NYPolitics.com New Yorks Political Resource for News and Information http://www.nypolitics.com New York Politics, News, Campaigns, Information, Governor of New york, Mayor of New york Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:50:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Lester Freeman drops out of 21st Congressional District race http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/lester-freeman-drops-out-of-21st-congressional-district-race/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/lester-freeman-drops-out-of-21st-congressional-district-race/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:50:38 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=796 The race to replace Democrat Michael McNulty in the 21st Congressional District race has another casualty.

Democrat Lester Freeman, the only black candidate in the race, dropped out Wednesday and swung his support behind fellow Democrat and former state Assemblyman Paul Tonko.

Tim Carney, Freeman’s campaign manager, said it became apparent that Freeman would not be able to raise the $300,000 to $400,000 Carney thinks a candidate needs to compete in a primary with eight other potential Democratic candidates. The primary is Sept. 9.

“This is very bittersweet for myself,” Freeman said at Townsend Park Apartments on Central Avenue, where his mother and father live. Freeman, 41, is the city of Albany’s Equal Employment Opportunity coordinator. He had portrayed himself as the one candidate who understood urban issues because he grew up in Albany’s South End. “But it’s a good thing for the 21st Congressional district.”

Neither Freeman nor Carney would say how much Freeman raised. They said it will be disclosed in federal campaign filings July 15. Freeman did not have enough money raised to require filing campaign finance papers for the April 15 federal deadline.

Democrat Phil Steck raised the most, $205,807, by April 15, and Democrat Tracey Brooks followed with $178,374. Tonko had not entered the race by the first filing deadline.

Other candidates face an important test on July 10, when petitions for the primary are due to the state. Candidates must get 1,250 signatures from registered party members in the 21st District, which covers all of Montgomery, Schenectady, Albany and Schoharie counties and parts of Fulton, Saratoga and Rensselaer counties. In addition to the eight Democrats left in the race, two Republicans are running.

Freeman said he wanted to support Tonko because he’s the only candidate who has represented people in inner city communities. Tonko’s 105th Assembly District, in which he served for 24 years, covered Schenectady’s troubled Vale and Hamilton Hill neighborhoods, Freeman said.

“I appreciate the support Lester and his campaign are bringing forth,” Tonko said. “There are neighborhoods that haven’t been responded to as well as they should be.”

As for actively campaigning for Tonko, Freeman said he’s going to take a few weeks off, then serve Tonko’s campaign in whatever way is requested.

Freeman is the second candidate to drop out of the race. Former Plug Power CEO Gary Mittleman left in April, saying it was hard for him to ask people for money.

Source: Times Union

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/lester-freeman-drops-out-of-21st-congressional-district-race/feed/ All-nighter helps Con Edison, union avert heat wave walkout http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/all-nighter-helps-con-edison-union-avert-heat-wave-walkout/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/all-nighter-helps-con-edison-union-avert-heat-wave-walkout/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:47:37 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=795 Con Edison’s 9,000 union employees are staying on the job after all-night talks produced a new contract Wednesday and removed the threat of a strike during a summer heat wave.

Both sides agreed to keep talking past a midnight strike deadline set by Utility Workers Union of America Local 1-2, and shook hands on a deal just before 5 a.m.

The union said Con Ed’s proposed wage increases and health benefit changes made for a bitter negotiating atmosphere, as did a plan to put new employees into a 401(k)-style retirement plan instead of a traditional pension.

Con Ed dropped that proposal, paving the way for a final handshake - though neither side would say exactly what the wage increase will be. The union’s workers must still vote to approve the deal.The union represents Con Ed workers in all of New York except Staten Island and Westchester County.

Source: NY Daily News

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/all-nighter-helps-con-edison-union-avert-heat-wave-walkout/feed/ Former Assemb. McLaughlin pours himself into new life http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/former-assemb-mclaughlin-pours-himself-into-new-life/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/former-assemb-mclaughlin-pours-himself-into-new-life/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:46:00 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=794 Former Assemb. Brian McLaughlin’s federal indictment in October 2006 covered 186 pages and described a web of corrupt acts including bribery, embezzlement, racketeering, mail fraud and money laundering.

Four months ago, McLaughlin, 56, pleaded guilty to criminal counts. It took the former Democratic lawmaker, labor coalition leader, union official and party activist from Queens nearly an hour to recite in court how he raked off hundreds of thousands of dollars from campaign, labor and taxpayer accounts.

McLaughlin, who is facing a possible 8- to 10-year prison term when he’s sentenced Sept. 12, agreed last week to his first interview since his life in the limelight collapsed - leaving fellow unionists livid, an old extramarital affair publicized, the city’s Central Labor Council tattered, critics vindicated and allies bewildered.

At a back booth in a coffee shop in his former Flushing district, McLaughlin politely nudged the conversation toward what he most wanted to talk about: his wife Eva, his family and the life he leads today. He talked about the rewards of returning over the past couple of years to blue-collar work as a sandhog, electrician and limo driver - and about saner hours and spiritual matters, with a backward glance or two at the ruin of his public life.

“In my case alcohol was a factor in some of what I did,” he said. With his public roles always keeping him away from home, he said, “you’re out of touch with the emotional needs of your wife and family, those that matter the most to you, largely without recognizing it. And unable to recognize it, because every day your work schedule and your personal lifestyle kind of take on a habit and a culture of their own.

“Eva’s my soul mate,” he said. “I love her more than anything in the world. Public humiliation hurts and I’m reminded and humbled every day by how much pain she must have felt. I’m not saying it’s accomplished yet, but I’m trying to win back her trust.”

“… For the last 2 1/2 years you could have been crying in your soup, seeing the glass as half-empty - or try to move on and build back trust.”

McLaughlin said that before the case surfaced, his lifestyle was taking a toll and he’d decided to quit the Assembly. In succession he lost his other roles leading the council and the electrical union’s streetlight division.

In his time as a sandhog on the massive water-tunnel project, sending equipment down a shaft 48 stories off 10th Avenue in Manhattan, McLaughlin had a swing shift. So in the mornings he could walk with his wife to the beach, near the house they owned in Nissequogue, which figured in his case and has since been forfeited and sold.

He speaks of having moved from one life to another. He suggests his fall from grace might resemble a bit the story of Michael Vick, who’d come up “from the neighborhood” but still hung out with the old group of “knuckleheads.”

For quality time, he describes boogie-boarding with his 8-year-old daughter on Fire Island, and honestly discussing the present and future with her and his other four children - the oldest now in his 30s, an electrician.

Some of the criminal charges involved funds from a Little League account. McLaughlin insists that the actions didn’t deprive kids - that he started and supported that athletic association in the Electchester community in Queens, and it provided “the best of everything” for the young players.

Peter Allone, who’s been his foreman on electrical work, is a born-again Christian. The two have talked at length of spiritual matters. Once, on a lunch break, they even discovered they were carrying the same book - “My Utmost for His Highest,” by the Scottish minister Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), according to McLaughlin.

Allone said he believes McLaughlin “got caught up in his own greed, in his own sin. Eventually it caught up with him.”

“I’m not excusing what he did,” Allone said, “but I believe that deep inside he’s a good man and that the Lord has more use for him.”

Sandhog Morgan Peterson, who oversaw McLaughlin’s work, said: “He’s a good, hard worker and I’ve got respect for him.”

When details of the scandal surrounding McLaughlin broke, Suffolk resident Sonia Menezes, who runs a beauty salon, drew an unwanted spotlight as some of McLaughlin’s largesse led investigators her way.

They’d been involved in 1997, she said. “We bumped into each other again in 2002. The last time I spoke to him was 2004, two years before this whole mess began,” she said last week. “Now I just want to be left alone. I have two kids and a life … Brian’s a good man and I wish him well.”

Not everyone does, of course.

The next chapter on McLaughlin will be written in federal court, a little more than two months from now.

Source: Newsday

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/former-assemb-mclaughlin-pours-himself-into-new-life/feed/ Golisano’s money, power could be spread around http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/golisanos-money-power-could-be-spread-around/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/golisanos-money-power-could-be-spread-around/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:44:13 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=793 Senate Democrats salivating over the idea of Rochester-area billionaire Tom Golisano dishing out millions of dollars for their campaigns in November may want to hedge their bets. He may also back Republicans.

Golisano is set to form a state political action committee and commit $1 million to each candidate who supports his reform agenda.

While Golisano is expected to back three western New York Democratic Senate candidates, he also may use his deep pockets to help Republican and independent candidates across the state.

“I think it is unlikely that he would be doing something to unilaterally help elect a Senate Democratic majority,” said Roger Stone, a Republican strategist who advised Golisano during his gubernatorial run in 2002.

Golisano’s influence and money could be an interesting twist in a precarious election year as Senate Republicans try to retain their slim one-seat majority.

Golisano, founder of the Penfield-based Paychex Inc., will officially announce the formation of the PAC on Tuesday in Albany.

Golisano, who ran unsuccessfully three times for governor as an Independence Party candidate, has not been easy to peg politically. So advisers said it would be presumptuous to think he is out to flip the Senate’s majority.

In fact, trying to do so would be contradictory to Golisano’s prior comments about the need to have checks and balances in government and ensuring that upstate has a strong voice in Albany, Stone said. If Democrats take the Senate, they would be largely represented by New York City-based politicians.

“It would be out of character and against his entire lifetime record as a reformer to back either the Republicans or the Democrats,” Stone said during an Albany radio interview Wednesday.

Golisano is expected to listen to candidates’ commitment to reforming Albany, such as lowering spending and taxes, and then make a decision on which candidates to back.

Golisano has not returned calls seeking comment.

He helped create the Independence Party in the late 1990s and was its flagbearer until 2005, when he registered as a Republican as he contemplated a fourth run for governor. He decided against the run after spending nearly $100 million of his own money on the first three tries.

Golisano talked in 2006 about putting big money behind Republicans in the Senate in order for them to retain the majority, saying at the time “There’s a better balance if we have a Republican Senate as far as upstate is concerned.”

But Golisano may argue now that the Republicans did little to curb spending or high taxes, and thus new leadership is needed, aides said.

Golisano is expected to back three Senate Democratic candidates - Joe Mesi, who is running for a seat being vacated by Sen. Mary Lou Rath, R-Amherst, Erie County; Kathy Konst, who is expected to run against Sen. Dale Volker, R-Depew, Erie County; and Richard Dollinger, who is running against Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Greece, Monroe County.

Robach said he would be taken aback if Golisano seeks to oust him.

The two have had a strong relationship, Robach said.

Source: Poughkeepsie Journal

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/golisanos-money-power-could-be-spread-around/feed/ Politics Failed, but Fuel Prices Cut Congestion http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/politics-failed-but-fuel-prices-cut-congestion/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/politics-failed-but-fuel-prices-cut-congestion/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:41:49 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=792 Soaring gas prices and higher tolls seem to be doing for traffic in New York what Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s ambitious congestion pricing was supposed to do: reducing the number of cars clogging the city’s streets and pushing more people to use mass transit.

In May, with gasoline at more than $4 a gallon, traffic at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bridges and tunnels dropped 4.7 percent compared with the same month the previous year.

Preliminary data for June shows a similar decrease in traffic, and officials say the change is largely because of higher prices at the pump.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has recorded a similar decline in travel across its bridges and tunnels since early March, when it raised tolls. The greatest decline was in April, when traffic fell by 4.2 percent. (The transportation authority also increased tolls in March, but by a much smaller amount.)

At the same time, subway, bus and commuter rail ridership has increased.

Weekday subway ridership was up 6.5 percent in April, compared with the same month a year ago. April ridership increased 5.5 percent on the Long Island Rail Road, 4.3 percent on the Metro-North Railroad and almost 9 percent on PATH trains between Manhattan and New Jersey. Use of the subways and rail lines also increased in May, compared with the previous year, but in most cases by smaller amounts. New Jersey Transit ridership, including bus, commuter rail and light rail, was up about 4.6 percent in April and May combined.

“We’re at the point where people really are changing habits,” said Sam Schwartz, a transportation consultant. He said that if gas prices stayed high, the result could be close to the goal set by Mr. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan, which, if it had been approved, was expected to reduce traffic in much of Manhattan by 6.3 percent.

“If we start eclipsing $5 a gallon, which we might over the summer, I think we might get very close,” Mr. Schwartz said.

Throughout the country, rising gas prices have had a broad economic impact, hitting especially hard in many cities and suburban communities where people are more dependent on cars than in the transit-dense New York City region.

And while there is no denying that increased costs mean a certain pain for drivers in New York, they may also have the unique effect of meshing with the city’s goal of cutting traffic and, as a consequence, lowering pollution.

Bloomberg administration officials, however, said the actual impact may be slight.

“The magnitude here is by no means comparable to the effect that congestion pricing would have in reducing traffic,” said Bruce Schaller, deputy transportation commissioner for planning and sustainability.

“What congestion pricing does,” he added, “is it focuses traffic reduction on the most congested places and times, whereas gasoline prices spread the impact out.”

Still, the new numbers do bolster a central point of the Bloomberg plan: that higher prices can motivate commuters to give up their cars.

“It shows that pricing matters and that people respond to it,” said Jeffrey M. Zupan, a senior fellow for transportation at the Regional Plan Association.

It is hard to say exactly what the impact of lighter bridge and tunnel traffic has been on the streets of Manhattan — or other boroughs — since the city does not take traffic measurements that show changes from month to month. But there are other indications.

The Metropolitan Parking Association, which represents garage and parking lot owners, said that its members had seen about a 10 percent decrease in daily customers. And gas station managers interviewed in Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey said that the number of drivers buying gas had also declined.

Interviews with drivers and transit riders indicate, however, that a change in habits has not come easy — and might be reversed if gas prices fall.

“When prices went over $4, I stopped driving,” said Scott Pisciotti, 41, a real estate portfolio manager from Somers, N.Y. Mr. Pisciotti said he used to drive daily to his office in Midtown Manhattan but now rides a Metro-North train from White Plains to Grand Central Terminal. It is a new routine for him, and he has not fully embraced it. “If prices dropped,” he said, “I would drive a lot more.”

Commuter trains have also become more crowded, riders say.

At the Secaucus Junction train station of New Jersey Transit, Brian Simmons, 30, said that it had become much harder to get a seat on the train in recent months. “It’s like the New York City subway,” he said.

Gas price-induced traffic reduction might have a downside. Mr. Bloomberg’s plan was intended, among other things, to raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year for mass transit improvements by charging cars an $8 fee to enter the area of Manhattan below 59th Street. The plan was defeated in April when legislative leaders in Albany refused to bring it up for a vote.

Source: NY Times

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/politics-failed-but-fuel-prices-cut-congestion/feed/ 43RD SENATE DISTRICT : McDonald announces Senate run http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/43rd-senate-district-mcdonald-announces-senate-run/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/43rd-senate-district-mcdonald-announces-senate-run/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:39:14 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=791 Assemblyman Roy McDonald, RSaratoga, formally announced his campaign for state Senate Wednesday, while a rival for the Republican nomination, Ray Seney, blasted the front-runner and the party establishment.

McDonald made two announcements, the first in Troy, his hometown, where the gathered supporters included Sen. Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, the former Senate majority leader. Bruno is not running for re-election in the 43rd Senate District, and Republican Party leaders in both Saratoga and Rensselaer counties have endorsed McDonald as his successor.

Seney, a councilman and former supervisor in the Rensselaer County town of Nassau, issued a statement complaining about the number of Republican county committee members getting signatures for McDonald, which means “the chance for another Republican to even get on to the ballot [is] seriously reduced.” Candidates must files petitions with 1,000 valid signatures by July 10. Seney also alleged that McDonald moved from Wilton, where he had been town supervisor, to the town of Saratoga “purely for his own personal benefit so he could be hand-picked for the Senate job.”

Wilton is in the district of Sen. Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna, whom McDonald once challenged unsuccessfully in a Republican primary.

Source: Daily Gazette

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/03/43rd-senate-district-mcdonald-announces-senate-run/feed/ The Candidate From Vibe http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/the-candidate-from-vibe/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/the-candidate-from-vibe/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:25:33 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=790 Congressional challenger Kevin Powell of central Brooklyn is hoping to get elected to office, in part, on the strength of his association with famous people: He likes Barack Obama, and celebrities like him.

“Chuck D e-mailed me today,” Powell told The Observer, referring to the outspoken rapper made famous in the late 1980s and early ’90s with songs like “Fight the Power” and “911 is a Joke.” “He was driving in Montreal, Canada, and he said, ‘Kevin, I’m with you. Anything I can do for you, let me know.’”

Powell is attempting this year to unseat a 13-term incumbent, Representative Ed Towns, a Baptist minister who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary and whose absence from the campaign trail in 2006 (and so far this year) can make it hard to notice there’s an election happening.

He is trying to generate support for his cause not only by calling on the famous contacts made as a hip-hop journalist but, more significantly, by tapping into the network of activists and ordinary voters in the majority African-American district who supported Barack Obama in the Democratic nomination fight.

The strategy is no more unusual, or controversial, than the candidate himself.

Source: Observer Read the complete article here

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/the-candidate-from-vibe/feed/ Tax-exempt aid for new Yankee Stadium raises questions http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/tax-exempt-aid-for-new-yankee-stadium-raises-questions/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/tax-exempt-aid-for-new-yankee-stadium-raises-questions/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:17:42 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=789 More than two years ago, New York City and its Major League Baseball teams seized upon an innovative way to use tax-exempt bonds to help fund construction of the New York Yankees‘ new stadium in the Bronx and the Mets‘ Citi Field in Queens.

For the Yankees and the New York Mets, the public financing, with its lower interest rates for borrowing money, meant at least $147 million in savings for the Yankees over 30 years and $104 million for the Mets over 40 years, according to the Independent Budget Office, an independently funded, nonpartisan watchdog agency in the city.

But now, the playing field for such financing is shifting, even as the Yankees plan to seek another $350 million in what essentially is a government-subsidized loan for construction of their $1.3-billion arena.

Questions are being raised at both the federal and state levels.

In Washington, the Internal Revenue Service is contemplating a change that could block the Yankees from getting proceeds from the extra tax-exempt bonds the team says it wants to complete the new stadium.

In addition, a congressional subcommittee is asking the U.S. Treasury Department to explain why the financing for the Yankees and Mets was allowed in the first place and whether the IRS can change its regulations to more strictly limit publicly backed financing of sports stadiums. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who chairs a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is leading the inquiry.

Here in New York, the prospect of additional public financing for the Yankees prompted Assemb. Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), chairman of the Assembly’s Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, to set a hearing today in Manhattan.

Is there a public benefit?

Brodsky, who last week called stadium financing “socialism for the rich,” will aim questions at Seth Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corp., the agency that put together the financing deal for the Yankees.

“What’s the public benefit?” Brodsky said when asked what the committee, which has oversight of public bond financing, hopes to focus on at the hearing.

Pinsky said the project will boost the city’s economy with the construction jobs and other revenue they bring.

“This is an amazing investment by the city,” Pinsky said, referring to the new stadium in the Bronx. “The two major league stadiums being built today represent private investments of more than $2 billion in two underserved and deserving neighborhoods,” Pinsky said.

Use of the public financing route stems from the fact that the Yankees don’t own the land upon which the stadium is being built. The city does. Because the team doesn’t pay any real estate taxes, the stadium deal hinged on compensation using payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, commonly called PILOT.

PILOT payments, however, usually are linked to real estate taxes, hotel taxes or sales taxes. In the Yankees’ case, the PILOT is earmarked as a repayment of money for stadium construction borrowed by the city’s Industrial Development Agency.

Without the tax-free government bonds to raise cash, the Yankees would have to shop for money via private financing and thus face higher borrowing costs.

City officials and the Yankees confirmed that they have been lobbying Treasury Department officials in Washington to persuade regulators not to make the change, and thereby continue allowing the PILOT funding mechanism.

Yankees president Randy Levine said the financing structure should remain unchanged.

“Our original transaction always contemplated completion bonds,” Levine said last week. “We believe it’s not fair to change course midstream of a transaction.”

Controversial funding mechanism

The bond document signed in 2006 by the Yankees and the city provides that additional borrowing can be sought for the stadium’s completion.

Source: Newsday Read the complete article here

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/tax-exempt-aid-for-new-yankee-stadium-raises-questions/feed/ Drivers’ Strike Stalls New York City Construction http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/drivers%e2%80%99-strike-stalls-new-york-city-construction/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/drivers%e2%80%99-strike-stalls-new-york-city-construction/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:12:25 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=788 Most of New York City’s largest construction projects ground to a halt or near-halt on Tuesday because of an unanticipated strike by more than 400 cement-truck drivers.

With the bulky, noisy ready-mix concrete trucks largely disappearing from the city’s streets, the walkout affected scores of projects, including the Freedom Tower; the Second Avestrike, cement workers, nue subway; the new Yankee Stadium; Citi Field, the ballpark that will replace Shea Stadium; and many high-rise apartment buildings.

The concrete companies hit by the strike predicted that the walkout would last at least through Monday and perhaps considerably longer, putting thousands of construction workers temporarily out of work.

“The strike was a surprise because it seemed that the negotiations were going well until the 11th hour and then it fell apart,” said John Quadrozzi, president of the Quadrozzi Concrete Corporation, which has 50 trucks and calls itself the city’s largest concrete company. “At a time when the city is complaining about construction being behind at the World Trade Center site and the economy being in a downturn, we feel it’s not the right time for the union to take such a strong position in this type of negotiations.”

Carolyn Daly, a spokeswoman for the striking union, Local 282 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said the main issues were wages and working conditions. She said the union expected the strike to last only a few days, adding, “The posture is positive; it’s not angry.”

Joseph Greco Jr., treasurer of the Association of New York City Ready Mix Concrete Producers, saw the situation in a more negative light. “The union has informed us that they will not be contacting us to have additional negotiations until next week,” he said.

As a result of the drivers’ strike, construction was all but shut down Tuesday on a project to erect a six-story building for New York Law School at West Broadway and Leonard Street. Across the street, concrete work on the fourth floor of a planned nine-story condominium building had also been halted.

Victor Buono, a foreman on the condo project, said it looked as if a lot of workers would be forced to prematurely begin a very long July Fourth weekend.

“A good group of the guys, 30 or 40 of them, aren’t coming in tomorrow,” Mr. Buono said. “We’re just having a skeleton crew.”

The two sides engaged in intense bargaining until 12:30 a.m. Tuesday at Local 282’s headquarters in Lake Success, N.Y., but then the union informed the concrete companies that it was walking out. The contract expired at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

“Teamsters Local 282 regrets that it was unable to reach an agreement,” Bruce Levine, the lead lawyer for the union, said in a statement. “Local 282 is particularly disappointed because in the past month, it has succeeded in reaching innovative, far-reaching and fair agreements with hundreds of employers” that handle demolition as well as lumber, steel and other non-concrete building materials.

Construction is continuing at nonunion projects, which are generally smaller than the unionized sites affected by the strike. Work continued at some unionized sites where all the concrete had been poured, allowing laborers to do interior work or work on heating and air-conditioning.

Mr. Greco, who is also the secretary-treasurer of the Greco Brothers Concrete Corporation, said that under the expired contract, drivers earned $33.11 an hour, rising to $59.01 when health insurance, pension contributions and other benefits are included.

He said the union earlier this week demanded raises of $5 an hour in the overall compensation package each year for three years, although the union did not specify how much would go to wages and how much to benefits..

Mr. Greco said that during Monday’s bargaining, Gary La Barbera, Local 282’s president, reduced that demand to $3.50 an hour.

“They didn’t give us a chance to answer the $3.50 package before they walked out,” Mr. Greco said.

That $3.50 would represent a 6 percent increase in the drivers’ $59-an-hour compensation package.

“That is absolutely not a correct number or a correct version of events,” said a member of the union’s bargaining team, who insisted on anonymity because union officials said they would not negotiate in the news media. “And I’m surprised that a member of management’s bargaining team would be saying these things in public.”

Local 282 had long been notorious because the Gambino crime family controlled it for decades. But government officials placed it into trusteeship, and Mr. La Barbera was brought in to help root out corruption. Government officials say the cleanup has been quite successful.

Mr. Quadrozzi voiced keen frustration on Tuesday because his company is the primary concrete supplier to the Freedom Tower and PATH station at the former World Trade Center site.

“We’re shut down,” he said. “We have 50 beautiful trucks just sitting there in our parking lot.”

Source: NY Times

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]]> http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/drivers%e2%80%99-strike-stalls-new-york-city-construction/feed/ Upstate Billionaire Tom Golisano may aid Dems http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/upstate-billionaire-tom-golisano-may-aid-dems/ http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/07/02/upstate-billionaire-tom-golisano-may-aid-dems/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:07:22 +0000 NY Politics http://www.nypolitics.com/?p=787 Rochester billionaire Tom Golisano plans to make a “major announcement” next week about his involvement in this year’s elections, an aide said Tuesday, and a published report said it’s going to be good news for Democrats trying to win control of the state Senate.

Golisano, who has run unsuccessfully for governor three times and owns the Buffalo Sabres, may spend $1 million on behalf of each of several Democrats seeking to capture seats now held by Republicans, according to The Capitol, a magazine that covers state government.

Golisano aide Stephen Pigeon said Tuesday the announcement will be next Tuesday in Albany involving “New York State government and politics.” He wouldn’t comment further and Golisano didn’t return a call seeking comment.

Republicans now hold a slim 32-30 advantage in the chamber, which they have controlled every year but one (1965) since 1938.

Sen. Thomas W. Libous, R-Binghamton, who recently was selected deputy majority leader of the Senate, could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

Golisano has for years pushed a reform agenda for the state, but never got much traction as a candidate for governor, despite spending more than $70 million of his own money on his last try, in 2002.

Two years ago, Golisano switched his enrollment from the Independence Party to Republican and flirted with the idea of running for the Republican nomination for governor, but in the end backed away. He supported continued Republican control of the Senate in 2006, citing the need for “political balance in state government.” But he didn’t give the Republicans any money.

There is no limit on how much an individual can spend on behalf of candidates as long as it’s done independently of the candidates, said Stanley Zalen, co-executive director of the state Board of Elections.

Source: Pressconnects

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