Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to legalize gambling in New York.
Is it a good idea?
My guest on this Thursday’s “High Noon” radio show thinks it’s a terrible idea.
Listen to my interview with Paul Davies, an award-winning journalist and a fellow at the Institute for American Values, who has made a study of legalized gambling and believes that casinos provide little or no economic benefit. And yet most states in the union seize on gambling as a panacea to budget woes.
“High Noon” airs on WVOX (!460 AM) radio at 12 noon. You can listen online at www.wvox.com
Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi is famous for his hyperbolic style that never fails to capture the essence of whomever he skewers, e.g. Goldman Sachs—“The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
A copy of Taibbi’s bestseller—the lengthy title of which is “Griftobia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians,and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History”— recently landed on my desk. The book has been out there for about a year, but this was the first time I had a chance to thumb through it.
Within the first chapter he turns his poison pen against a Westchester contingent of Tea Partiers whom he met at the Alaroma Ristorante in Elmsford on a late February day in 2010.
He reports that he was about to announce himself as a reporter for Rolling Stone “but the instant I walk into this sad looking, seemingly windowless third-class Italian joint, speckled with red-white-and-blue crepe paper and angry middle-aged white faces, I change my mind.”
That description should you a pretty good idea of Taibbi’s opinion of the Tea Party, though he concedes that the anti-big government types do have some legitimate concerns. But overall condemns them as a bunch of narcissistic lunatics.
At the restaurant, he encounters Tom Bock, the Greenburgh Republican who unsuccessfully ran for county legislator, and whom he describes as “burly man in jeans and a cop’s mustache.” Taibbi reports that Bock gave a well-received speech in which he said the county should never have settled the federal lawsuit on affordable housing that continues to dominate the political conversation of local and county government. The county has been ordered to build 700 units of affordable housing in towns and villages with low minority populations.
Here, Taibbi takes a kind of pox-on-everyone stance, particularly against the many “white lawyers” litigating the issue who “got paid huge money.”
Among them, he counts the Anti-Discrimination Center ($7.5 million), the Washington D.C. law firm of Relman, Dane & Colfax ($2.5 million) and Westchester’s defending firm of EpsteinBeckerGreen, ($3 million).
The lawyers always get their money.
Invitations have been mailed out for newly-minted Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano’s “Inaugural Celebration” which will be held Jan. 26 at the Polish Community Center in the city’s downtown.
It’s being billed as “A New Day, A New Beginning.”
The invite says: ”(A new day/direction) begins for our beloved home, the City of Yonkers. This is not only the start of a new year or a new government. It is the start of a new era for Yonkers. Yonkers’ greatest days are yet to come.”
There will be dinner, dancing and booze. For the price, there ought to be plenty of booze. The cost is $300 per single ticket or $2,500 for a table of 10. But the RSVP also allows for individual patrons ($500), benefactors ($1,000) and sponsors ($2,000).
Checks are to be made out to Mayor Mike Spano Committee.
Today’s column update on the controversial, as well as lucrative, use of red-light cameras to catch traffic light violators is getting a spirited response from readers.
Some readers have requested a list of the intersections where the cameras have been installed.
Here are 16 of them. (Nine more locations are to come.)
The percent increase/decline in violations issued at each of the 16 Yonkers intersections equipped with red-light cameras between the time they became operational and August 2011, the end of the study period.
Ashburton Avenue at:
• Warburton Avenue (operational November 2010): -47%
• North Broadway (March 2011): -1%
• Nepperhan Avenue (April 2011): -33%
Midland Avenue at:
• Bronx River Road (November 2010): -71%
• Kimball Avenue (May 2011): -24%
Central Park Avenue at:
• Arlington Street (April 2011): -4%
• Crisfield Street (April 2011): +86%
• Fort Hill Avenue (April 2011): -44%
• Roxbury Drive (April 2011): -39%
• Sadore Lane (April 2011): -14%
McLean Avenue at:
• Kimball Avenue (November 2010): +18%
• Park Hill Avenue (January 2011): -65%
• Putnam Avenue (January 2011): +132%
And:
• South Broadway and Ludlow Street (November 2010): -75%
• Riverdale Avenue and Prospect Street (May 2011): +39%
• Nepperhan and Odell avenues (February 2011): -61%
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino will be giving his annual State of the County Address at a breakfast meeting set for Jan. 12.
In advance of his speech, the Westchester County Association today released a 10-question survey for its membership…all of the questions have to do with fiscal matters.
Question 1:
The recently adopt4d $1.69 billion 2012 County Budget projects no increases in the tax levy from 2011. Which of these best reflects your opinion of the budget?:—Appropriate balance of cost cutting and service delivery—Spending is too high—Spending is too low.—Don’t know.
We overlooked a couple of worthies for the 2011 Golden Typo Award, a honor which recognizes the dubious achievements of local news makers of the past year. It’s only Jan. 3, so it’s not too late to add a couple of recipients who somehow were overlooked in last week’s Golden Typo columns on Dec. 29 and Dec. 31. We apologize for the oversight!
First, let’s mention the team of history detectives who dug up the 122-year-old grave of the legendary Leather man, a 19th century character who, dressed head to toe in a suit of leather, wandered the hills of northern Westchester and eastern Connecticut. The Leather Man lived in caves and mainly subsisted on handouts from local citizens.
He was found dead in 1889 in a cave on a Mount Pleasant farm and was buried in the Sparta Cemetery in Ossining. The enduring mystery was that no one knew his name or where he came from.
In an effort to solve the mystery of the Leather Man’s true identity, the Ossining Historical Society decided to exhume his remains for DNA study and then rebury him in a more appropriate spot. This spurred protests from some who believed that the grave should not be disturbed.
After all the anticipation of pre-exhumation hype, nothing was found. Not a trace, except some coffin nails. It was shades of Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone’s vault.http://youtu.be/9r5xBMNfOl4
The other overlooked Golden Typo goes to Parmod Food Mart, owner of the Ultimate Quality Food and Fuel Mart in Yonkers, which was cited by the state Attorney General’s office for gouging gasoline prices during Hurricane Irene. It raised its retail per gallon price from $3.82 to $4.79, way beyond the wholesale increase at that time.
Well, the sage and soothsayer may have screwed up the previous post.
But try this one on for size. Yonkers mayor-elect Mike Spano will announce Wednesday (that’s tomorrow) that Steve Levy will be his chief of staff. (See my reference to Levy in last Thursday’s column.)
Levy previously was the chief of staff for Mike’s older brother, Nick Spano when he was a state Senator representing Yonkers.
Just for laughs, let’s gaze into the crystal ball and see if we can determine the political futures of three figures—Mike Spano, Rob Astorino and Andrew Cuomo. All three are part of the Westchester County political hot house.
This is predicated on many, many assumptions which may or may not come true.
And if it’s all wrong, well…may a sick yak leave a gift in your linen closet!
Anyway, here we go.
2012: In the presidential election, Barack Obama defeats whomever is finally chosen to be the Republican candidate.
2013: Rob Astorino wins a second term as Westchester county executive, defeating a Democratic sacrificial lamb.
2014: Cuomo runs for re-election as governor and wins in a landslide.
2015: Spano wins re-election as mayor of Yonkers
2016: With Obama leaving the White House, Cuomo runs for president against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Cuomo wins in a tight race.
This leaves the governor’s office open. Astorino takes it in a special election. Spano then takes county executive job in a special election held in Westchester.
Every year I give out awards for dubious achievements for news makers. I call it the “Golden Typo,” which as you can see consists of a beat up typewriter perched on a Greek column. Considering Greece’s ongoing problems with bankruptcy in the Euro Zone, the image seems especially fitting this year. 1”
Past winners include people like former Westchester County Executive Andy Spano and DA Jeanine Pirro. (Those two have been “honored” many, many times.)
The 2011 winners will be announced later this month. In the meantime, I will entertain any and all nominations for this major award. Give me a name of someone you feel is worthy and include a brief explanation of your choice. This may be redundant but ominees may include politicians, criminals, mountebanks, celebrities—or any combination thereof.
A cable-TV note for news junkies: I’ll be part of a panel of bloviators tonight on the current events program, Richard French Live on RNN-TV.
Check your local cable guide for the channel.
Show starts at 6 p.m.
The pannel includes me, French, RNN correspondent Andrew Whitman, former state Assemblyman Richard Brodksy and Dominic Carter.
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