Views From Around The State: July 22, 2021

If a word can be singled out to express the opinions of people attending U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado’s 61st town hall meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, it is “quality” — as in water quality and quality broadband.

Broadband is an issue in all corners of Delgado’s 19th Congressional District. Like electricity a century ago, it is a basic necessity, especially in the age of COVID, remote learning and working from home. But the problem is how broadband access is mapped to determine who has it and who doesn’t.

People who were told they’re covered by broadband are often not covered because of the use of census block mapping, which is effective in zones of population density but not in rural communities dotted by farms, rivers, ponds and lakes not found in more highly populated settings. Census block mapping is flawed, yet it is the mapping process used at the state level to decide who has broadband.

Contaminants such as PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, found in Cairo’s municipal water supply are disturbing because they can turn up in any community’s water supply.

Contaminants are a widespread problem in the 19th District and have proved as frustrating as broadband access.

PFOA is a dangerous toxin that can cause autoimmune disorders, kidney disease and liver failure, among other potentially deadly conditions. Federal officials continually told Delgado they needed more data and more evidence, but the congressman said the fact of the matter is clear.

“What do you have to figure out? We know it hurts people, we know it harms people’s lives, why can’t we address it?” Delgado said.

When it comes to wider broadband access and safe drinking water, Cairo and the rest of the 19th District should be among the state leaders in both, not limping along. Water and broadband are essential to this area’s health and economy. Delgado knows this and he has spoken sternly to Congress and federal officials. It’s time they started listening.

Cuomo’s problems aren’t going to go away
From The Albany Times-Union:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo may have thought that by rejecting calls to step down, or at least step aside, the scandals swirling around him would just fade away. They haven’t.
The news this past week of yet more discrepancies in the state’s COVID-19 death statistics — representing thousands of fatalities left off the state’s own website — only serves as a reminder of why he is in such hot water.

The governor, we realize, isn’t alone in wanting the controversies to go away. There he was at a news conference on gun violence Wednesday with, among others, state Assembly Member Diana Richardson and Sen. Zellnor Myrie. Just four months ago, the two lawmakers, both Democrats of Brooklyn, had issued a scathing press release saying Mr. Cuomo had “irreparably damaged his trustworthiness and ability to lead,” and calling on him to resign. When a reporter asked Ms. Richardson about that statement in light of her appearance with the governor, she blew up, saying that “politics is politics, business is business.”

Ms. Richardson’s call for the governor to resign may have been just politics in her mind, but it’s very much about the public business of New York. Let’s not forget the entirely official reasons the governor is under such fire.

His administration grossly and purposely understated the number of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19. It kept the real numbers from the Legislature and the public for months until its hand was finally forced by a report from the attorney general’s office. It did so while the administration was being questioned about whether a directive that nursing homes accept COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals may have caused more infections, and while the governor was producing a self-laudatory book on his handling of the pandemic. In short, it had all the appearance of a cover-up.

The governor has been accused by multiple women who are or were state employees of inappropriate behavior ranging from sexual overtures to unwelcome touching and kissing to outright groping.

And there are questions as to whether he unethically used state employees to help with his pandemic memoir, for which he received a more than $5 million advance.

Those aren’t petty political nits. These are all about the business Mr. Cuomo conducts on public property and taxpayer time, using — or abusing — the power of his position. So is the latest revelation this past week that the state underreported on its website the numbers of pandemic deaths in prisons and certain other institutions by 11,000 people. The administration’s insistence that it reported the correct numbers to the federal government only makes this lapse more puzzling.

It’s no wonder that most New Yorkers say he shouldn’t run again, and why we continue to call on him to resign. He squandered the public’s trust, and time will not restore it.

State budget story looks to have unhappy ending
From The (Saratoga) Daily Gazette:

State lawmakers who’ve already exhausted their summer reading lists of Patterson novels and John Meacham bios might want to sit down in a comfy chair and browse through a report issued by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli last week about the future of state finances.

And judging from their free spending ways this spring that resulted in $18 billion in additional state spending to create the largest state budget in history, $212 billion, they might be surprised by the ending.

The report starts off like it’s going to have a happy ending. But as often happens in novels and in real life, things take a turn for the worse as it goes on.

Burgeoning debt and years of excessive spending, combined with the depth and uncertainty of the covid economic crisis, threatened to drive up state debt to impossible levels and force lawmakers to make significant cuts to critical state budget items like education and social programs.

But then the cavalry arrived in the form of billions of dollars in federal aid, billions more in higher-than-anticipated tax revenue and revenue from higher taxes imposed on high earners. That helped reduce a projected four-year budget deficit of nearly $39 billion down to a much more manageable $3.4 billion, the report states.

That’s including all that giddy spending lawmakers did when they got that big check from Uncle Sam. The comptroller calls the change of fortune “encouraging.”But don’t put down this page-turner yet. The comptroller devotes an entire chapter to “Risks to the Financial Plan.” Uh-oh.

Those risks include having to continue to support spending initiated to help individuals, families and businesses recover from the pandemic; projected significant growth in spending on education and Medicaid; the need to repay debt with operating funds; and the loss of revenue from temporary sources like the corporate franchise tax and the PIT surcharge on high-income taxpayers.
State lawmakers have an opportunity to write their own ending to this story by reining in spending and being more fiscally responsible, reducing the state’s reliance on debt, creating long-term sustainable revenue sources, and enacting policies that don’t drive away individuals and businesses — along with their tax money — to other states.

Every good story has a hero and a villain.

Which one do state lawmakers want to be?

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