, would provide an immediate pay raise for all state judges and set up a commission that could recommend pay raises for all other state officials, including lawmakers, whose pay was last raised in 1999.

Spitzer also claimed that the Republicans "called it quits before the full work week was over" last month when they ended the Senate's regular session.

However, the Senate was sticking to the Legislature's official calendar when it ended its regular session last month, which the Assembly did a day later.

And at the time of the recess, Bruno said he would have kept the Senate at the Capitol if agreements had been reached with Spitzer on important issues.

Spitzer has also repeatedly claimed that Bruno and Senate Republicans favored the building of "dirty coal"-fired electrical generating plants that would belch disease-causing and global-warming-inducing gases across the state.

But the measure backed by Bruno requires any new coal plant built in New York to meet all existing state and federal emission standards and to use the best available pollution-control technology.

In addition, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group, backed the measure when it was first introduced.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07022007/news/...c_u__dicker.htm

"Bruno, Spitzer fight takes another step"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:12 p.m., Monday, July 2, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Monday said investigators will review records cited in a published report that show Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno used state aircraft to attend Republican fundraisers in Manhattan.

Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp said investigators from the state Attorney General's Office and for the Albany County District Attorney's Office, both headed by Democrats, asked for the documents that are stored with the executive branch.

Dopp said investigators will review the records to see if Bruno's stated reason for use of the state helicopter -- "legislative business meetings" -- was valid.

Spitzer also ordered a risk assessment on Bruno, who has defended his use of state police transportation and security while in New York City because of numerous death threats over several years.

The Democratic governor said no threat assessment had been done for Bruno, Albany's top Republican.

Bruno has, in turn, accused Spitzer of using state aircraft for political trips.

Spitzer said he will turn over his itineraries for those days, showing the state work during those trips even if visits to political fundraisers for others were included.

Bruno, calling Spitzer a "rich, spoiled brat," said he will also provide the information to "appropriate" authorities.

Bruno said it will show he was on state business in full compliance with the law even through he attended political events afterward.

Bruno said that way he avoids an overnight stay and loss of productivity.

"I'm not concerned about anything," Bruno told reporters.

"We have not done anything illegal, we have not done anything improper."

Asked if he'd ever used state aircraft only for political events, Bruno said: "Of course not."

"That would be just plain stupid.

"It's against the law."

"It would be criminal," Bruno said.

"It would be dumb for anyone (to be) stupid enough to advance that somebody would do that ..."

"I don't care if it was the governor himself."

The latest in an escalating conflict between Bruno and Spitzer surrounds three specific trips identified in Sunday's Times Union of Albany.

If the trips are proven to be for political fundraisers rather than authorized state business, Bruno may have violated the Code of Ethics of State Public Officers Law and could face a fine or removal from office.

Any violation could also break state laws against defrauding government.

He said Monday that although he'll meet with the governor any time, he's not going to give in during the most contentious political battle in Albany in recent memory.

"He started it," Bruno said.

Spitzer, in his New York City office, didn't directly respond to Bruno.

"I don't think it does either of them any good," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute and a former New York political reporter.

"When people see snipe, snipe, snipe, I think it sort of turns them off overall -- on both the target and the arrow."

The squabbling threatens to stall several initiatives left undone when the Legislature adjourned June 21.

The list starts with Bruno's opposition to Spitzer's campaign finance package that Bruno said would strike at the heart of support for his dwindling GOP majority in the Senate.

Bruno accused Spitzer of failing to negotiate any of a dozen or more major measures without first accepting the Spitzer campaign finance plan.

Spitzer countered that Bruno had gone "on vacation" with major issues left undone.

Other issues left unsettled are a single strategy to revive the upstate economy; a death penalty for cop killers; a $200 million property tax for seniors; and a capital construction budget that provides nearly $1 billion in borrowing for public projects at colleges and elsewhere.

Most immediate is a New York City plan to create tolls in much of Manhattan to reduce traffic and air pollution as part of a national pilot program that could bring $500 million in federal funds to New York.

Bruno said he has "penciled in" July 16 to vote on needed legislation by the federal deadline, but negotiations have all but stopped.

"I think I can get along with anybody," Bruno said.

"But ... if he or anyone else thinks that they are going to 'knock me out so that I can't get up' and I can't function, well, they're wrong," Bruno said.

"I told the governor directly, I have dealt with bullies, and rogues and thugs most of my life," Bruno said, calling Spitzer an elitist.

"I grew up in the toughest part of Glens Falls next to the boxcars, where kids would come up to you when you weighed 90 pounds and they weighed 120 and just punch you right in the mouth, just because you were Italian, or just because you lived next to the boxcars, or just because they felt like it."

"That's how I grew up."

"So swing away."

"Interest grows in Bruno's travels - Soares, Cuomo seek documents on senator's flights; Spitzer orders review of alleged threats"

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

First published: Tuesday, July 3, 2007

ALBANY -- The flap surrounding Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno's use of state aircraft widened Monday, with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Albany County District Attorney David Soares requesting documents related to the Brunswick Republican's flights to New York City on state aircraft.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer's office also ordered State Police to conduct a formal "threat assessment," which could clarify whether Bruno was entitled to State Police drivers who transported him from New York City airports and helipads to his destinations in the city.

Bruno in a press conference Monday said he has received threats over the years, an assertion with which State Police spokesman Glenn Miner agreed.

But there had never been a formal assessment, Miner said.

Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp said Bruno's requests for police escorts were in New York City, not the Capitol Region.

Dopp also said Bruno has a "standing request" that police be allowed to use their sirens and emergency lights when they drive him in New York City to speed his progress through traffic.

"Numerous times he requests lights and sirens and we say no," Dopp said, explaining that even the governor doesn't get such escorts.

"He wanted to get around New York City as quickly as possible," Dopp said of the police requests, even though the Senate majority has its own cars and drivers based in the Big Apple.

Bruno, the state's top Republican, and Spitzer, a Democrat, have been locked in combat for weeks, with Spitzer calling for campaign finance overhaul and Bruno charging that the governor has held up a raft of legislation on that one point.

Bruno contends the changes would undercut his thin majority in the Senate.

The Times Union on Sunday reported that Bruno used state aircraft to travel to Republican fundraisers in Manhattan on three occasions this year.

State planes and helicopters are available to top officials like Spitzer or Bruno for state business but not for fundraisers or other purely political trips.

Bruno on Monday accused the Spitzer administration of leaking the flight records, and said the trips were made for official state business as well as fundraisers.

But he continued to refuse to release detailed itineraries of those trips.

Soares' investigation would focus on whether there was a violation of the law, while Cuomo's office would look to see if taxpayer funds should be recovered.

"Public integrity is a priority for this office and obviously we will review any materials that are forwarded to us," said Cuomo spokesman John Milgrim.

Soares spokeswoman Heather Orth said the DA's office requested "whatever (documents) they would have to support the claims that are being made."

It remains to be seen whether Inspector General Kristine Hamman will also look into the Bruno matter.

Normally the inspector general does not investigate lawmakers, but officials are discussing whether Hamman could investigate the issue because state resources and personnel are involved.

For now, Bruno will continue to have access to the state air fleet, although Spitzer's office mulled the possibility of grounding the senate leader.

"If a request was made tomorrow for something that was related to his official duties, we wouldn't refuse it," Dopp said.

How much Bruno could be liable for if he is found to have misused the state's Bell 430S helicopter is unclear, but Dopp said a privately chartered, multi-passenger day trip to New York City would run about $20,000.

Elected officials frequently tap their campaign funds for political travel expenses.

Bruno's fund is at nearly $1.9 million as of his latest public disclosure filing in January.

That doesn't count fundraisers during the legislative session.

Meanwhile, Republican state Chairman Joseph Mondello is seeking records from 14 flights the governor made since January.

"There were political events on all of those dates," said state GOP spokesman Matt Walter.

Spitzer had earlier given itineraries to the Times Union of his plane trips, including one to Monroe County where he attended a dinner that raised money for the local Democratic party but not himself.

Bruno fired back against Spitzer during a Monday news conference, suggesting that he and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, could govern the state largely without Spitzer, passing laws and overriding vetoes that the governor may make.

"I don't know why we can't govern with the speaker," Bruno said, adding "I never got a real answer from the speaker," on that point.

Bruno also said Spitzer threatened to give him a political knockout punch, warning that "I am going to hit you so hard you're going to go down."

"You're never going to get up."

Dopp said the conversation "never happened."

"Eliot never speaks in such a manner," he said.

"The concept of Eliot saying, 'I'm going to knock you down' or 'knock you out' is ridiculous."

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

Jay Jochnowitz and James M. Odato contributed to this story

"Judge blasts greedy auditor - Letters charging ex-state employee is unrepentant nearly derail sentencing"

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, July 3, 2007

ALBANY -- A disgusted county court judge dressed-down a 50-year-old former state auditor, who bilked taxpayers out of more than $1.2 million to bankroll his lavish lifestyle, before sentencing him Monday to up to 10 years in prison.

"Five Corvettes?" Judge Thomas A. Breslin practically shouted to James Leggiero, a former senior auditor for the Office of Mental Health who pleaded guilty in April to grand larceny.

"That's just absolutely bald-faced greed."

Breslin was referring to the cars that Leggiero, of Kennewyck Circle in Guilderland, amassed in more than eight years of fraud -- during which he stole more than four times that taken by former Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who resigned in disgrace in December 2006 after pleading guilty to defrauding the government.

As part of his plea deal, Leggiero has agreed to pay back the money.

But the sentencing was nearly derailed Monday when Breslin was angered by letters he received from two of the man's neighbors, who claimed Leggiero appeared even now to maintain a cavalier attitude about his crimes.

The letters, copies of which were not immediately available, claimed Leggiero's two sons are attending a $6,000 soccer camp this summer paid for with stolen taxpayer money.

The claims clearly infuriated Breslin, who called for a 10-minute recess after a spirited discussion with attorneys from both sides at his bench.

Leggiero's lawyer, Stephen Coffey, later acknowledged that the camp had been paid for with state money but said the payments were made months ago --before his client was even arrested -- and despite his best efforts, the camp's organizers refused to refund the money.

"That was not money that was spent after the charges," Coffey told the judge.

Of the letters, he later told reporters outside court: "I think there is a fair degree of jealousy in those statements."

Coffey declined to identify the camp and denied yet another claim that Leggiero had recently bought one of his sons a new Volkswagen sedan.

The car is not new, Coffey said, and was paid for out of a trust established by the boys' grandmother.

Leggiero's voice trembled as he read from brief prepared remarks, speaking of missing his school-aged sons' scholastic and sporting events.

He said he took full responsibility for the thefts and apologized to the state, to his former agency and to the mentally ill people it served.

Breslin was not impressed.

Citing the "extent and the nature of your disdain for the system and the oath that you took," Breslin told Leggiero he was "exceedingly lucky" before sentencing him to 3 /3 to 10 years in prison.

"If I'd comment further, I'd regret my comments," Breslin said.

Leggiero, who worked for the state for 27 years, was earning $79,000 when the state attorney general's office made its investigation public in March.

His wife, Kathleen, also formerly worked in OMH's budget division but has since been reassigned within the agency, said OMH spokeswoman Jill Daniels.

Kathleen Leggiero was never charged with a crime and Lee Park, a spokesman for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, on Monday said "the culpability" lies with James Leggiero alone.

Prosecutors say Leggiero established a bogus company -- Very Important Properties -- that was supposed to make reports on possible locations for OMH-sponsored facilities.

Leggiero allegedly hid his association with the company, using it to bill OMH for as much as $99,000 at a time -- ultimately stealing $1,232,072 -- for work that was never done on properties that were either unsuitable or non-existent, prosecutors have said.

He has since repaid more than $700,000 and, as part of the plea deal, is banned from ever seeking public employment again.

Breslin ordered him turned over to the state prison system.

Jordan Carleo-Evangelist can be reached at 454-5445 or by e-mail at jcarleo-evangelist@ timesunion.com.

David Soares
District Attorney
Albany County
Albany County Judicial Building
6 Lodge Street
Albany, NY 12207

July 3, 2007

Dear Mr. Soares:

I write to ask for your office to investigate an attempt at extortion of the New York State Senate and in particular the Majority Leader Joseph Bruno by one Gary Labelle, the National Advertising Manager of the Albany Times Union on July 3, 2007 in a phone call to the Communications Office of the Senate.

I am sure you are aware of the sense that Senator Bruno has made it clear that he believes that the press coverage by the Times Union of him and his Majority Conference has been biased.

He has been quoted by the newspaper and other media outlets as stating his belief.

Against that background, the phone call of July 3, 2007 is an attempt to shake down the Senate and the Senator and would be an attempt to extort both public and private money.

Mr. Labelle called the Communications Office in the morning of July 3, 2007.

He identified himself as a member of the Times Union Advertising Department.

He indicated that he was someone very sympathetic to the Senate and agreed with the Senate.

He was connected to Mark Hansen of the Communications Office.

Mr. Labelle proceeded to state to Mr. Hansen that the Senator and the Senate should consider buying ad space in the Times Union, indicated that in contrast with the news coverage it might be a good way for the Senator to let people know the Senate and Senator Bruno's positions and that it would get our side out and our points across.

Mr. Hansen believed that the call was an attempt to obtain monies from the Senator or the Senate otherwise the negative and biased coverage would continue.

When he confronted Mr. Labelle with his belief, Mr. Labelle stated that was not what he was saying but he did want to meet with someone anyway to discuss the possibility of advertising placement.

The acts of the Times Union employee appear to be an attempt at extortion under state law Penal Law 155.05 (e)(ix).

We respectfully request that your office begin an investigation into the Times Union and its National Advertising Manager Gary Labelle for Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree Penal Law 155.30 (6), a E felony.

We will make available to you or your investigators Mr.Hansen for an interview.

If you need any other information we will fully co operate with your inquiry.

I looking forward to your reply.

VTY

John McArdle

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...nd_ends_50.html

"Businessmen say Bruno's contested flights were on state business"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:14 p.m., Tuesday, July 3, 2007

ALBANY -- Spokesmen for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Shell Oil Co., the New York City mayor and a major Manhattan developer on Tuesday said Senate leader Joseph Bruno met with them on official state business on days when Bruno's use of a state helicopter is being challenged.

Bruno's use of state aircraft for three recent trips to Manhattan on days that political fundraisers were scheduled has caused a furor this week in Albany, where politics often mix with policy and ethics laws are notoriously weak.

The issue was first raised Sunday by the Times Union of Albany, which also reported that state records show Bruno used the aircraft on those days and a state police detail to drive him around Manhattan.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has ordered a state police threat assessment to see if Bruno was eligible for the detail; Bruno has said it is needed because of documented death threats over the years.

If the trips were purely for politics, Bruno could have run up against the state public officers' law that prohibits a public official from using his official position to gain unwarranted privileges for himself or others.

A violation could result in a fine or removal from office.

State penal law might also apply, the newspaper reported.

A state Ethics Commission opinion obtained Tuesday and dating to 1995 appears to authorize the use of state aircraft for trips even if they include political events and fundraising as long as there is some legitimate state meeting or other purpose.

Former governors Mario Cuomo and George Pataki both used the Ethics Commission rationale for using state aircraft.

Corporate officials told The Associated Press they met with the senator on May 3, May 17 and May 24, providing the first details of the trips Bruno listed on a form requesting state aircraft as "legislative business meetings."

Bruno is expected to be questioned by the state Attorney General's Office and the Albany County District Attorney's Office about the trips.

"It was lunch," said Bill Miller, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, about his meeting with Bruno on May 17.

"We talked about taxes."

He said U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue also attended the meeting.

Miller said the meeting was at CV Star & Co. on Park Avenue, the address where state police records say Bruno was taken at 12:30 p.m. that day.

That is also the company headed by insurance magnate Maurice Greenberg, a Republican donor who had conflicts with Spitzer when he was attorney general.

Another meeting that day involved oil company executives and Bruno, said a spokesman for one of the companies.

"It was a substantive meeting," said Bruce Gyory, a lobbyist.

He said he arranged a May 17 meeting between executives of TransCanada and Shell Oil Co. with Bruno.

"It was on energy and the Broadwater issue."

Broadwater Energy -- a consortium of Shell Oil and TransCanada -- is seeking federal permission to build a $700 million terminal in Long Island Sound.

Some Long Islanders are lobbying to block the project.

On May 3, Bruno stated in the records, he was in "legislative business meetings" in New York City.

"I was there," said lobbyist Patricia Lynch, the former top adviser to Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver until 2000.

"I was with my clients from Tishman Speyer concerning legislation."

Tishman Speyer, owner of New York's Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler building, is among Manhattan's biggest developers.

On the night of May 3, Bruno hosted the $1,000-per-person annual spring meeting of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan.

The next day, state police records show Bruno was driven to Aqueduct race track, where the New York Racing Association operates under the state's thoroughbred racing franchise.

The franchise ends Dec. 31 and the governor and Legislature are considering how to continue racing.

The night of May 24, Bruno attended a fundraiser for himself, after being dropped off by state police at City Hall where he met with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"It was about the city's legislative agenda in Albany," said Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Bloomberg, a Bruno ally and campaign contributor.

"The meeting happened."

Bruno has defended the trips, saying the fundraisers were at the end of a day of legislative business and use of a state helicopter allowed him to avoid an overnight stay in Manhattan which he said wouldn't be productive.

Most of those he met with, however, are also political donors, often to Republicans and Democrats in a common approach in Albany for people and companies doing or seeking to do business with the state.

For example, Tishman Speyer contributed $85,000 to various candidates since 2000, including $25,000 last year to the Republicans state committee.

And the billionaire mayor donated $750,000 to the state Republican committee and senators since October, according to state elections records.

Bruno, however, has refused to say who he met those days, but said he would cooperate with authorities.

Bruno and his spokesman, John McArdle, insist that releasing who they met with would have a chilling effect on people providing information about the need for legislation or regulatory enforcement.

A documented headed "Aviation Procedures" appears to allow for limited use of state aircraft for "other than state business," but establishes a reimbursement based on Internal Revenue Service formulas.

An opinion issued in 1995 by the state Ethics Commission appears to also approve the use of state aircraft for travel that includes "political functions" as long as there was some legitimate state purpose, as Bruno maintains.

"As long as the trip included a bona fide public purpose, the ethics laws did not require reimbursement for those portions of the trip that were political in nature," the ethics opinion stated.

State Ethics Commission spokesman Walter Ayres said the policy remains in effect.

"For Bruno, a display of offense and defense - As lawmaker jabs paper, some vouch for official business side of flights"

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

First published: Wednesday, July 4, 2007

TROY -- As Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno continued to defend his use of state aircraft to travel to Manhattan fundraisers, several people with business before state government said they met with the Republican lawmaker during those trips.

Also Tuesday, Bruno lashed out at the Times Union for reporting the story and accused the paper of a "shakedown" attempt, which the paper called "preposterous."

Bruno has refused to release details of his trips to Manhattan on state aircraft, saying he is trying to protect the privacy of people he met.

"There are other people, business people, who don't necessarily want to see their names in headlines in disparaging ways," the Brunswick Republican said Tuesday afternoon.

However, the Associated Press reported that spokesmen for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Shell Oil Co., New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a major Manhattan developer said Bruno met with them on days when he used a state helicopter to fly to New York City.

Those meetings occurred on trips that also included political fundraisers.

Bruno's travel, first reported Sunday by the Times Union, is under the scrutiny of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Albany County District Attorney David Soares.

At issue is whether the trips were purely political, which would violate state law that prohibits personal use of state resources.

Past governors, however, had been allowed to use aircraft when there is a mix of political and government activity, although they sometimes reimbursed the state for part of the cost.

The trips, according the Associated Press, included:

A May 3 meeting with lobbyist Patricia Lynch, the former top adviser to Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and her client, Tishman Speyer, one of Manhattan's biggest developers.

That night, Bruno hosted a Senate GOP fundraiser at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan, with tickets ranging from $1,000 to $5,000.

A May 17 meeting with TransCanada and Shell Oil Co., who comprise Broadwater Energy, which is proposing a controversial liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound.

The meeting was at the office of a Republican contributor.

That evening was a state Republican Party fundraiser, with tickets ranging from $1,000 to as high as $10,000 a couple.

A May 24 meeting at New York City Hall with Mayor Bloomberg.

Bruno later attended a fundraiser held in his honor.

On Tuesday, Bruno attacked the paper, with his office alleging that an ad salesman attempted to "shake down" the Senate and calling for an investigation by Soares.

Times Union Publisher Mark Aldam called the allegation "preposterous."

Bruno aide Mark Hansen said he spoke with an advertising salesman who was "apologetic of his paper's news coverage of Senator Bruno and distanced himself from the views of the news and editorial departments prior to giving his sales pitch that buying ads in the Times Union would enable Senator Bruno 'to let people know about all the good things the senator is doing.' "

Hansen's statement did not assert that the salesman suggested that news coverage of the senator would be influenced by the purchase of ads.

In a letter to Soares, however, Bruno aide John McArdle characterized the sales call as "an attempt to shake down the Senate and the senator and would be an attempt to extort both public and private money."

In his letter, McArdle noted that the salesman denied he was suggesting that buying ads would affect coverage, but said Hansen took it that way.

Aldam said, "These assertions are preposterous and absolutely baseless."

Aldam said his understanding was that the salesman approached Bruno's office about placing issue ads that might respond to ads the state Democratic Committee has been running on timesunion.com and other Web sites.

Aldam said the paper does not believe the salesman suggested such purchases would affect news coverage.

In a prepared statement, Aldam said the paper has a clear wall between advertising and news coverage, "and we zealously guard against breaches in the wall that separates our commercial and our journalistic goals."

Aldam added that "To imply any breach of integrity by the Times Union strikes me as an unfair attempt by Senator Bruno's office to redirect attention from recent public reports toward the media company responsible for the initial reporting."

Bruno also said he has canceled his subscription to the paper.

Bruno and Gov. Eliot Spitzer have been at odds for several weeks, with the Senate leader refusing to go along with the Democratic governor's call for campaign finance reform.

Bruno says tighter contribution limits would unduly favor wealthy self-funded candidates like Spitzer.

The dispute has held up progress on a number of issues such as capital spending for economic development, expanding the state's DNA database for criminal investigations and streamlining laws that govern public construction projects, and the death penalty for cop killers.

Despite the acrimony, Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp said the leaders' staffs continue to discuss outstanding issues on a daily basis.

The Legislature is slated to return July 16 to at least take up a controversial congestion pricing plan to charge drivers to enter midtown Manhattan during the work week.

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

"Report details racing bidders - State inspector general raises questions about each of four groups seeking track contract"

By BRENDAN J. LYONS, Senior writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, July 3, 2007

ALBANY -- The integrity of four bidders vying to run the state's top horse racing tracks was called into question in a sobering background report released Monday by the state inspector general's office.

The 145-page report neither disqualified any of the groups nor made recommendations as to which of them should be granted the job of running the Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga race tracks.

But the detailed document outlined potential problems with all of the bidders as it unveiled a tapestry of shady business figures with questionable backgrounds, politically connected investors, organized crime syndicates and instances of arguably privileged access to key elected leaders by people in the hunt for the lucrative contract.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer ordered the background investigation in February ahead of a year-end decision, along with the Legislature, on whether to renew the New York Racing Association's contract to manage the three tracks.

NYRA's contract expires Dec. 31.

The groups bidding for a 20-year franchise are: NYRA, which is seeking to recover from criminal wrongdoing by employees and indebtedness; Empire Racing Associates, a group of horse racing and gaming enthusiasts with ties to Saratoga Springs and Kentucky; Excelsior Racing Associates, which is backed by Las Vegas casino developer Steve Wynn; and Capital Play Ltd. which was involved with efforts to improve horse racing in Australia.

The report "illustrates why racing is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the nation," Spitzer said in a statement.

"History has shown that the large amounts of cash at stake in racing pose risks for illegal activities including money laundering ... tax schemes and race fixing."

"... Indeed, this is why I required an integrity review in the first place."

Among the report's highlights:

"Numerous individuals associated with bidding entities have relationships with, or have made sizable contributions to, political leaders in New York State, including the Governor and Senate Majority Leader ..."

An FBI check revealed one key person in a bidding franchise has pending criminal charges.

Two others disclosed prior criminal convictions.

The individuals were not identified.

New York's horse racing industry, and some of the current bidders, have connections to so-called rebate shops outside the United States where bettors view video simulcasts of races or wager through telephone and Internet connections.

Such shops, which are banned at some tracks, give bettors a rebate for bulk gambling but are vulnerable to corruption.

Timothy Smith, a national figure in horse racing, and Jared Abbruzzese, a Loudonville businessman and friend of Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, helped form Empire Racing Associates and allegedly teamed up to influence Bruno.

Oleg Deripaska, who is suspected of having ties to Russian organized crime and is prohibited from entering the United States, is seeking to buy a $1.54 billion stake in Magna Entertainment Corp, a Canadian-based investor in Empire Racing.

Four investors with Empire Racing, including Saratoga-based socialite Marylou Whitney, abruptly divested shares of Empire in March as an apparent effort to prevent having to undergo background checks, which include financial disclosures.

Karl O'Farrell of Capital Play Ltd., is majority owner of Capital Play Pty. Ltd., of Australia, which is banned from doing business at New York tracks.

Richard Fields of Excelsior Racing has made significant campaign contributions and provided campaign-related jet flights to then-Attorney General Spitzer and to then-Senate Minority Leader David Paterson.

Fields paid $9,000 in penalties to the state Lobbying Commission for Paterson's flights; Spitzer's gubernatorial campaign committee repaid Fields' companies more than $100,000 for catering and transportation.

The report comes as Spitzer is said to be considering a plan to grant the embattled NYRA a 20-year extension to run horse racing at Belmont and Saratoga while selling off Aqueduct to pay NYRA's estimated $400 million in debt.

Part of that plan calls for giving the rights to run a track-based video slot machine casino to Excelsior Racing, according to a published report last month.

Bruno told The Associated Press on Monday that Spitzer needs to make a recommendation rather than turn over the integrity report.

J. Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

Previously:

Aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer have suggested the state could sell its Aqueduct racetrack to settle debts and restructure the New York Racing Association to keep its horse racing franchise.

The latest:

A background report unearths questions and doubts about some franchise bidders.

What's next:

Before the year ends, Spitzer and lawmakers must decide who will run racing in New York.

"State flights raise ruckus - Aircraft use by Bruno, Spitzer comes under scrutiny along party lines"

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

First published: Monday, July 2, 2007

ALBANY -- Revelations that Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and Gov. Eliot Spitzer may have used the state air fleet for fundraising or political purposes have triggered a firestorm on both sides of the aisle.

The Times Union on Sunday reported that Bruno, the state's top Republican, used state aircraft on three occasions to travel to fundraisers in Manhattan, while Spitzer used an aircraft for one trip that was partly political.

Bruno's flights will likely be referred to the inspector general's office or attorney general's office on Monday, according to a state source who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the referral hadn't yet been ordered.

Another source who spoke anonymously because the affair has not been thoroughly examined told the Times Union the case is more likely to be referred to the inspector general.

However, that office appears to have no power over legislators.

State aircraft aren't supposed to be used for fundraising or political purposes.

Bruno certified that he was on official state business during the Manhattan trips, although records show fundraisers had been scheduled during those periods.

That prompted an attack from Democrats.

"Air Bruno must be grounded, and the senator forced to repay the people of the state of New York," state Democratic Chairwoman June O'Neill and Co-Chairman Dave Pollak said in a prepared statement.

They also called for an investigation.

Likewise, Joseph Mondello, chairman of the Republican State Committee, said they would be seeking Spitzer's travel records under the Freedom of Information Law.

He suggested that the governor's recent appearances across the state, where he condemned Senate Republicans with whom he is feuding, constituted political trips.

"During this past week, Governor Spitzer misused thousands of taxpayer dollars by using state aircraft to travel to various locations for the sole purpose of continuing his endless political crusade against duly-elected Senate Republicans," Mondello said in a prepared statement.

Spitzer used state aircraft 19 times in the first five months of the year, and at least part of one trip was political.

A portion of the seven flights by Democratic Lt. Gov. David Paterson included a brief political stop, but neither used the trips to raise money for their own campaigns.

Spitzer spokesman Paul Larrabee said they would turn over travel schedules if asked.

"We routinely provide the schedules for public review," he said.

Bruno spokesman John McArdle told The Associated Press that his boss's trips constituted state business.

"On those days, we met with government officials and did legislative business," McArdle said Sunday.

"The notion that he uses the helicopter for personal use is nonsense."

Records showed Bruno and his top aides used state aircraft 11 times in the first five months of this year.

McArdle said that on the three trips in question, Bruno spoke with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and officials with the New York Racing Association and toured Aqueduct racetrack.

In general, he said Bruno routinely also meets with civic groups, newspaper editorial boards and others related to state business.

McArdle wouldn't release details of the government business conducted on each of the three days, explaining that Bruno won't release that detail because Gov. Eliot Spitzer doesn't.

He added that Bruno has received numerous death threats and is therefore provided State Police security details.

The senator also has received rides from State Police on the fundraising trips.

Democrats, though, said they doubted the extent of the threats.

"The senator's contention that security concerns provide a rationale for such misconduct is nonsense," said O'Neill and Pollak.

An aviation expert consulted by the Times Union estimated that the type of helicopters used by the State Police fleet can cost $3,000 per hour to operate.

In addition to the inspector general or the attorney general, other agencies could become involved.

The Legislative Ethics Committee, which oversees the Senate and Assembly, could investigate, another source who spoke to the Times Union under condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, although it's uncertain who, if anyone, from those bodies would bring a complaint.

Another investigating agency is the Albany County district attorney's office, but there was no immediate indication it would become involved.

District Attorney David Soares was unavailable late Sunday.

If the trips turned out to be for political fundraisers rather than authorized state business, Bruno could be found in violation of the Code of Ethics of State Public Officers Law and face a fine or removal from office.

Any violation could also break state laws against defrauding government, the kind of case that was brought against Democratic state Comptroller Alan Hevesi last year.

Hevesi resigned in December following a scandal in which he used state employees as drivers and servants for his ailing wife.

He later pleaded guilty to a felony in an agreement that allowed him to avoid prison time but pay a $5,000 fine.

Bruno had criticized Hevesi in that affair, saying he was guilty of a "a serious breach of the public trust."

Bruno and Spitzer have been locked in political combat for the past several weeks, clashing over spending and legislation since February.

Bruno also is contending with a continuing FBI investigation into his relationship with a businessman and Republican donor.

Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver didn't use state aircraft, according to the records.

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

Associated Press contributed to this story.

Who wants to live in a state without adequate public health protection is my thought this morning ....

Who wants to live in a state that has the public health protection of a third-world country like IRAQINAM, where sewage flows in the streets?

"Sewage flooding hits neighborhood - Residents of Albany's Melrose Avenue angry after overflow comes into basements again"

By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, June 29, 2007

ALBANY -- A year after they thought their problem was finally solved, Melrose Avenue residents again found their basements flooded with city sewage.

In August 2005, about a dozen homes in the Melrose Avenue neighborhood reported that sewage-contaminated water soaked their basements during heavy rainstorms.

The city said last May it believed it had traced the problem and removed a massive tree root in a 36-inch sewer.

For a year, it seemed as if it had worked.

But Wednesday night's rainstorms brought back the same tea-colored, foul-smelling water.

"This has been an ongoing problem, and the city has been on notice," said Katina Mavodones, secretary to the Melrose Neighborhood Association and one of the affected homeowners.

"We had about 8 to 10 inches of not only water but sewage."

"We erroneously thought the problem was solved."

"The city's unresponsiveness is amazing."

Mavodones, who has a 3-year-old, is concerned about the health impact.

Bill Campfield, another homeowner, is also upset.

"They keep saying it's an act of God," he said.

"The city should be going around and surveying how many people were affected by this problem."

William Simcoe, assistant commissioner of the city's Department of Water and Water Supply, said the city is trying to determine why the problem recurred.

"It was a horrendous storm."

"We had quite a deluge last night," he said.

"We're still out talking to people who have called with problems."

Simcoe said 60 percent of the city has combined storm and sewer drainage systems, rather than separate ones.

"There is a potential for backups," he said.

His department has added large storage systems into the area near Melrose to try to curtail the sewage overflows, he said.

He also recommends homeowners install a check valve that would prevent backups.

But Campfield said a check valve can be an expensive solution, costing as much as $5,000 to have installed.

"It's not like going out to Home Depot to get a smoke detector," he said.

The price can vary depending on the layout of a home's plumbing, Simcoe said.

The city is also participating in a $5 million study to see what can be done about overflows in combined sewer and water systems.

Troy, Green Island, Cohoes and Watervliet are also participating, he said.

"The problem of combined sewers and overflows is something that is going to have to be addressed over a long period of time and at a cost of several million dollars," Simcoe said.

If a large road project is done, the city makes replacing the combined systems with separate ones part of that work, Simcoe said.

But a major road project is not planned for the Melrose Avenue neighborhood.

"Some of the problems have to do with the locations of people's housing and plumbing."

"Melrose is in a valley," he said.

"That's where you tend to have the problems."

"We're trying to respond and talk to people."

Tim O'Brien can be reached at 454-5092 or by e-mail at tobrien@timesunion.com.

"Plan for massive retail center spurs concerns - Some Greene County residents wary of proposal for 330-acre site backed by local development agency"

By ALAN WECHSLER, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, July 4, 2007

NEW BALTIMORE -- It's too early to call it an opposition group, but organizers hope to bring together community members concerned about a giant retail project proposed near Thruway Exit 21B in Greene County.

Meredith Downs has scheduled a meeting of the group, Citizens for Alternatives to the Multi-use Park, or CAMP, on Friday.

While CAMP doesn't have any alternatives in mind -- at least not yet -- Downs, 33, wants to give residents more opportunities for a say in the project, which could include 2.2 million square feet of commercial and residential space.

The CAMP meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at Coxsackie Village Hall.

"Considering the magnitude ... you really need to be careful about how thoroughly you allow the public to be heard," Downs said Tuesday.

The Greene County Industrial Development Agency wants to spend as much as $110 million to prepare 330 acres for a master developer to build a retail, office, hotel and resort complex on the scale of Woodbury Common Premium Outlets.

The site is just north of Kalkberg Commerce Park on Route 9W in Coxsackie.

The IDA's costs include the expense of moving Thruway Exit 21B so it lead cars to the project.

Work will not take place until a master developer is found, officials have said.

Construction could start as soon as next summer.

The proposed development would mean millions in tax revenue for the county and the Coxsackie-Athens School District.

Downs said she and other residents were unsatisfied with the opportunities for public comment on the project.

During a public hearing last week at a local firehouse, a number of residents were turned away for lack of space -- including two members of the local planning board, Downs said.

Others left during a 90-minute presentation by project backers. '

The comment period itself lasted another 90 minutes, she said.

A second meeting was held to accommodate the overflow, but Downs dismissed it as an event where public comment was not officially recorded.

"The process was pretty poorly done," she said.

Downs wants the comment time on the project extended -- the IDA is accepting written response to its draft generic environmental impact statement through July 13.

And she wants another public hearing held, this time in a larger venue.

Downs also hopes to get volunteers to help read the 4-inch-thick IDA review document.

Some locals are concerned the project could forever alter the character of the rural community.

In particular, Downs said, neighbors are worried about how traffic on back roads would increase and also about a second wave of new businesses and homes that could come into town as a result of the project.

Backers say they've taken traffic into account and that it would be would mitigated by the new Thruway ramp and roundabouts on Route 9W.

Alexander "Sandy" Mathes Jr., executive director of the IDA, said Tuesday he was aware of the group and had been providing them with more details on the project.

He said the community has been fairly supportive of the complex.

At the hearing last week, many of those who spoke were impressed with the way the project has been handled so far.

But others said the plan was out of character for the community.

Mathes said he would be open to talking about changing the project's size, but only to a certain extent.

"There still has to be a certain level of economics for the site to work," he said.

"But everything's on the table."

Alan Wechsler can be reached at 454-5469 or by e-mail at awechsler@timesunion.com.

"Company to repay state grant - Flow Management Technologies failed to meet job-creation goal"

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

First published: Tuesday, July 3, 2007

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Flow Management Technologies Inc. has agreed to repay a grant received from Empire State Development Corp. after it didn't meet job-creation targets.

Flow, which provides Web sites and online services for physicians and an "Interaction Center" that can field the majority of phone calls to a doctor's office, received a $400,000 capital grant in January 2001, said Empire State spokesman A.J. Carter.

In return, Flow officials agreed to create 520 jobs at the company's headquarters on High Rock Avenue in Saratoga Springs.

"Obviously, they didn't," Carter said Monday.

In 2004, Empire State extended the terms of the grant for a year, and in 2005, it demanded loan repayment.

The terms called for Flow to repay $320,000 if it didn't meet targets.

The company began payments in January 2006, but then stopped when it ran into financial problems, Carter said.

New terms were worked out, with payments of $1,500 a month and a balloon payment of $213,333.32 in May 2012.

Flow has been making the new payments, and a filing Monday in state Supreme Court in Saratoga County was basically an agreement by Flow that it defaulted and owes the money.

Calls to Flow's president and CEO, Craig Skevington, on Monday were not returned.

"Region faces looming jobs gap"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, July 1, 2007

The aging population of the Capital Region -- we rank 12th nationwide in the share of residents 65 and older -- is posing a challenge for employers.

Many have begun planning for the day when workers will be hard to find.

They've surveyed their employees, determining where the most critical shortages will arise, and have already begun recruiting and training replacements.

Elsewhere, organizations such as CSX Transportation turn to the Internet, recruiting online for engineers and conductors to operate their freight trains.

"Half our work force is eligible to retire in the next decade," said a spokeswoman for the railroad, which maintains its largest switching facility in Selkirk.

The company has nearly 1,400 employees in the region.

While every region of the country faces the dilemma of replacing retiring baby boomers with job candidates from the much smaller Generation X, the problem is especially acute upstate, with younger adults moving elsewhere.

"It's likely to be a factor limiting our ability to grow," said Richard Deitz, senior economist at the Buffalo branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who compiled the data on the Capital Region's aging population.

The retirements will hit health care and government and education particularly hard.

In health care especially, the number of job candidates is expected to decline even as an aging population boosts demand for health services.

At Troy-based Northeast Health, which operates both Samaritan and Albany Memorial hospitals, younger nurses and other medical staff are being trained in such critical areas as emergency room and intensive care unit duties.

Management has surveyed staffing throughout the organization and come up with a list of the areas where retirements could cause a labor squeeze.

"Younger staff go into a one-year mentoring program to develop the judgment and skill to work in the specialty area," said Barbara McCandless, vice president of human resources at Northeast Health.

"It's like taking three years of experience and concentrating it in one year."

At Albany Memorial, 40-year-old Lorinda Brown is learning the skills needed to staff the emergency room.

Brown has been a nurse for seven years, after a 10-year career with the Rensselaer Fire Department, where she was an emergency medical technician.

"I wanted to see what happened in the other half of the treatment" after EMTs delivered patients to the hospital, she said, explaining her career switch.

"Nursing is becoming more of a second career" and a source of new job candidates, said Nancy Harris, director of Albany Memorial's emergency room.

The ER often draws more candidates because the work is not routine and therefore more interesting.

Filling nursing positions on some of the medical surgical floors, she said, can be "a little bit tougher."

Convincing older nurses to continue working is one tactic in coping with the shortage.

Many nurses are able to begin working shorter, flexible schedules by the time they're 58, moving to a schedule where they work an occasional day here and there, by the age of 62 or 63, McCandless said.

State agencies, are facing their own crunch.

"Twenty-five percent of our (local) work force is government-related," said Rocco Ferraro, who heads the Capital District Regional Planning Commission in Colonie.

"A large number was hired during the 1970s."

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize 30 years is the magic number."

Indeed, nearly a quarter of the employees enrolled in the state retirement system are 55 or older.

They can retire at any time, although only those with 30 years of service would get the maximum retirement benefits.

Half the state employees in the Capital Region are 48 or older.

Erin Barlow, director of the public information office at the state Department of Civil Service, said New York's fiscal retrenchment and hiring freezes following the 1970s employment increases have left the state with fewer younger employees.

Now, the department is attempting to convince younger adults that working for the state doesn't mean they'll be "stuck in a cubicle performing one mundane job."

"We want people, especially the younger work force, to know that there are a variety of opportunities in government, from working as a production manager at a TV studio operated by SUNY to patrolling the state parks as a forest ranger," Barlow said.

It's an issue other established businesses also face.

"We're not well known among young people and we need to make sure they understand we're a modern industry with a great future," said Gary Sease, a spokesman for CSX.

Traffic has been growing strongly, and with so many people eligible for retirement, the railroad is recruiting heavily, and say the Capital Region has some advantages over other cities with rapidly aging populations.

State labor markets analyst James Ross said the area actually has seen a net gain in population since 2000, even as other upstate cities continued to lose people.

And Ferraro, of the regional planning commission, said local employers have a large number of college students from which to recruit.

"We have a captive group," he said.

"Can we retain them?"

In the past, they've tended to leave the Capital Region for larger metropolitan areas, particularly New York City and Boston, as soon as they graduate, Ferraro said.

But he said when they're ready to have families and put down roots, usually by the time they hit 30, the Capital Region may be more appealing.

Ferraro said Albany often is compared to Austin, but that Texas city has a big advantage in holding on to young students after college graduation that Albany lacks.

Austin is relatively exciting compared with the small towns in Texas from which many of its young people come.

In Albany, students often come from New York City and its suburbs, or from other larger metropolitan areas along the East Coast.

The Capital Region loses younger people, leaving it with a disproportionate number of baby boomers and older adults.

But many of those baby boomers may want, or need, to keep on working.

"Not everyone wants to retire, not everyone can retire," said Gail Breen, executive director of the Fulton/Montgomery/ Schoharie Counties Workforce Development Board in Amsterdam.

"They may want shorter hours."

"They may be taking care of an aging parent."

"You get a lot of people from the state, teachers, police forces, retiring young," said Dan Gentile, who heads the Capital Regional Workforce Investment Board in Albany.

"They're in their 50s."

They could be "retooled," he said, learning new skills and continuing to work.

Organizations such as International Sematech likely will bring many workers with them.

Other companies may move here to be near Sematech or other large technology employers.

The labor crunch could also lead to a wage gain as employers compete for candidates.

"Companies ... can offer higher wages, up to a point where they still remain competitive," said Deitz, the Federal Reserve economist.

Wages in Capital Region counties are below the statewide average, and only Albany County's average weekly wage of $801 topped the U.S. average of $784, according to a U.S. Department of Labor survey released last week.

The higher wages could encourage older adults to continue working, while keeping younger people after they graduate.

Or they may not.

"You go to Boston, New York, Colorado or Seattle, and you realize the average age is 25 years or less."

"That's when it really strikes you how much more mature" the Capital Region is, said McCandless, the Northeast Health official.

"How do we retain that talent and make the community dynamic enough that (younger adults) want to stay here?"

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

THE NEW YORK POST

"GOV'S TROOPER SNOOP JOB ON BRUNO - ORDERED POLICE TO TRACK GOP FOE'S MOVEMENTS"

July 5, 2007 -- ALBANY - Gov. Spitzer targeted state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno for an unprecedented State Police surveillance program that led to allegations Bruno improperly used a state helicopter for political purposes, an investigation by The Post has found.

No other state official, including Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David Paterson, was singled out for the type of detailed record-keeping the State Police maintained on Bruno, the state's most powerful Republican, official records show.

Part of the Spitzer administration's justification for homing in on Bruno - the governor's leading political adversary - is a claim that state Conservative Party leader Michael Long raised objections to Bruno's use of the State Police.

Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp told The Post that the records on Bruno began to be assembled because "there was an incident late last year in which Mike Long called to complain about Joe bringing armed troopers to [Long's] fund-raising event."

"Long thought it was highly inappropriate, and it probably was."

"Recalling that incident, the [State Police] made some changes . . . and, yes, [started] keeping basic records, i.e. logs," Dopp said.

But Long insisted yesterday that he never complained about Bruno and the State Police, and that no such incident had occurred.

"That is a baldfaced lie," said Long, who has been at odds with Bruno in recent years.

"I never made a complaint to the State Police or the governor's office, and if Bruno had shown up with armed troopers I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it."

A senior state official familiar with the surveillance program told The Post that he believed the governor and his aides had sought to "set up" Bruno by having the State Police keep track of his travels.

"Why else would they do it if not to set up Bruno - by getting on him something they thought was incriminating - when they weren't doing it to anyone else?" said the official.

Bruno himself said "it appears" Spitzer and his staff used the State Police to try to obtain negative information on him in an effort to "set up an officeholder" with whom the governor disagrees.

"I would like not to believe that the governor and the people who work for him would purposely set up an officeholder of the opposing party, but it certainly appears that way," said Bruno.

"This is like something you'd expect in a Third World country, where some dictator has his enemies followed to see how they could either do something to them or disgrace them."

"This is dangerous in a free country."

A Bruno aide contended Spitzer's actions "are reminiscent of Richard Nixon with his 'enemies list.' "

The State Police, which are under the control of the governor, routinely chauffeur Spitzer and Paterson, who they also protect, during their travels throughout the state.

Bruno has regularly requested and received State Police drivers during his visits to New York City because, he has said, he's been the subject of numerous death threats.

Earlier this week, Spitzer said he would forward State Police records of Bruno's travels in New York City to at least two investigative agencies after published reports suggested Bruno, who lives in upstate Rensselaer County, improperly flew on a state-owned helicopter from Albany to the city for political events.

The records - of State Police escort runs around the city - were kept because of Long's complaint and a desire to avoid the misuse of state personnel, said Dopp.

But Dopp also said the record-keeping only started in early April, around the time that Spitzer, a freshman governor, began having major disputes with Bruno.

The Post filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all State Police driving records for Bruno, Spitzer, Paterson and other senior officials.

Dopp responded with State Police "transportation assignment" records detailing Bruno's travels during several recent trips to the city.

The records contain such entries as, "May 3, 7 p.m., dinner at Italian restaurant on Eastside (unknown name, located between 1st Ave. and 2nd Ave. in upper 40s.)"

And on May 4, "7 a.m. transported all subjects from Sheraton to Aqueduct Racetrack."

"11a.m. Depart from Aqueduct to La Guardia Airport."

Dopp said no such detailed, start-and-stop records were kept for Spitzer and Paterson because, he insisted, both officials make available their official schedules in advance of their travels.

But those schedules do not contain such detailed information as hour-by-hour stops and the restaurants and hotels that are visited.

Bruno has repeatedly insisted that all his trips on the state helicopter involve official business.

An Associated Press report yesterday quoted business leaders as saying they had met with Bruno to discuss state issues on the dates of the flights.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07052007/news/...cker.htm?page=0

THE NEW YORK POST

"AN ABUSE OF POWER?"

July 5, 2007 -- So now comes word that the New York State Police, at the direction of Gov. Spitzer's office, undertook a detailed surveillance of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

The surveillance appears to have culminated in a selectively leaked story published in an upstate newspaper meant clearly to undermine Bruno in his on-going battles with Spitzer.

Which it clearly has done.

Post State Editor Fredric U. Dicker reports this morning that detailed State Police records have been kept of Bruno's travels around the city.

It was those records that apparently served as the basis for the newspaper story - which appeared last Sunday in the Albany Times-Union.

No such records have been kept on the travels of Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David Paterson.

It hardly needs to be said that the application of police powers to serve political ends is antithetical to American traditions, values and law.

If, in fact, Spitzer sicced troopers on Bruno, the governor's effectiveness will be significantly constrained.

As it is, the boorishness that has characterized his administration almost from the beginning has all but hamstrung state government, rendering the governor's ambitious reform agenda moot.

In May, at the height of the governor's battles with Bruno, troopers began keeping records of the majority leader's use of a state helicopter and ground transportation for a number of trips he made - but not that of any other state officials.

The cops say they have no separate documentation of any trips by Paterson or Spitzer himself - although Spitzer acknowledges having used state aircraft and vehicles.

Yesterday, gubernatorial spokesman Darren Dopp said Bruno got special attention after Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long - often at ideological loggerheads with Bruno - said that the lawmaker was bringing armed troopers to fund-raising events.

Long flatly denied that.

Obviously, somebody is not telling the truth.

Where the story goes from here is anybody's guess.

To term the entire matter bizarre would be to understate the case.

What seems clear, however, is that Spitzer & Co. ordered the police to track Bruno's travel methods and compile records - and then suggested that the Times-Union request those records, which it did under the Freedom of Information Law - resulting in the paper's story Sunday.

If Bruno did nothing wrong - and from what's on the record now, it appears that he did not - then the dust-up over the trips pales before the larger question:

Did Eliot Spitzer, or someone acting at his direction, in fact order state troopers to undertake a surveillance of Joe Bruno in an effort to gain political advantage?

Parallels with other abuses of police power by politicians spring to mind.

If Spitzer wants to avoid spending the coming months - if not years - attempting to govern under such a cloud, he would do well to commission an independent investigation of the facts already on the record, and of those which might come later.

This is an extraordinarily serious matter.

It must be attended to forthwith.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07052007/posto...editorials_.htm

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

And as an aside, Mr. Ravi Batra, it would appear from the editorial in the NY Post this morning that Eliot Spitzer's alleged abuse and misuse of the police power of NYS is once again becoming an issue here in NYS, just as it was in this case under discussion between us in this thread .....

And so ....

Posted by: John Galt | July 5, 2007 7:47 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...lyn.html?page=4

THE NEW YORK POST

"OPENING GATES OF 'EL' - BRUNO RETALIATES WITH CALL FOR 'CRIMINAL' PROBE OF SPITZER"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER, State Editor

July 6, 2007 -- ALBANY - Furious state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno yesterday accused Gov. Spitzer of ordering the State Police to track him for "political espionage" - and called for special grand juries to investigate the governor's possible "criminal liability."

Bruno, reacting to yesterday's bombshell report in The Post disclosing that Spitzer had targeted Bruno for an unprecedented State Police surveillance program, also announced that he was "activating" the Senate Investigations Committee to look into whether Spitzer abused the powers of his office.

A source said the committee may soon subpoena "internal e-mails and other documents" from the governor's office dealing with the circumstances under which the State Police were instructed to keep records of Bruno's travels.

"When the governor abuses his power, it not only works against his political enemies, it undermines the entire fabric of democracy," said Bruno, who asked the state Attorney General and Albany County DA to empanel grand juries.

Bruno charged that Spitzer's "pattern of behavior over the years, his repeated physical threats to state officials and others, his complete and total disregard for the truth, and now his willingness to use the State Police for surveillance in hopes of gaining some type of political advantage should send shivers up the spine of every New Yorker and raise serious questions about his fitness to serve in the state's highest office."

Spitzer announced that Kristine Hamann, whom he appointed as inspector general in February, would investigate.

Darren Dopp, Spitzer's communications director, insisted that nothing illegal or improper had occurred, contending, "We are confident that proper procedures were followed at all times."

He called The Post's report "grossly inaccurate and false," insisting, "There has never been any surveillance of Majority Leader Bruno by the State Police."

"When they have been asked to drive the majority leader, the State Police work from schedules supplied by the majority leader's office."

"No special records are kept beyond a simple accounting of a state police vehicle's use," Dopp insisted.

However, Dopp has repeatedly claimed in recent days to The Post that a special monitoring program to track Bruno's whereabouts was put into effect in early April.

The surveillance program produced detailed stop-by-stop records of Bruno's travel in New York City as he was driven by a state trooper in a state-owned vehicle.

The Post report noted that Dopp admitted that no such records were kept when state troopers drove Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David Paterson.

Dopp changed his story twice yesterday, first insisting in the morning that the same records kept on Bruno were kept on Spitzer and Paterson, and asserting they would be made publicly available.

But by the afternoon, Dopp referred questions to State Police spokesman Lt. Glenn Miner, who told a different story.

Miner said Bruno's detailed travel records were created only after the senator had completed his travels and only after Dopp asked the State Police to do so to respond to a media inquiry about Bruno's travels on state aircraft.

Dopp, meanwhile, contended the record-keeping resulted in part from a complaint by Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long that Bruno had shown up at a party fund-raising event with an escort of armed troopers.

Long, however, strenuously denied Dopp's claim and yesterday called on Spitzer, whom he spoke with privately on the telephone, to publicly apologize for making the charge.

Long later said Spitzer refused.

For his part, Dopp insisted that he had been "cavalier" in referencing a "hearsay" account of Long's alleged complaint and insisted he never claimed it had served as "some kind of rationale for some kind of policy change by the State Police."

But in a Tuesday e-mail to The Post, Dopp wrote, "There was an incident late last year in which Mike Long called to complain about Joe bringing armed troopers into his fund-raising event."

"Long thought it was highly inappropriate and it probably was."

"Recalling that incident, the SP made some changes, keeping their people in the background, going unmarked, and, yes, keeping basic records, i.e. logs."

"I maintain that all of this was the right response," Dopp continued.

Long made public a letter to Spitzer in which he urged the governor to "find the fabricator" who claimed he had made a complaint against Bruno.

"It appears that someone in your office, someone who would fabricate such a bald-faced lie, is not suited for government work," Long declared.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

Different day, different story

Darren Dopp, director of communications for Gov. Spitzer, wrote in an e-mail message to The Post earlier this week that the State Police began keeping special travel records on state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno after a complaint from Conservative Party boss Mike Long, but Dopp changed his story yesterday and said in a statement that no special records on Bruno were kept.

TUESDAY, JULY 3

Excerpt from Dopp's e-mail to Post state editor Fredric U. Dicker:

Date: Tue, July 3, 2007 5:34 PM

From: Darren.Dopp@chamber.state.ny.us

To: fdicker@nypost.com

Subject: re: followup

I'm told that the logs were kept in part to protect the SP [State Police] who were driving him.

There was an incident late last year in which Mike Long called to complain about Joe bringing armed troopers into his fundraising event.

Long thought it was highly inappropriate and it probably was.

Recalling that incident, the SP made some changes, keeping their people in the background, going unmarked, and, yes, keeping basic records, ie logs.

I maintain that all of this was the right response.

YESTERDAY

Dopp's statement yesterday:

A story suggesting that the State Police were asked to do anything other than follow standard operating procedure is grossly inaccurate and false.

There has never been any surveillance of Majority Leader Bruno by the State Police.

When they have been asked to drive the Majority Leader, the State Police work from schedules supplied by the Majority Leader's office.

No special records are kept beyond a simple accounting of a State Police vehicle's use.

Letter to Gov. Spitzer from Long after a report in yesterday's Post quoted an aide to Spitzer saying Long had complained about Bruno bringing armed state troopers to an event:

Dear Governor Spitzer:

People in government are charged with many responsibilities and being honest is certainly one of them.

I am personally asking you to find out who fabricated the story that appeared in today's New York Post that I called to complain about state troopers being brought to a fund-raising event with Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

Many serious issues face New Yorkers and we need to know that those charged with solving these issues are above reproach, honest and can be relied on to be completely trustworthy at all times.

It appears that someone in your office, someone who would fabricate such a bald-faced lie, is not suited for government work.

Very truly yours,

Michael R. Long

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07062007/news/...itor.htm?page=0

"Bruno: I'm watched - Top Republican accuses governor over State Police keeping track of his travels"

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

First published: Friday, July 6, 2007

ALBANY -- The battle between Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno escalated once again on Thursday with Bruno charging the governor put him under State Police surveillance in an act of political "espionage," and likening him to a "Third World dictator."

"I've been in government 31 years and I've never experienced anything like this," said Bruno.

"I was stunned to learn Governor Spitzer is using the fine men and women of the New York State Police to conduct surveillance on me," Bruno said.

"This should send shivers up the spine of every New Yorker."

Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp, however, said State Police did nothing more than fill out and keep itineraries on days when they were assigned to drive Bruno to meetings in New York City.

Officers routinely do that to account for their time and use of state vehicles.

"No special records are kept beyond a simple accounting of a State Police vehicle's time," Dopp said.

Shortly after Bruno's criticism, which included a public declaration that he would not meet privately with the governor, Spitzer telephoned him and the two politicians spoke for several minutes, Dopp said.

Bruno, he said, turned down Spitzer's offer for a one-on-one meeting.

"Gov. Spitzer called him, asked if he'd like to get together ... he said no," Dopp said of Bruno.

"The governor reached out today from his (Columbia County) vacation home ... and Bruno said 'no, I'm working,' " Bruno spokesman John McArdle said of the conversation.

It was the first discussion the politicians have had since the legislative session ended in June and Spitzer began traveling the state to criticize Republicans.

Bruno's complaint about surveillance came after the New York Post reported State Police kept a log when they were escorting the senator around New York City.

This past Sunday, the Times Union reported that Bruno on three occasions may have improperly used State Police helicopters to fly to Manhattan fundraisers.

Bruno said the trips were combined with state legislative business and were therefore a legitimate use of state aircraft.

He so far has refused to release details of those trips, on May 3, 17 and 24.

But earlier this week, representatives of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tishman Speyer real estate and proponents of the Broadwater Energy liquefied natural gas facility proposed for Long Island Sound stepped forward to say they had met with the senator on those dates.

Using state aircraft solely for political purposes or for a fundraiser would be a violation of the state Public Officers Law.

Calling the maintaining of the police logs "thuggish," Bruno asked Inspector General Kristine Hamann, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Albany County District Attorney David Soares, as well as the Senate Investigations Committee, to look into the matter.

Both Spitzer and Bruno maintain travel itineraries, although they are different in style.

A stack of itineraries for Spitzer, for instance, appeared to be a bit more detailed than those obtained from Bruno's schedules.

Until recently, State Police discarded Bruno's schedules after they were done with them.

But in April, they started retaining the logs.

The change in practice came shortly after interim Superintendent Preston Felton, who had been appointed by Spitzer in late February, called the governor's office to make sure providing the travel to Bruno was OK, Dopp said.

"We had called and said, 'follow your standard procedure,' " explained Dopp.

Itineraries, he said, had "always been done," but after April, "they started retaining them."

The battle over the use of state aircraft also prompted several reform groups to call for tougher rules.

Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, Citizens Union and the New York Public Interest Research Group said state officials should have to reimburse the state for aircraft use if even part of their trips involve fundraising or political activity.

Currently, if officials do any public business on such trips, they don't have to pay for the use of taxpayer-supported state aircraft.

The groups also called for detailed public disclosure of itineraries when public officials use state aircraft.

"While public officials may be reluctant to disclose their private meetings with potential donors or party officials, they are free to pick up the tab for such travel if they choose privacy over disclosure," read part of the letter.

"We want it to be clear what you can or can't do," said Rachel Leon of Common Cause.

Existing laws, she said, are too vague.

Bruno said the Senate still plans to return July 16 to take up Bloomberg's plan to reduce traffic congestion by charging a fee for driving to midtown Manhattan during the work week.

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

"Newspaper denies claims of extortion - Hearst lawyer tells district attorney Bruno accusations are untrue"

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

First published: Friday, July 6, 2007

ALBANY -- A Times Union attorney on Thursday told Albany County District Attorney David Soares that claims that an advertising salesman for the paper tried to extort money from Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno's office were "baseless" and untrue.

In a letter to Soares, Eve Burton, vice president and general counsel for the Hearst Corporation, the newspaper's parent company, said the salesman, who called the senator's office Tuesday, had nothing to do with the paper's news coverage and was just selling ads.

Charges that the sales call amounted to a financial shakedown represent "an entirely bizarre reaction to accurate but unflattering coverage of Bruno," Burton wrote.

Burton's letter follows accusations two days ago from Bruno spokesman John McArdle that a Times Union salesman was trying to extort the senator by pitching advertising at a time when Bruno was the subject of controversial stories about his use of state aircraft to fly to Manhattan fundraisers.

On Tuesday, McArdle wrote Soares and asked him to look into the matter.

But Burton noted that the salesman, Gary Labelle, when asked, said that he wasn't trying to get money to influence news coverage but was simply offering the senator an alternate method of reaching the public.

The state Democratic Committee has been running ads in the Times Union and on timesunion.com that attack Senate Republicans.

"The Albany Times Union has an advertising department that sells regular and advocacy advertising on our Web site and in our newspaper to people seeking access to our readers, precisely because you cannot 'buy' editorial coverage," Burton added.

"Ex-Berlin postmaster admits theft"

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 7:09 p.m., Thursday, July 5, 2007

ALBANY - A former Rensselaer County postmaster routinely played with sales records to hide her theft of nearly $70,000 from the U.S. Postal Service, court papers filed in federal court say.

Karen Dobert-Morine, 51, of Averill Park, the former Berlin postmaster, has admitted to dispatching thousands of dollars of money orders to herself - a fraud that was uncovered more than a year ago but not disclosed until her arrest and guilty plea Tuesday, the court documents said.

Dobert-Morine, who resigned soon after the thefts were revealed by a January 2006 audit, could face up to 10 years in prison for misappropriation of postal funds.

As far back as 2000, the same year postal officials say Dobert-Morine gained oversight of the rural post office on State Route 22, records show she would hide her thefts by under-reporting her daily sales of postage, including stamps to the Berlin Central School District, according to her plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Albany.

The theft unfolded little by little - sometimes in increments as small as $84.19 - and was facilitated, according to prosecutors, by a reporting system that would not reveal it until the books were scrutinized from the outside.

Post offices are required to report money received in a daily financial report, which can be manipulated by under-reporting daily postage sales, prosecutors said.

"While there would then be a shortage in the office, the shortage would not become evident until/unless an audit was conducted," according to the plea.

The January audit revealed a shortage of $69,914.66, records show.

Dobert-Morine's lawyer, Michael Rhodes-Deavey, declined comment on the case Thursday.

The plea agreement requires that she make full restitution.

Sentencing is Oct. 30 in federal court.

"Good news is no good - Consumer confidence in Capital Region declines despite upbeat economic trends; other regions also down"

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

First published: Saturday, July 7, 2007

COLONIE -- Analysts admit the latest report on consumer confidence surprised them.

The quarterly survey of the state's cities by Siena Research Institute, released Friday, found sentiment down everywhere.

But the greatest decline occurred here in the Capital Region, where the economy has typically outperformed the rest of the state.

"We've had relatively good news," said Douglas Lonnstrom, the Siena College finance and statistics professor who directs the institute, citing such recent announcements as plans by International Sematech to expand here.

"Maybe we just came back to earth."

"We have the same negatives everybody else has."

Economists follow consumer confidence closely because they say it's a strong indicator of their willingness to spend.

And consumer spending typically makes up two-thirds of the nation's overall economic activity.

Could the slowing housing market be to blame?

Sales, after all, posted a 16 percent decline in May from a year earlier, the Greater Capital Association of Realtors reported last month.

But prices actually edged higher.

Slowing sales "may be part of it," said Rocco Ferraro, who heads the Capital District Regional Planning Commission.

"But (housing) is not going through the floor."

"The decline has been pretty much steady."

And Ferraro said the population in this area continues to expand, something that is not happening elsewhere upstate.

Unemployment rates here are lower, too.

The Capital Region's index of overall confidence tumbled 8.7 points from the first quarter to the second, falling to 82.1.

That was still ahead of every other community but New York City, where the index fell 4.7 points to 87.1.

The Siena survey is based on a similar one conducted by the University of Michigan, with higher numbers showing increasing confidence, and lower numbers indicating worry.

The baseline of both surveys is 100.

Buffalo was down a more modest 3.0 points to 76.6 in the Siena survey, while Syracuse ranked fourth, falling 6.0 points to 76.2.

The second greatest drop came in Binghamton, which fell 7.6 points to 76.0.

Rochester was down 4.3 points to 75.7.

For the first time, the Siena Research Institute also surveyed Utica, where it calculated an index of 76.9, and the mid-Hudson Valley, with an index of 80.3.

Lonnstrom said sales of appliances and other durable goods are starting to feel the impact of higher energy prices and a softer housing market.

But Rebecca Marion, director of public affairs at the Retail Council of New York State, isn't so sure.

"It's reasonably stable here from a retail perspective," she said.

"We'll see whether consumers follow through on what they're telling Siena."

"Although consumers have been concerned in the past, they've continued to shop," she added.

The Capital Region's index -- despite its tumble -- was actually 0.8 points ahead of where it was a year ago.

Only Binghamton saw a decline from the second quarter of 2006.

And the index has two components -- current confidence and future confidence -- which measure consumers' willingness to spend now and well into the future.

Of the roughly 30 indices calculated from the survey data, "only one is up," Lonnstrom observed.

"There's no question consumer confidence is just reacting to whatever happens," he added.

"The other thing that's interesting here is, inflation is holding steady, interest rates are pretty low, and the stock market is doing OK."

Tony Riccardi, an economist in private practice in Albany, said he, too, is puzzled by the results.

But "this is only one quarter's data," he added.

"A couple of consecutive quarters would give me more reason to be concerned."

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

"Lawyers criticize workers' comp streamlining - State efforts to quicken hearing process leave too little time to prepare cases, attorneys say"

By ALAN WECHSLER, Business writer. Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, July 7, 2007

ALBANY -- Some lawyers who handle workers' compensation cases oppose a plan to speed up the often-lengthy process of paying for the medical care of injured workers.

Lawyers from both sides of the hearing room -- those who represent injured workers and those who represent employers or insurance companies -- say the new regulations could be detrimental to all parties.

They are worried they may not be able to prepare cases in the shorter time allotted and say they are concerned patients could be in a weaker legal position under the new rules.

The workers' comp system dates to 1914, when it was created under the Department of Labor.

The idea was to give injured factory workers an opportunity to get money from their employers without having to sue.

Today, all businesses in the state must carry a plan, either through self-insurance, a private insurance provider or the New York State Insurance Fund.

About 150,000 workers' comp cases were filed in 2006, of which 25,000 were disputed by employers.

The new rules for disputed cases, dubbed "Rocket Docket," are expected to reduce the average wait time for those cases from 240 days to less than 90.

The changes were endorsed by a group of state, union and business leaders.

They still need to be approved by the state Workers' Compensation Board.

But some lawyers said they have concerns that never were addressed.

"The rules are too draconian," said Peter Walsh, a lawyer with the firm Walsh & Hacker in Albany.

"They want you to be prepared the first day, to have all of your witnesses there, and all of your relevant medical evidence, and all of your relevant documents," he said.

"If it's not done, you lose the case automatically."

"It's absolutely impossible."

While everyone seems to agree the old process took too long, they now disagree on the effectiveness of Rocket Docket.

The state Insurance Department points out that lawyers can make a motion to extend the process if they need more time.

And the AFL-CIO, which had a role in creating the improvements, says the new rules help employees.

"The most important aspect of this whole process is to ensure that injured workers are treated fairly," said Mario Cilento, chief of staff at the AFL-CIO.

"And that includes quick medical access and speeding up the adjudication process."

"That was solved through Rocket Docket."

The Injured Workers' Bar Association, a trade group in Hempstead, Long Island, that represents nearly 250 workers' comp lawyers around the state, has written to the Workers' Compensation Board opposing some aspects of Rocket Docket.

Barbara Levine, president of the group, said the letter expressed concerns about the shortened length of time for hearings.

And she said lawyers were worried that the burden of proof of injury was being shifted from employers and insurance companies to employees.

Another concern is the plan to go to trial immediately after a mediation hearing fails.

That would seem difficult logistically, Levine said, since it would be impossible to say which cases would go to trial and how long each hearing might last.

"Our concern is that's actually going to slow the process down," she said.

Bruce Rubin, a workers' comp lawyer in Troy, said the new rules would make him reject some cases.

"If they did their homework first and then made the law, I'd have an easier time swallowing it," he said.

"But they've done it in the form of an edict."

"They don't stay up at night working with these things."

Wechsler can be reached at 454-5469 or by e-mail at awechsler@timesunion.com.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"High-flyin' Joe"

Friday, July 6th 2007, 4:00 AM

Editorial

Clear away the smoke being blown by Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno over his blatant abuse of taxpayer-funded transportation, and it all boils down to this: He wants to act like a jerk, live like a king - and not be held accountable for any of it.

In Bruno World, legislative leaders are entitled to grab all the campaign cash they can from special interests.

They're entitled to fly on state helicopters and ride in state police cars to pick up campaign checks.

And when it becomes public, Bruno is entitled to scream "political espionage" at the press for uncovering it, and at Gov. Spitzer, who wants to stop it.

What a load of hooey.

This isn't about a vendetta; it's about money.

Bruno wants to keep open the unlimited spigot of campaign cash pouring into his pockets as he exploits every loophole in New York's Swiss cheese election laws.

That's why he refuses to agree with Spitzer to put reasonable caps on campaign contributions.

And why he wants someone, anyone, to investigate - get this - how government records of his taxpayer-subsidized jet-setting wound up printed in the newspapers.

By our lights, the officials who released that information - in response to a Freedom of Information Law request by the Albany Times Union - deserve a good government award, not a probe.

Taxpayers have every right to know how elected officials are using or abusing government resources.

Which in Bruno's case, includes employing state choppers to shuttle from Albany to Manhattan so he can collect more money, faster.

And having state troopers chauffeur him to and from $1,000-a-plate fund-raisers.

Bruno maintains there was no abuse, since he also met with interest groups and lobbyists after touching down in Manhattan on the days in question.

But why should New Yorkers have to shell out thousands of dollars so he can shmooze with well-heeled tycoons seeking favors from the Senate?

Let the tycoons buy a ticket to Albany.

Or maybe pick up the phone.

New York desperately needs limits on campaign donations - and full disclosure of who's giving what to whom - so Bruno and his fellow lawmakers will cater to the needs of the people rather than the biggest donors.

New York also needs rules governing the use of state aircraft and state police security details, to put an end to fund-raising jaunts on the public dime.

Air Bruno must be grounded.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/0...hflyin_joe.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"It has never been this bad - Bruno, Spitzer take off gloves - and pick up knives and swords"

BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN

Friday, July 6th 2007, 4:00 AM

It's war!

Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's simmering feud with Gov. Spitzer exploded into full-fledged battle mode yesterday after the Republican accused the state’s Democratic chief executive of "political espionage."

"There has never been anything like this," said Eric Lane, a Hofstra University law professor and former counsel to a former top Democratic state senator.

"This is beyond politics."

"This is war," added Douglas Muzzio, a Baruch College political science professor.

Bruno is demanding multiple investigations after alleging Spitzer ordered state police to monitor his every move.

The governor's office vigorously denied the allegation.

"If you believe Bruno, Spitzer is Nixonian," Muzzio said.

"The governor using the state police to spy on the leader of the opposition?"

"That begins to approach the danger zone."

That zone was red hot yesterday as Bruno's rhetoric hit levels experts say they’ve not seen in modern state political history.

"I am also requesting the attorney general and Albany County district attorney to convene grand juries to assess the criminal liability of the governor for his abuse of power of his office and the misuse of the state police for political espionage," Bruno said.

Bruno, an upstate Republican, has been fighting with the new governor since Spitzer was sworn in in January, and Spitzer has done his part to draw Bruno's vitriol.

Weeks after taking office, Spitzer described himself in a phone call with Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, a Schenectady Republican, as a "[expletive] steamroller" who would "roll over you and anybody else."

During budget negotiations in March, Spitzer and Bruno engaged in an expletive-laden screaming match during which the senator described Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith as "so far up [the governor's rear] he can't see."

In a post-session discussion, Bruno charged that the governor threatened him, saying he would knock him out, "knock you down so that you will never get up."

Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp insisted this incident never took place.

"It is time for Gov. Spitzer to understand that the people of this state elected him to lead and to govern, not to spy, not to threaten and conduct political attacks," Bruno said yesterday.

Dopp rejected a claim that the administration asked state troopers to track Bruno's movements while they ferried him around Manhattan, calling their efforts "basic record keeping."

The administration nevertheless asked the state inspector general to look into Bruno's complaint.

"I never called up the state police and said, 'Spy on somebody,'" Dopp said.

"I know [Secretary to the Governor Richard] Baum never would have."

"The inspector general is going to figure that out."

"If it's so, you'll have some ramifications."

"Mr. Spitzer won’t protect me under those circumstances — or anybody else."

While Bruno and Spitzer continue to bicker, little is being done to the address the considerable pile of unfinished business the Legislature left behind when the session ended last month.

After 12 years of working with a governor who shared his political affiliation, George Pataki, Bruno faced a new paradigm when Spitzer took office.

Since then, the two officials have fought bitterly over the state budget in April, and at the end of the legislative session in June.

Each has blamed the other for the lack of progress.

Among the biggest victims of the stalemate could be Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan.

Other outstanding issues include expansion of the state DNA database and campaign finance reform.

Bruno has accused Spitzer of tying everything to a campaign finance reform effort the Senate won't pass, calling him a bully and a "spoiled rich kid throwing a statewide tantrum."

Spitzer, in turn, traveled New York with a Power Point presentation that accused Bruno and his GOP majority of leaving Albany without finishing their jobs.

The latest fight began with a report in the Albany Times Union last weekend that accused Bruno of misusing state helicopters on at least three occasions in May to attend GOP fund-raisers in Manhattan when he claimed to be on "legislative business."

The Spitzer administration called for the attorney general and the local district attorney to investigate.

Bruno insisted he hadn't improperly used the state helicopters, and several people — including Bloomberg — came forward to say they had met with Bruno to discuss state business on the days in question.

Bruno has since called for a criminal investigation of the Times Union.

He alleged the paper's advertising department tried to extort him by suggesting he purchase ads to counter the negative news coverage.

The Times Union’s publisher denied that charge.

As proof of his spying allegation, Bruno pointed to two one-page documents written by state troopers that detail where he was picked up and dropped off while in Manhattan.

Dopp said the documents were compiled in response to a Freedom of Information request from the Times Union using schedules Bruno’s office submitted to the state police when requesting transportation.

ebenjamin@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/07/06...n_this_bad.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Low-lyin' Shelly"

Friday, July 6th 2007, 4:00 AM

Editorial

No discussion of Albany's unfinished business would be complete without allocating a share of blame to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Wily politician that he is, Silver has managed to stay clear of the crossfire between Gov. Spitzer, his fellow Democrat, and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, a Republican.

Yet Silver cannot dodge responsibility for the Legislature's failure to do much of anything before it went home for the summer.

While Bruno was very publicly blocking Spitzer on campaign finance reform, Silver quietly stymied progress on congestion pricing for New York City, as well as other matters, such as collecting DNA from all convicted criminals.

Silver doesn't outwardly oppose these measures, to be sure.

What he does is raise endless questions, objections, doubts and caveats.

He refuses to bring anything to a vote until all nits are picked to his personal satisfaction - or until he can win something else in a trade.

Silver professes to be open to compromise.

Last week, his office accepted a challenge from this page to return to Albany for full public debate, with cameras running, on congestion pricing and other outstanding business.

But the speaker went right back to his old tricks in a TV interview last weekend.

Appearing on PBS' "New York Now," Silver pick-pick-picked at Mayor Bloomberg's traffic plan, said it required more tinkering than could possibly get done this month and - worst of all - questioned the very idea of returning to the Capitol for further debate.

"There's no point in doing a special session unless there's a foundation on which to build," spoke the speaker.

In other words, Silver wants to cut a deal with Spitzer and Bruno first, in secret, before summoning the Assembly for a rubber-stamping session.

That's exactly backwards.

The right way to break the logjam on the most urgent issues - congestion pricing, campaign finance, DNA, paid family leave, power plant construction - is for lawmakers to get their butts back to the Capitol, ASAP.

There they should sit down in front of the cameras and publicly negotiate each issue, one at a time, on the merits.

No secret deals.

No horse-trading.

It's called open, democratic government.

What part of that doesn't Silver understand?

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/0...yin_shelly.html

THE NEW YORK POST

"ALL THE GOVERNOR'S MEN"

July 6, 2007 -- A routine political attack by the Spitzer administration on state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno took a sharp turn toward the Twilight Zone yesterday, with a top Spitzer aide denying everything - despite having all but coughed up the damning details just 48 hours earlier.

In writing.

The issue: Did the State Police keep tabs on Bruno's travel at the behest of the governor's office?

On Tuesday, gubernatorial spokesman Darren Dopp - in a rambling e-mail to Post State Editor Fredric U. Dicker - said, in effect, yes.

"There was an incident late last year in which [Conservative Party Chairman] Mike Long called to complain about Joe bringing armed troopers into his fundraising event," Dopp wrote in the e-mail message (which is reproduced in The Post today).

"Long thought it was highly inappropriate, and it probably was," Dopp added.

"Recalling that incident, the SP [State Police] made some changes, keeping their people in the background, going unmarked and, yes, keeping basic records, i.e. logs."

But Long says he never made any such complaint and, in fact, no such incident - involving "armed troopers" at a "fund-raising event" - ever occurred.

Dopp's explanation seems to have been made up out of whole cloth.

In a letter yesterday, Long asked the governor "to find out who fabricated the story."

"People in government are charged with many responsibilities, and being honest is certainly one of them," Long wrote.

"Someone who would fabricate such a bald-faced lie is not suited for government work."

Obviously.

Caught bald-faced, Dopp yesterday simply denied ever having made the statement to Dicker in the first place.

Instead, he claims that he mentioned Long's "complaints" merely as third-party information meant in a "cavalier" moment - as something for Dicker to check out.

Just one problem: Dicker - who has covered the state capital for 30 years, including 25 for The Post, as Albany bureau chief, investigative reporter and state editor - says Dopp never told him that.

Or anything like it.

The fact is, as Dopp has clearly acknowledged, the governor's office did intervene and that did lead to a change in State Police record-keeping policy.

Though by yesterday, Dopp was trashing The Post's story, insisting: "There has never been any surveillance of Majority Leader Bruno by the State Police."

So here's the story in a nutshell:

* Spitzer's office orders police officials to keep tabs when pols employ state resources in their travels.

* The police then compile records on Bruno - but not, apparently, on anyone else.

* Spitzer's folks then steer a compliant newspaper, The Albany Times-Union, to those records - citing Bruno's attendance at political events during trips involving a state helicopter and a state police detail.

* The state Ethics Commission says there's nothing wrong with shirt-tailing fund-raising onto official business trips - and, in fact, Bruno did conduct a series of business meetings on the relevant days.

* Nonetheless, the Albany paper runs a story on Sunday smearing the majority leader, suggesting he used state police solely to ferry him to political events.

* Citing the story, Spitzer calls for investigations of Bruno by state Attorney General Andew Cuomo and Albany County DA David Soares.

Keep in mind that the police began keeping tabs on Bruno in May - just when relations between Spitzer and Bruno were becoming severely strained.

An astounding coincidence?

More likely, it was just what it appears to be: an effort by the governor to tame a political foe by ordering police to gather intimidating - if not incriminating - evidence about him.

Bruno, understandably, was furious yesterday.

He denounced a "dangerous abuse of power" by Spitzer's office; announced a pending Senate investigation - and he, too, urged Cuomo and Soares to get involved.

Specifically, he wants them to investigate the administration for "the misuse of the State Police for political espionage."

Added Bruno: "When the governor abuses his power, it not only works against his political enemies, it undermines the entire fabric of democracy."

It's hard to argue that point.

Happily, Spitzer and Bruno do agree that AG Cuomo would be a competent authority to get to the bottom of all this.

Recall, too, that DA Soares' probe of State Comptroller Alan Hevesi led to the latter's resignation in disgrace.

Both men are more-than-capable law-enforcement officers.

We would urge them - jointly or severally - to accommodate both the governor and Bruno: A thorough investigation is in order; the sooner it is complete, the sooner Albany can return to its normal state of dysfunction.

Indeed, it is with some irony that we note that Spitzer's pledge to "change Albany" upon becoming governor seems to have been redeemed.

It's more bizarre than ever.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07062007/posto...als_.htm?page=0

THE NEW YORK POST

"GOON GOV'S BULLY TACTIC NO SURPRISE"

July 6, 2007 -- IT'S said that the Roman emperors had slaves who accompanied them during imperial processionals for the sole purpose of whispering these words in their ears: "Caesar, thou art mortal."

Eliot Spitzer, thou art mortal.

The emperors needed to hear this deflationary message at their moment of great triumph because it's precisely when everyone is singing your praises and cheering you on that you can lose your good senses.

Too bad for Spitzer nobody was whispering in his ear.

For most of the past decade, nobody has given Spitzer any reason to think he was anything but a political savior, a walker-on-water, the most potent cleanser since Mr. Clean.

Nobody, that is, until Joe Bruno, the most powerful Republican in the state and someone that Spitzer needs to have at least minimally civil relations with.

Instead of trying to cultivate Bruno, which is what an astute politician would have done, the novice governor apparently tried to use his own private police force to dig up dirt on the GOP honcho - first, perhaps, to blackmail him, as a senior state official suggested to The Post, and then, when that didn't work, to ruin him.

In response, Bruno is doing something positively sacrilegious.

He's taking Spitzer's halo, breaking it over his knee and saying, "How do you like that, rich boy?"

Bruno is calling the governor on his conduct.

He's accusing Spitzer of being no better than a Third World dictator, which really isn't fair.

But then, Spitzer is a past master when it comes to treating people unfairly.

Two years ago, Spitzer called an 80-year-old retired banker during a vacation in Mexico and threatened to destroy the banker simply because the banker had criticized Spitzer's prosecution of another tycoon.

"It's now a war between us," Spitzer told John Whitehead.

"I will be coming after you."

That has always been Spitzer's way.

He terrified Wall Street with threats and invective - and the threat of bringing a case that, good or lousy, would tie up a firm in knots for years unless the firm agreed preemptively to a "voluntary" series of measures ordered by Spitzer.

For this problematic behavior, Spitzer was garlanded like a Roman general back from Gaul.

He rode his noble reputation like the great steed Bucephalus into the public forum of the governor's race in 2006 and won the most lopsided gubernatorial victory in the history of this state.

Whereupon, he returned to his traditional role of acting not like a just ruler but instead like a goon.

He told a Republican assemblyman, "Listen, I'm a f- - -ing steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else."

And according to The Post's Fred Dicker, Spitzer set the New York State Police on Bruno in an extraordinarily questionable manner.

His spokesman said he did it because Mike Long, the head of the state's Conservative Party requested an investigation into questionable practices by Bruno.

"A bald-faced lie," says Long.

Uh-oh.

If Long is telling the truth, it looks like Spitzer sicced the state cops on Bruno so he could find something to blackmail the Republican State Senate's majority leader with.

What did he find?

Bruno rode on a state-owned aircraft to three fund-raisers - but despite efforts to suggest Bruno made improper use of the helicopters in traveling to New York City, it now appears Bruno was also traveling on business relating to his role as the majority leader of the state Senate.

Bruno's out of trouble.

Spitzer's trouble is just beginning.

Aside from raising questions about his unseemly attempt at digging up dirt on a political rival, he has also made it clear to friends and opponents alike that he will say and do anything in pursuit of his goals.

Eliot Spitzer, thou art mortal.

Thou art also a bungler.

jpodhoretz@gmail.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07062007/news/...retz.htm?page=0

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"The Feuding by Bruno and Spitzer Turns Bitter"

BY DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: July 6, 2007

ALBANY, July 5 — After three months of what has seemed like constant fighting, Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Thursday called his antagonist, Senator Joseph L. Bruno, and asked for a meeting.

Like everything else between the two men, the meeting invitation is now the subject of a disagreement.

(Mr. Bruno’s staff says the governor invited him to his farmhouse in Columbia County; Mr. Spitzer’s aides said he offered to meet Mr. Bruno anywhere he wanted.)

The meeting never happened, and the two men are continuing to feud after Mr. Spitzer’s staff suggested Mr. Bruno may have improperly used State Police escorts and helicopters and Mr. Bruno then suggested that Mr. Spitzer was spying on him.

The state inspector general said she would investigate Mr. Bruno’s allegations that the Spitzer administration used the State Police to “conduct surveillance” of his whereabouts.

The governor’s staff vigorously disputed the allegations but agreed to allow the inspector general, Kristine Hamann, an appointee of the governor, to review the matter.

Mr. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, has also called for the attorney general and the Albany County district attorney to convene grand juries to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing.

The investigations may not stop there.

Joseph N. Mondello, the state Republican Party chairman, called Thursday for the appointment of a special prosecutor, and Mr. Bruno said he would consider having a Senate committee conduct hearings as well.

The most recent dispute between the men began after The Times Union of Albany reported last weekend that the senator had used state helicopters and State Police escorts during trips to New York City, pointing out that they coincided with Republican fund-raisers.

Mr. Bruno has been adamant in saying that he also conducted state business during those trips and has expressed outrage that the administration turned over State Police logs of his trips to the newspaper, records he was not aware were being kept.

The logs were the subject of a report Thursday in The New York Post, which said similar logs were not maintained for the governor or other state officials.

Darren Dopp, the governor’s communications director, called the Post report “grossly inaccurate.”

He said state officials generally gave State Police detailed itineraries when they were using state transportation.

The troopers did not retain all the itineraries Mr. Bruno’s office supplied, he said, so they the troopers reconstructed some of them after The Times Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the Spitzer administration for the records.

The State Police have been reluctant in the past to disclose information relating to the security of public officials.

Lt. Glenn Miner, a spokesman for the State Police, an agency within the executive branch, said the police provided the reconstructed itineraries because the governor’s office asked them to.

“We did it as a request from the governor’s office,” Lieutenant Miner said.

He said the agency did not maintain special travel records about any state officials.

The agency, he added, generally relies on schedules provided by the officials themselves to plan transportation, including flights on state aircraft, which must be approved by the governor, and ground escorts by state troopers.

Those schedules are not considered agency records, Lieutenant Miner said, and there is no internal rule governing how long they are retained.

The State Police provided both a travel itinerary supplied by Mr. Bruno’s office and synopses of Mr. Bruno’s travel on days for which the agency no longer had those schedules, based on the recollections of the troopers who had accompanied him.

The two pages of itineraries consist of details of each stop made on the senator’s trips.

At 7 p.m. on May 3, for example, Mr. Bruno is said to have stopped for dinner “at Italian restaurant on East Side (unknown name, located between First Avenue and Second Avenue in the upper 40s).”

At 11 p.m., he was “transported back to Sheraton Hotel.”

Lawyers in Mr. Bruno’s office said they believed that the Spitzer administration’s orders to keep logs of Mr. Bruno’s travel might have been an act of official misconduct, a misdemeanor that is an impeachable offense.

They also said they thought the administration might have violated the Civil Service Law related to using public employees for political activity and the Public Officers Law relating to securing unwarranted privileges.

Mr. Spitzer’s aides said the idea that any laws were broken was ridiculous.

They said the governor’s itineraries have also been made public.

As a result there was no need for the State Police to reconstruct a record of the governor’s whereabouts, they said.

“No special records are kept beyond a simple accounting of a State Police vehicle’s use,” Mr. Dopp said.

On Thursday, government watchdog groups called on lawmakers to approve new rules requiring reimbursements when officials use “state resources” to “facilitate partisan activity.”

The battle has brought the relations of the state’s top Democrat and top Republican to an impasse and threatens to derail a host of issues being negotiated.

The Albany County district attorney, P. David Soares, has been called on to conduct three investigations related to the dispute, although he has only two people in his public integrity office.

At a press conference Thursday, Mr. Bruno called the governor’s aides “hoodlums” and “thugs.”

He said he would only meet with the governor publicly to avoid having his comments mischaracterized.

He said the governor’s “dangerous abuse of power is despicable, possibly illegal and undermines our democratic form of government.”

The Spitzer administration fired back, saying that there had been nothing like surveillance of Mr. Bruno.

“We are confident that proper procedures were followed at all times,” Mr. Dopp said.

“However, since a concern has been raised, we are asking the state inspector general to review the matter.”

The State Ethics Commission has said that officials are allowed to conduct political business while on official trips without reimbursing the state for the political portion of the travel.

Participants in some of Mr. Bruno’s trips said there were discussions of nonpolitical activities.

“We did meet with Bruno on energy issues in general and the Broadwater project specifically,” said Bruce Gyory, a lobbyist who helped arrange a May 17 meeting in New York City between Mr. Bruno and executives of his client, TransCanada, and Shell.

The two companies are partners in Broadwater, a project to build a natural gas facility in Long Island Sound.

That evening, Mr. Bruno attended a fund-raiser for the Republican State Committee, but Mr. Gyory described the earlier meeting as substantive, not political.

“It was a substantive meeting,” Mr. Gyory said.

“It has nothing to do with fund-raising."

"Nobody from our group was participating, nobody raised money, nobody went to the fund-raiser.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/nyregion...mp;ref=nyregion

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Spitzer-Bruno Relations Reach New Low"

By JACOB GERSHMAN

Staff Reporter of the Sun

July 6, 2007

The state Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, yesterday accused Governor Spitzer of committing "political espionage," alleging that Mr. Spitzer directed state police to monitor his movements during his recent trips to New York City.

The allegations, which were denied by Mr. Spitzer and the New York State Police, plunged relations between the state's top Republican and the Democratic governor to a new low in an ongoing feud fueled by a power struggle over control of the Senate.

Mr. Bruno said police logs detailing Mr. Bruno's schedule during trips to New York City that were provided to the Spitzer administration and passed on to reporters show that the governor took extraordinary measures to keep track of his whereabouts in an effort to catch him improperly using state-financed transportation.

"This type of dangerous abuse of power is despicable, possibly illegal and undermines our democratic form of government," Mr. Bruno said in a statement.

He said he asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the Albany County district attorney, David Soares, to "convene grand juries to assess the criminal liability of the governor for his abuse of the power of his office and the misuse of the state police for political espionage."

Mr. Bruno's allegations were reported by the New York Post yesterday.

Spitzer administration officials denied there was any surveillance of Mr. Bruno, saying they asked for the logs in response to a request made by the Times Union of Albany for the itineraries of Messrs. Spitzer, Bruno, and other state leaders on days the officials traveled on aircraft provided by the state.

Because Mr. Bruno's office refuses to disclose the senator's schedule, the Spitzer administration requested the itineraries from the police, a spokesman for the governor, Darren Dopp, said.

State police officials said they responded to the request by assembling a "synopsis" of Mr. Bruno's transportation assignments and forwarded them to the administration.

The logs, covering five days of travel in May, detailed the times as well as the starting points and destinations of Mr. Bruno's trips.

The logs did not disclose with whom Mr. Bruno met.

On May 24, according to the logs, Mr. Bruno was transported to Russo's Steak and Pasta restaurant on Seventh Avenue from the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and then taken to the heliport on West 30th Street.

"There was no surveillance by the state police of Senator Bruno," a spokesman for the state police, Lieutenant Glenn Miner, said.

He said state police do not normally retain such logs of public officials but began preserving Mr. Bruno's schedule after the Spitzer administration submitted its request.

A spokesman for Mr. Bruno, John McArdle, said the logs contained private schedule information and should not have been released.

The documents, which also included flight manifests, showed that Mr. Bruno flew on state-financed helicopters to New York from Albany and took rides in trooper vehicles on days when Mr. Bruno attended Republican fund raisers.

Mr. Spitzer has asked state investigators to look into whether the Senate leader's trips violated state law, which requires that taxpayer-financed transportation be used for official state business.

Mr. Bruno denied any wrongdoing, claiming that he conducted state business during the trips and that he rode in police vehicles because he was the target of security threats.

http://www.nysun.com/article/57915?page_no=1

NEWSDAY

"Spitzer, Bruno well past settling differences"

DAN JANISON

dan.janison@newsday.com

July 6, 2007

This is what an all-out war looks like at the state Capitol.

Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer's continued offensive against Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno has intensified past the point where a truce or a handshake could restore the usual ways of doing business.

Spitzer's aides say they were asked by state police about a request from Bruno to use a state helicopter for trips to New York City - and that they replied that the troopers should do so, but log their travels.

Such records are not generated for other state officials - such as, say, the governor.

From what we can tell so far, Bruno used the resources to attend a couple of big GOP fundraisers in the city, and mixed the trips with what was arguably legislative business.

Then came the fireworks.

After the contents of the records were published by the Times Union in Albany, the governor's office sent documents to the attorney general and the local district attorney to investigate Bruno's use of these resources.

This raised the ghost of last year's take-down of Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who was prosecuted and forced to resign for misusing state cars and staff.

Now Spitzer's antagonists are arming and firing back.

The governor took the aircraft on a trip to Monroe County, where he addressed a Democratic fundraiser, they said, and his lieutenant governor, David Paterson, was taken to Washington, where he met with party chief Howard Dean.

In the GOP counter-narrative, Spitzer performed dirty tricks against a partisan foe.

"I was stunned to learn that Governor Spitzer is using the fine men and women of the New York State Police to conduct surveillance on me," Bruno declared.

"This type of dangerous abuse of power is despicable, possibly illegal and undermines our democratic form of government."

Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp disputes the claim of "surveillance" - insisting that state troopers merely logged where they went and when.

But from the start of his tenure, Spitzer, 48, has given every impression of seeking to take down the 78-year-old Bruno - with a kind of pugnaciousness that Albany veterans say they have never seen before.

The governor's actions carry a risk, too: that voters will decide the Senate should stay Republican, if only to check his powerful ambitions.

Stridency has long been a Spitzer trademark.

As state attorney general, he caused shock waves only a few years back by charging with wrongdoing such powerful, wealthy men as Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, legendary chief of the insurance firm American International Group Inc., and Richard Grasso, head of the New York Stock Exchange.

Shortly after becoming governor, Spitzer tweaked the accepted turf divisions by campaigning for Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington) in what had been a Republican Senate seat, reducing Bruno's thin majority.

He slammed Bruno's (ultimately successful) effort to restore billions in state health funding in the state budget as a reckless bid to serve special interests.

Spitzer condemned GOP senators for defying his campaign finance proposals.

On one of his trips to New York, Bruno met with business leaders at the firm C.V. Starr & Co. - which Greenberg has run since being forced to retire from AIG in 2005.

Neither man's spokesman would say yesterday whether Greenberg and Bruno met - or whether their common pursuer, Spitzer, was discussed.

But one can guess.

http://www.newsday.com/search/ny-lijani065...0,4563128.story

NEWSDAY

"Bruno: Investigate Spitzer for abuse of power"

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 6, 2007

ALBANY - The feud between Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno and Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer escalated yesterday, with Bruno calling for Spitzer to be investigated for abusing the powers of his office.

Spitzer aide Darren Dopp said what Bruno called "political espionage" is simply "basic recordkeeping" by state police.

Bruno and Dopp both called for an investigation by the state inspector general.

The latest round of accusations came as Bruno defended himself against what he sees as attacks orchestrated by Spitzer.

The pair have been feuding for much of the past six months.

Yesterday, Bruno said Spitzer used a state police detail, which Bruno had requested for security, to spy on the senator's travels in Manhattan for legislative business and political fundraisers.

As proof, Bruno pointed to descriptions by troopers of where he was picked up and dropped off on three trips in May.

Two were written by troopers, and one was a schedule from Bruno's office used by state police.

Bruno said that shows troopers kept a log of his whereabouts for political reasons.

He said they didn't compile travel logs for the governor or anyone else.

"I am also requesting the attorney general and Albany County district attorney to convene grand juries to assess the criminal liability of the governor for his abuse of power of his office and the misuse of the state police for political espionage," Bruno said.

Bruno said the state Senate Investigations Committee, headed by Republicans, could subpoena Spitzer as part of its own review.

"I shudder to think ... how do I know?"

"If the governor is capable of this, what else is he capable of?" Bruno said.

Dopp denied any spying, saying, "There has never been any surveillance of Majority Leader Bruno by the state police."

Dopp said Bruno's office supplied the travel records and state police simply used that as the basis for their reports on driving Bruno around Manhattan.

Dopp said the same process is used for Spitzer and others, but agrees Spitzer's reports look different from Bruno's because Spitzer's schedule is more detailed and rarely requires additional notations or redrafting by state police drivers.

But he acknowledged there are no state police-compiled logs or reports on Spitzer's travels as there are for some of Bruno's trips.

WAR OF WORDS

ON THE GOVERNOR'S POWERS

Spitzer: "I'm a -- steam- roller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else."

- To Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco during a January conversation about negotiations with the legislature

Bruno: "Nobody said when they did the constitution ... that you are going to have an executive who dictates, who runs everything and who steamrolls over everybody."

- Addressing the International Union of Operating Engineers, May 23

ON THE BUDGET

Spitzer: "I in no way will regret having a late budget if it is the only way we contain the rabid spending that has been the story behind here up in Albany." - March 19

Bruno: "The [school aid] distribution formulas are totally disruptive ..."

"We want to get it done right and we want to get it done on time ..."

"You don't get things done in this business by dictating." - The same day

ON THE GENERAL STATE OF THINGS

Spitzer: "This is a session that had enormous potential but is ending with significant disappointment."

"Disappointment because the State Senate is reflecting once again the desires of the status quo and special interests, failing to embrace the opportunity that was presented to them." - June 23

Bruno: "It is time for Gov. Spitzer to understand that the people of this state elected him to lead and to govern, not to spy, not to threaten, not to conduct political attacks."

- Yesterday after a report, denied by Spitzer, that state police were tracking Bruno's movements

Compiled by Melissa Mansfield of Newsday's Albany Bureau

http://www.newsday.com/search/ny-stbrun065...,0,800008.story

FOX NEWS

"Don’t Get on the Wrong Side of New York Governor Spitzer"

Thursday, July 05, 2007

By Brit Hume

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Police Surveillance

New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer reportedly has targeted his chief political rival for unprecedented surveillance by the state police.

The New York Post reports Spitzer insists he authorized detailed record-keeping on Republican State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno’s use of state troopers for travel and protection — after a complaint from the head of the state's conservative party.

But conservative party leader Michael Long denies ever making any complaint — and calls the Spitzer contention — "a bald-faced lie."

A senior state official familiar with the surveillance told the Post he believed the governor was trying to "set up" Bruno.

The monitoring by state police did lead to allegations that Bruno improperly flew to political events on a state-owned helicopter.

Bruno says all his trips on the helicopter were for state business.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288275,00.html

"Power for Jobs program extended for another year"

Associated Press

Last updated: 3:12 p.m., Sunday, July 8, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced Sunday that he has signed legislation extending New York's Power for Jobs program for another year while lawmakers craft an improved, multi-year version of the program.

The 10-year-old Power for Jobs program was intended to provide millions of dollars in subsidies for energy costs to select companies in exchange for creating or retaining jobs.

At the end of the legislative session last month, lawmakers agreed to extend the program for 12 months while they work out a more comprehensive low-cost energy program that includes reforms holding companies accountable for their jobs promises.

Spitzer also signed a second initiative extending the Energy Cost Saving Benefits program.

Both energy programs are administered by the New York Power Authority.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said in a prepared statement that the Power for Jobs program has been an important part of efforts to create and maintain jobs, but it's clear that there needs to be an improved approach that will provide greater certainty to businesses through predictable, multi-year energy contracts.

The program supports about 270,000 jobs at about 525 businesses and not-for-profit organizations throughout the state, according to Spitzer's office.

Participants receive benefits either through a cash rebate from NYPA to offset electricity costs or a 1.7-cent-per-kilowatt-hour discount on utility rates.

Utilities are reimbursed for lost revenue through state tax credits.

The Energy Cost Saving Benefits program supports three other power programs, which are linked to 105,000 jobs, Spitzer's office said.

THE SYRACUSE POST-STANDARD

"Addressing Gundersen abode, Upstate revival"

Friday, July 06, 2007

SEAN KIRST POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST

Dan Gundersen, Gov. Eliot Spitzer's choice to tackle Upstate's economic problems, sat down with me this week for a cup of coffee.

Gundersen wanted a chance to respond to a blog entry in which I wondered why he is living near Albany.

I wanted a chance to make a point about hockey.

You tell me if it's all somehow related.

A few weeks ago, Gundersen took some hits during state Senate hearings on his nomination as the Upstate chairman of the state Economic Development Corp.

Gundersen was hired this year to map out an Upstate renaissance, which caused Senate Commerce Committee Chairman James Alesi to take a shot at him for living in Saratoga Springs instead of struggling Buffalo where Spitzer is basing his Upstate economic offices.

Last month, responding to that flap on that blog, I wrote you need to live in a place like Buffalo or Syracuse to fully appreciate the fabric of those cities.

In a region accustomed to abandonment, I wrote, Gundersen's choice of Saratoga Springs "says everything."

Over coffee, Gundersen said it was hardly that simple.

His wife, Tamera, he said, grew up in Weedsport.

When she was a teenager, just before her senior year of high school, her father took a job in another region and the family had to move.

Gundersen said his wife remembers that as one of the most difficult transitions of her life.

The Gundersens now have their own daughter, Jenna.

She is about to be a senior in high school.

When Gundersen decided to leave Pennsylvania for the job with Spitzer in New York, he and Tamera asked Jenna what she wanted to do.

She told her parents she wanted to graduate with her class.

So Gundersen, who said he averages hundreds of miles in travel around Upstate every week, said he decided to temporarily rent an apartment month-to-month in Saratoga Springs until Jenna finishes school.

He said that puts him close to the governor, and to more than 200 economic development employees in Albany who report to Gundersen.

Within a year, he said, the economic development office in Buffalo will have expanded to at least 40 employees, and his daughter will be going off to college.

At that point, he said, it will almost certainly make sense for him to settle Upstate - although he said that could be in Buffalo, or in Syracuse, or in some other community.

"What is difficult in this situation," Gundersen said, "is that political gamemanship is playing to Upstate's doubts and fears."

Gundersen said he appreciates the emotional reaction to the economic wounds across this region, where many cities have suffered such dramatic bleeding of vitality and population.

He sees his job as healing the wounds, while understanding the emotion.

The best way to do that, he said, is "focusing on economic development strategy."

For too long, he said, many Upstate communities banked on what he called "smokestack chasing," the idea of seeking big-hit counterparts to the massive industries that bailed out over the past 50 years.

That was failed thinking.

The state's role, Gundersen said, ought to be an "integrated approach" that involves establishing agile and creative economic development teams that react to the needs of distinct communities across Upstate.

"I'm incredibly optimistic," Gundersen said.

"You can see the opportunity right in front of you, but we haven't applied the economic muscle to make it happen."

Gundersen was certainly correct in the notion that the success of his Upstate strategy - and, by extension, that of Spitzer - will not be measured by emotion or, for that matter, by his address.

It will be measured by the simple reality of whether Gundersen and Spitzer reverse the regional decline that rolled on under five previous governors of New York.

But I thought he might appreciate the tale I offered about hockey.

I told Gundersen how the Buffalo Sabres have been one of Upstate's happiest sports stories for the past few seasons.

Not long ago, that National Hockey League franchise seemed to be in crisis.

But it was purchased by Rochester tycoon Tom Golisano, who breathed new life into the team.

This year, the Sabres had the best record in hockey, before they suffered a disappointing loss in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

A more profound loss, however, happened last week.

The Sabres were raided by big-market teams.

Among those leaving was popular co-captain Chris Drury, symbol of the team's revival, who signed a $35 million contract to go Downstate and play for the New York Rangers.

To many of us, that story isn't really about sports - because sports becomes an Upstate microcosm for larger frustrations.

It felt much more personal.

Drury's departure was about commitment, and belief, and what always seems to happen in this region.

It was about daring to hope, and then having those hopes smashed.

It was about hockey, but it was also about the way things go Upstate.

Gundersen is right in the idea that where he lives means far less than his results.

Yet for a region all too used to abandonment, the simple act of staying here becomes the ultimate act of confidence.

Once that happens - and Gundersen says it will - it can only help him to do his job.

Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard. His columns appear Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Call him at 470-6015.

http://www.syracuse.com/articles/kirst/ind...&thispage=1

"As housing prices soar, debate over tax break that helped rich"

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press

Last updated: 8:23 p.m., Saturday, July 7, 2007

NEW YORK -- A 1970s housing program that has helped rich New Yorkers avoid millions of dollars in property taxes could be getting its first major overhaul in decades.

State and city officials are in a final round of talks over rewriting a tax break that was intended to spur construction in distressed neighborhoods, but has turned into a cushy perk for developers building luxury housing.

"It has become a way to maximize profit," said state Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who has watched the program fuel pricey new construction in his Brooklyn district.

A new plan would make the tax breaks available in many areas only to developers who include affordable housing in their projects.

The tax program is one that dates from the city's bad old days, back when the Bronx was burning and hookers ruled Times Square.

Desperate to spark revitalization, city officials offered an extraordinary incentive: Anyone willing to build new multifamily housing would qualify for a huge tax break -- one that would last 10 to 25 years, and, in some cases, allow owners of big apartment buildings to pay as little as someone who owned an empty lot.

At the time, the program made sense, said Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development.

"It's hard to remember how in the doldrums the city was," he said.

"People were abandoning their buildings on the way out of town."

But in the decades since then, the well-intentioned incentive has seemed increasingly inappropriate.

These days in New York, luxury apartment buildings are sprouting everywhere, including hard-luck neighborhoods once known for high crime and entrenched poverty.

The average price of a two bedroom apartment in Manhattan topped $1.6 million this spring.

Yet, the city has continued to offer the tax break, except in the very wealthiest parts of Manhattan.

Last year, the program cost the city $400 million in lost tax revenue.

Beneficiaries included the owners of new buildings like 497 Greenwich Street, a downtown condominium tower that opened a few years ago just outside Tribeca.

When it opened to rave architectural reviews, the building had everything its millionaire residents could want: magnificent glass lofts, balconies with Hudson River vistas, and a tax break that will save the owners $2.8 million over 10 years.

The days of the biggest giveaways, however, now appear to be numbered.

State lawmakers late last month passed a bill that would eliminate automatic tax breaks in almost all of Manhattan, a good chunk of Brooklyn, and small sections of the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island.

Developers in those zones would only qualify for the discount if they set aside 20 percent of their new buildings for poor or middle class families.

Similar rules have existed for midtown Manhattan and the Upper East and West Sides since the 1980s.

The proposal, however, appears to have hit a series of last-minute snags.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had initially lobbied for the change, asked Gov. Eliot Spitzer to veto it, saying the final draft of the bill had included too many emerging communities that still need incentives for development.

"They have included some neighborhoods where the economics don't make sense," said Neill Coleman, a spokesman for the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

"It will stop development of housing in a number of neighborhoods," said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a civic group.

The city also opposed a requirement that the affordable units created by the plan go predominantly toward the working poor.

City officials wanted looser rules that would also create middle class housing.

Other critics objected to an exemption in the plan that would preserve a multimillion dollar tax benefit for the developers of Atlantic Yards, a massive project in Brooklyn that will include thousands of new apartments and a new basketball arena for the NBA's Nets.

Legislative leaders delayed sending the measure to Spitzer's desk, and talks are now ongoing about possible adjustments.

"We'll see what happens," said Lopez, one of the architects of the state's version of the proposal.

Lopez said he doesn't believe that housing construction will slow if the city limits the tax breaks, but said it wouldn't bother him if expensive new towers stopped sprouting in gentrifying Brooklyn sections like Williamsburg and Bushwick.

"Its driving working class people and poor people out of these neighborhoods," he said.

"Economic worry rising in New York - Poll finds 43 percent say state finances worsened over the past year; one-third find cause for optimism"

By WILLIAM KATES, Associated Press

First published: Monday, July 9, 2007

SYRACUSE -- A growing number of New Yorkers describe the state economy as worsening and only one out of three are optimistic about the state's financial well-being in the year ahead, according to an annual poll.

The number of New Yorkers who described the state economy as worsening over the past year increased from 36 percent in 2006 to 43 percent in 2007, according to the Empire State Poll, a yearly telephone survey conducted by Cornell University's Survey Research Institute.

The results mirror a quarterly survey of the state's cities by the Siena Research Institute, released Friday, which found declines in consumer confidence.

Past Empire polls had shown New Yorkers expressing growing faith in the state economy since 2003, when confidence was at its lowest with nearly 80 percent of respondents saying conditions were worsening.

Half of upstate residents believed the state economy worsened over the past year, while only 9 percent thought it had improved.

Downstate, 27 percent of residents thought the economy had improved, while only 39 percent said it was worse.

Meanwhile, 34 percent of New Yorkers expected the state economy to improve during the next year, up from about 23 percent in 2006 and the most optimistic outlook uncovered by the poll during its five years.

The poll was conducted with 800 New Yorkers between Jan. 25 and March 28, and released to The Associated Press.

The margin of error was 3.5 percent for statewide results and 4.9 percent for upstate-downstate comparisons.

"Assembly session not likely"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, July 9, 2007

Albany's atmosphere is so toxic that the Assembly probably won't return next week.

"I don't think it will happen," said Democratic Majority Leader Ronald Canestrari, D-Cohoes.

"Realistically, we could come back in the fall, and that might be better."

Added Albany Democrat Jack McEneny: "I don't see how we could be productive in this poisoned atmosphere."

McEneny, Canestrari and others cited the bitter fight between Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, which escalated last week amid questions about Bruno's use of state aircraft and Bruno's allegation that Spitzer used State Police to spy on him.

If the Assembly fails to return, New York City will likely lose its shot at a chunk of $1.1 billion in federal transportation funds for anti-congestion projects.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has asked lawmakers to approve a "congestion-pricing" plan that would charge motorists extra to drive in busier parts of Manhattan.

Even if the Assembly were inclined to approve the plan, which is far from certain, the complex issue would still need to be negotiated.

Silver, said one insider, speaks daily with Spitzer and Bruno, but the feuding "really makes it harder, or really impossible, to get any deals."

"... The sense is, no progress will be made until things calm down."

Nonprofits wait on bill

Nonprofit agencies are watching this week to see if Spitzer signs off on a law that would make the state obey its own law.

A bill that went to Spitzer on Friday would add some teeth to an existing law requiring the state to process contracts within specific periods -- 150 days for agencies, and 15 days each for the attorney general and comptroller.

The state often blows the deadlines.

A 2003 comptroller's study looked at 103 contracts; at least 96 were late, and the state hadn't paid interest as required.

Another study of 2005-06 contracts found that more than 4,000 contracts -- 62 percent of the total -- failed to meet the time frames.

The state can get a waiver of the interest from the nonprofits, which typically agree because they don't want to jeopardize future contracts, said Susan Hager, president of the United Way of New York and a key advocate of a stricter prompt-contracting law.

Nonprofits end up borrowing money to tide them over, costing them interest on the loans.

The state also has to tell nonprofits a contract won't be renewed within 90 days of the renewal date, but missed that deadline, too, Hager said.

Several years ago, she noted, after-school programs got one day's notice that their new contracts weren't coming, leaving parents in the lurch.

Lawmakers, she said, stepped in with discretionary funds.

The proposed law, which had bipartisan sponsorship, requires interest to be paid when due, allows waivers for only unusual cases and calls for an annual report on the state's performance.

But a sticking point that could lead to a veto, Hager acknowledged, is a new requirement that contracts continue until the state meets its 90-day cancellation requirement -- even if that means extending the contract.

Got a tip? Call 454-5424 or e-mail jjochnowitz@ timesunion.com.

"A plant shakes up a forest - Environmentalists worry that the drawbacks of development are being ignored in favor of the financial rewards of an AMD chip factory"

By LARRY RULISON, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, July 8, 2007

MALTA -- The forest where Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is planning to build a $3.2 billion computer chip factory is teeming with life.

The site includes hundreds of acres of hardwoods such as oak, beech and maple, and softwoods such as pine, hemlock and larch, along with several ravines.

The property, 1,350 acres that straddles the towns of Malta and Stillwater, is home to a variety of birds, including red-tail hawks, sparrows, doves, wild turkey and woodpeckers, and mammals such as deer, raccoons, skunks and red foxes.

And although the Army once conducted secret missile testing here, which turned hundreds of acres of the forest into a hazardous waste site, local environmentalists and open-space advocates warn that the community is turning a blind eye to the impact AMD could have on the land and public health.

The towns of Malta and Stillwater are home to about 20,000 residents, and Luther Forest sits just south of Saratoga Lake, a major recreation draw.

They say their concerns are being ignored because of the promise of thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in potential economic development for the region and state.

AMD's factory, which would employ 1,200 people, would be the largest industrial project in state history.

And New York has promised the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company $1.2 billion in financial incentives.

In fact, computer chip factories like the one AMD plans to build in Luther Forest use some of the most toxic chemicals known to man.

Much of that toxic waste has to be taken off-site after the computer chips are created from silicon wafers.

Well-known hazards include sulfuric acid, lead and copper waste, and debris that has been contaminated with arsenic.

"This being so close to a residential area, I think it's cause for concern," said Barbara Trypaluk, chairwoman of the Saratoga County Green Party.

"I don't like the whole idea that it's being done in Luther Forest."

"It should be done in a brownfield."

"This county is never going to be the same."

AMD has had to clean up two Superfund sites where it once operated chip fabs in Silicon Valley.

Today, AMD only operates two fabs, both of them in Dresden, Germany, where environmental regulations are extremely strict.

In an interview with the Times Union, Steve Groseclose, AMD's director of global environmental health and safety, said the company considers environmental and public health protection a top priority, with the most sophisticated technologies put in place to prevent spills and contamination.

He said the two Superfund sites became polluted in the 1970s when AMD and others in the electronics industry stored chemicals underground, a practice that has since been discontinued.

"That's not going to happen here in New York or anywhere else where we're going to do business," Groseclose said.

"We simply don't do it."

Groseclose said that areas within the chip fab where hazardous materials are delivered or handled are self-contained to prevent contamination, and workers aren't exposed to these chemicals.

"The product stays within these sealed tools, and the chemicals are in these sealed tools," he said.

Groseclose said the water the chip fab uses is cleaned before it is sent back to the municipal water-treatment facility, and AMD will seek industrial buyers for the sludge and solid waste that it produces.

Some of its waste, for instance, can be used to make cement.

"We try to find a home for it," he said.

"We certainly prefer to recycle the material."

The Green Party's Trypaluk said she is afraid of possible chemical spills if AMD ships its waste from Luther Forest to unknown locations.

She said she met with Groseclose in February and came away from the meeting largely unsatisfied.

"He was very evasive about what they were going to do with the toxic waste," Trypaluk said.

"They want to truck it out of state."

"It's very nasty stuff."

"It's a very dirty, toxic process."

Before that meeting with Groseclose, Trypaluk said she wishes she had read "Challenging the Chip," a book published last year that explores the environmental history of the semiconductor industry.

Trypaluk had the Saratoga Springs Public Library order the book for its collection to help educate the public.

If people are wondering what types of environmental safeguards will be put in place by AMD at Luther Forest, they might want to look at the University at Albany's nanotech complex, which is home to the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.

Like AMD's proposed site, Albany NanoTech sits near an environmentally sensitive area -- the Pine Bush Preserve -- and next to a residential area.

The college operates a 35,000-square-foot clean room designed to allow scientists and computer chip companies to test new manufacturing methods.

Once it is fully operational, the facility may be able to produce up to 750 research chip wafers per month.

That's just a fraction of the 25,000 commercial-grade wafers that a typical chip fab could produce each month.

Even with its small manufacturing operation, the college has an onsite environmental health and safety team of 50 trained people who help to monitor the facility around the clock, said NanoCollege spokesman Steve Janack.

The college also has a state-of-the-art wastewater pretreatment system, and all chemicals are disposed of according to state and federal guidelines.

Janack said used chemicals are collected in bulk storage with secondary containment that is retrieved and disposed of by specialized firms licensed by both the state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Janack said the college has a "spotless and incident-free" environmental and health safety record.

"Emissions to air are controlled using semiconductor industry standards, even though (the college) is not required by New York state regulations to do so," he said, adding that the complex is "virtually a zero-emission site."

LaMar Hill, a former Albany NanoTech executive who now is president of the Albany-based International Alliance of Nanotechnology Regions, said the semiconductor industry has been able to build chip fabs in areas like Portland, Ore., Dresden and Austin, Texas -- which all have strong environmental communities -- because of their focus on the environment.

Besides the fact that the semiconductor industry came about during the 1960s when the environmental movement began, Hill said the chip industry doesn't want to allow any spills or public health hazard that would stop production.

"They really don't want to take any chances on their factories being shut down," he said.

"They all look at this issue as a very critical issue."

The chemicals used in computer chip factories aren't the only concern for health and safety.

Scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca are researching just what impact smaller and smaller computer chip components will mean for the environment.

Current chips use components that are 65 nanometers wide, but if AMD's plant were to become operational in 2012 or 2014 as has been discussed, the industry may be making chips with 32-nanometer or even 22-nanometer components.

A human hair is 50,000 nanometers across.

Michael Skvarla, user program manager at the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, said scientists at Cornell and in the industry are researching what impact those small components will have on the human body.

Skvarla said that while chemical exposure in the semiconductor industry has always loomed large, there is also concern about the carbon nanoparticles getting into human lungs.

Researchers are working on developing so-called carbon nanotubes about 1 nanometer in width that could one day be used as transistors in computer chips.

"There's a great deal of concern," Skvarla said.

"It's starting with worker safety, but it's going to extend to consumer safety and product safety."

"It's gratifying to know the industry is looking closely at it."

Besides the AMD factory, the environmental community is worried about the impact that related infrastructure projects will have on open space in Saratoga County.

Trypaluk and others believe that projects such as the proposed Saratoga County water system and the Round Lake Bypass are being undertaken just to satisfy AMD's industrial needs.

The two projects alone will dramatically change the character and environment of Saratoga County, they say.

The Round Lake Bypass is a $29 million state project designed to divert traffic away from the village of Round Lake along a 1.6-mile, two-lane road linking Northway Exit 11 to Route 9 and Luther Forest.

The roadway, which is expected to be completed by next year, will be built through wetlands and span Ballston Creek.

The $67 million water project would pump water from the Hudson River in Moreau and send it down a 27-mile pipeline to Luther Forest.

AMD would need the water because chip fabs use up to 2 million gallons of water a day.

Stillwater resident Radliff, a former town planning board member, said the combination of AMD's plant and infrastructure projects such as the Round Lake Bypass are going to contribute to Saratoga County's growing problem of sprawl and bring with them possible environmental damage.

"This project in general contradicts smart growth," Radliff said.

"There cannot be a more detrimental scenario."

Susan Lawrence, chairwoman of The Hudson-Mohawk Group, a local affiliate of the Sierra Club, said building the chip fab "will wreck the ecology of the forest" and also contribute to sprawl in the county.

But she is also worried that Saratoga County and the state are moving ahead with such projects without looking at the bigger picture of how they will contribute to the development of open space -- especially if AMD ultimately decides it doesn't want to build in the county.

AMD has until July 2009 to commit to construction at Luther Forest to be eligible for a $650 million cash grant that is part of its state incentive package.

The company's board of directors has yet to make that decision, but questions have been raised about whether that will ever happen.

AMD lost $650 million during the first quarter, and the company is moving ahead with its "asset-light" business model some analysts say could include going "fabless" and using contractors to do its manufacturing.

AMD spokesman Travis Bullard has said there is the possibility AMD may end up partnering with another company to own or operate the Luther Forest fab, although nothing has been decided.

The uncertainty bothers the Hudson-Mohawk Group's Lawrence, who would rather not have major infrastructure projects built if AMD hasn't committed.

"There's a whole bunch of ifs," she said.

"They're building stuff on speculation."

Larry Rulison can be reached at 454-5504 or by e-mail at lrulison@timesunion.com.