David Paterson
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Cuomo Wants Budget Fix ASAP, So Another MTA Raid May Be Coming Soon
If Andrew Cuomo has his way, the state legislature and Governor Paterson will close the state's $315 million shortfall before he takes office. The push from the governor-elect means that in the next two months, New York state's current leadership may again determine whether to close a budget gap by raiding MTA dedicated funds. Nearly $20 million for transit could be on the line.
November 10, 2010
Paterson Signs Smart Growth Act; Now Comes the Hard Part
Governor David Paterson announced Tuesday that he had signed Assembly Member Sam Hoyt's Smart Growth Infrastructure Public Policy Act, making it the law of the land that all state infrastructure spending must comply with a set of smart growth principles, including fostering compact, mixed-use development and reducing dependence on the automobile.
September 2, 2010
Bus Cams on the Table in Gov’s Budget
Tucked into an otherwise bleak state budget, there's one piece of good news for transit riders. One of Governor Paterson's amendments to the state budget would authorize New York City to keep its bus lanes clear of traffic with camera enforcement.
March 8, 2010
Gov’s Proposed NYC Tax Hike: A Testament to Your Local Pols, New Yorkers
So it's come to this. With transit revenues plummeting to the point where the MTA has to deal with a $400 million shortfall on top of an austerity plan that already calls for deep cuts in service, Governor Paterson yesterday proposed shifting the burden of the MTA payroll tax to fall heavily on New York City businesses. The idea is to tax city payrolls at .54 percent and suburban payrolls at .17 percent, skewing the flat .34 percent rate established last spring.
February 9, 2010
Fare Hike Four to Paterson: Not So Fast
In case you've forgotten who's in charge these days, Governor Paterson's nomination of Jay Walder to succeed Lee Sander as MTA chief was quickly met with a joint statement from Malcolm Smith, John Sampson, and Fare Hike Four members Pedro Espada and Carl Kruger. In the interest of "transparency and accountability," the senators say they plan to put Walder in front of their committees before any decision is made. Kruger, for his part, tells The Daily Politics that he doesn't consider the backbone of the region's economy to be a particularly urgent agenda item.
July 14, 2009
Want a Clean Bill of Health for the MTA? Call Obama.
Former MTA CEO Lee Sander spent the last two-and-a-half years doing his best to make the MTA a transparent, accountable public agency, and in doing so restore its reputation. He let the sunshine in, but was unable to undo the damage to the agency's image caused by years of attacks from transit advocates, unions and politicians.
May 8, 2009
Malcolm Smith Spins Transit Band-aid as Victory for “Reform”
Now that Governor Paterson has backtracked on his pledge to secure a long-term solution to New York's transit funding crisis, the push is on to spin the slapdash result as a responsible outcome, not a capitulation to Albany's lowest common denominator.
May 5, 2009
Paterson Abandons Long-Term MTA Financing Effort
We're getting dangerously close to transit Armageddon.
May 4, 2009
Don’t Keep Transit Riders in the Dark, Governor
Heading into the weekend, Governor Paterson is still keeping a tight lid on exactly how he plans to handle the MTA's huge funding shortfall. Lately, Paterson has taken to joking about this crisis by saying that "light bends around Albany" -- a not-so-veiled reference to Senate Democrats and their closed-door machinations. I first heard the line a few weeks ago at the RPA Regional Assembly, where we all laughed and ate up the governor's act.
May 1, 2009
Albany and City Hall Slouch Toward MTA Endgame
Let's recap the last week of the MTA funding saga. On Monday, Malcolm Smith and the Senate Democrats introduced a "conversation starter" bill that had already been lambasted as insufficient and backwards. On Tuesday, the MTA finance committee announced that revenues from taxes and fares have plummeted deeper than expected, turning the $1.2 billion doomsday budget gap into a $1.8 billion chasm. On Wednesday, Governor Paterson claimed that he had "some new ideas" to break the legislative impasse. Yesterday, some Paterson staffers started to let slip what the governor had in mind, and today we woke up to the big news.
May 1, 2009
