Politics on the Hudson

  Gov. David Paterson has completed his holiday visit with American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, his office announced this afternoon. Paterson and U.S. Reps. Steve Israel and Anthony Weiner, both Democrats from the state, toured Afghanistan today on the last leg of their trip.

   While in Afghanistan, the delegation met with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and nearly 200 troops from New York. The governor awarded several service members with purple hearts.

   In Iraq, delegation members met with service members, senior military officials and public officials. The group, which also includes Reps. Tom Cole, R-OK, and Ed Whitfield, R-KY, also toured various military facilities and shared meals with soldiers, Paterson’s office said. The American officials also met with Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of the Multi National Corps in Iraq and had dinner with New Yorkers from an Army National Guard Aviation Battalion. Many of the troops were on thier second or their third tours of duty.

   “Much will be asked of our nation’s service men and women and members of New York’s National Guard and Reserves to put Iraq and Afghanistan on a path toward peace and stability,” Paterson said in a statement. ”We have come away with a better understanding of what we can do to ensure they have all they need before they deploy and are given the care and benefits they deserve when they return.”

   Paterson, Israel and Weiner are planning a phone conference call with reporters this afternoon.

This is nominally about local politics, but since his name – ahem – comes up from time to time here, we share this with you from an email sent to us this morning:

“Sam Zherka, the publisher of the controversial Westchester Guardian weekly… is taking time off to celebrate four new bundles of joy. His wife Carmila just gave birth to quadruplets, four baby boys at Northern Westchester Hospital. It is the first time that the hospital has celebrated the birth of quadruplets. Mother and the babies are doing well.”

Even Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, offered some reservations about Caroline Kennedy’s Senate bid, saying this morning she may be beholden to supporter Mayor Michael Bloomberg if she’s picked by Gov. David Paterson.

“I think the undercurrent would be, if I were the governor, I would look and say her candidacy is  being promoted by the mayor, by his deputy mayor, for political aspirations, who took her around only to mayors around the state not to any other elected officials because of his contacts as mayor,” Silver said on Fred Dicker’s radio show this morning on Talk 1300-AM.

Silver said “If I was the governor, I would look and question whether this is the appointment I’d want to make where her first obligation might be to the mayor of the city of New York rather than the governor, who will be appointing her.”

Silver also wouldn’t say whether he thinks Kennedy has the experience for the job, instead pointing out that others do, such as Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney of New York City and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

“I don’t know Caroline Kennedy. I have nothing against her,” Silver said, adding he would work with whomever Paterson picks.

Conversely, Silver said Paterson has to consider gender balance on the 2010 Democratic ticket, when the Senate pick would be on the ballot with Paterson, Sen. Charles Schumer, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and potentially Cuomo—if he’s not picked for the Senate seat.

“Women might be reluctant to vote for a ticket where it’s only all males,” Silver said.

Updated: A source pointed out that Kennedy did meet with more than just the mayors in Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo and met with some business leaders as she visited the cities.

While New Yorkers are evenly split over whether Caroline Kennedy is qualified to be a U.S senator, her swing through upstate last week did little to convince the region’s voters that she is ready for the position, a Quinnipiac Poll today found.

The poll found that New York voters are split 40 percent to 41 percent on whether Kennedy is qualified to succeed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but by a 48 percent to 25 percent margin believe that Gov. David Paterson will appoint Kennedy anyway.

Thirty-three percent of voters say Paterson should name Kennedy, while 29 percent want Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Twenty-four percent want someone else.

Kennedy is less attractive to upstate voters than Cuomo, the Quinnipiac Poll reported. Cuomo leads Kennedy 31 percent to 27 percent in upstate, even though Kennedy tried to woo upstate political leaders on a quick tour of Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse last week.

Kennedy leads Cuomo 42 percent to 27 percent among New York City voters and ties Cuomo with 30 percent each among suburban voters.

“Will we get another Kennedy in the Senate? Only Gov. David Paterson knows for sure. Among New Yorkers in general, Caroline Kennedy’s grade is just okay,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac Poll.

The daughter of late President John F. Kennedy has come under persistent criticism from Democrats and Republicans over her lack of qualifications for the job and the poor rollout of her effort to convince Paterson she’s right for the job.

Paterson is expected to appoint Clinton’s successor next month when Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state in the Obama administration.

   The State University of New York doesn’t have a new chancellor yet, but the 64-campus system now has an officer in charge. SUNY’s Board of Trustees’ Executive Committee voted unanimously today to appoint John O’Connor, vice chancellor and secretary of the university, as officer in charge.

   O’Connor will act on behalf of the chancellor’s office until the Board of Trustees appoints a permanent chancellor or takes other action. He will maintain his current responsibilities as vice chancellor and secretary, and his salary will be $245,669 a year. He is not a candidate in the search for a permanent chancellor and serves as staff to the chancellor search committee, according to SUNY.

   Former Chancellor John Ryan left at the end of May 2007, and Interim Chancellor John Clark recently announced he was resigning from the post Dec. 31. (Trustees appointed him as a visiting professor at an annual salary of $195,000.) A search committee has been looking for a permanent replacement. The job pays $340,000 a year, plus the use of a car, drive, a residence in Albany and an apartment in New York City.

   “During this period of transition, SUNY needs a steady, knowledgeable leader,” SUNY Trustees Chairman Carl Hayden said in a statement. “I have great confidence in John O’Connor’s ability. He has more than 25 years of senior level service in higher education and has stepped in to meet a variety of challenges in times of need.”

   The search committee expects to appoint a new chancellor in the near future, SUNY officials said. (more…)

Westchester County Legislators Vito Pinto, D-Eastchester, and Jim Maisano, R-New Rochelle, today announced that Westchester County will contribute $4,000 to the First Night and Festival of Light celebrations in New Rochelle on New Years Eve.  

Proceeds from the event go to the New Rochelle Campership Fund and a scholarship fund at the New Rochelle YMCA. In a bipartisan announcement, both Pinto and Maisano praised the event for its importance to young people.

“These events have become a wonderful way to bring the New Rochelle community together for a night of safe, family-oriented fun,” Maisano said in a statement.

For information on First Night and Festival of Light, log onto www.firstnightnewrochelle.org.

   The New York Times said today that it printed a letter to the editor that purported to be from Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris, but in fact was not. The letter criticized Caroline Kennedy for seeking to replace U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democrat tapped to work as President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state.

   “What title has Ms. Kennedy to pretend to Hillary Clinton’s seat? We French can only see a dynastic move of the vanishing Kennedy clan in the very country of the Bill of Rights. It is both surprising and appalling,” the letter said in part.

   In an online editor’s note appended to the letter, the New York Times said the letter was a fake and should not have been published.

   “Doing so violated both our standards and our procedures in publishing signed letters from our readers.

   “We have already expressed our regrets to Mr. Delanoë’s office and we are now doing the same to you, our readers.

   “This letter, like most Letters to the Editor these days, arrived by email. It is Times procedure to verify the authenticity of every letter. In this case, our staff sent an edited version of the letter to the sender of the email and did not hear back. At that point, we should have contacted Mr. Delanoë’s office to verify that he had, in fact, written to us.

   “We did not do that. Without that verification, the letter should never have been printed.

   “We are reviewing our procedures for verifying letters to avoid such an incident in the future.”

   A state Assembly member from Dutchess County is asking Gov. Paterson to reconsider his proposal to eliminate the Hudson River Valley Greenway Communities Council and Hudson River Valley Greenway Heritage Conservancy and transfer liabilities, assets and responsibilities to the Department of State. Hudson Valley communities and groups have had “numerous successful endeavors” working with the council and conservancy, according to Assemblyman Marc Molinaro, R-Red Hook. The governor recommended eliminating the agencies in his 2009-10 budget plan, which he presented last week.

   The council was established as a state agency by the Greenway Act of 1991 to work with local and county governments on land-use planning. The Conservancy, also set up at that time, works with local governments, organizations and individuals to set up the Hudson River Valley Trail System, promote tourism and preserve agriculture.

   The success of the Greenway in “spurring intermunicipal cooperation and regional planning is a model for cost savings and consolidation at the local level,” Molinaro wrote in his letter. “Eliminating their independence to work with municipalities, skeptical of state interference, will significantly set back these efforts and diminish your stated desire to further local government sharing.”

   “The bottom line is I do not believe that a budget savings of less than $100,000 (assuming the loss of federal revenues for the management of the National Heritage Area and re-assignment of Greenway staff) is sufficient reason for elimination of these highly functional and successful organizations, shifting the responsibility for DOS,” Molinaro said. “Doing so would significantly limit the state’s ability to work with our local partners, hamper economic development and environmental stewardship in the valley and would signal the state’s abandonment of seeking consensus in order to confront the myriad challenges throughout the Hudson Valley.”

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo continues to avoid answering whether he is interested in replacing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying today he doesn’t think it’s appropriate to comment on it.

“I could campaign, I could lobby, I could offer opinions, I could say I really think he should pick Fred Dicker for the Senate,” Cuomo said on Dicker’s radio show this morning.

“I could speak to it. I don’t think that is appropriate. I don’t think it’s appropriate as I serve as attorney general.”

Most officials believe Cuomo wants the seat, but isn’t talking about as a way not to agitate Governor Paterson, who will make the pick.

Yet the New York Times on Saturday said Cuomo is “feeling outfoxed and frustrated” over Caroline Kennedy getting all the attention about the seat.

Cuomo said that’s not true. “Am I frustrated? No. If I wanted to campaign for the job, you know what I would do? I would campaign for the job.”

Cuomo would still not indicate whether he wants the seat, saying his conversations with Paterson are private and that “I’m very happy doing what I’m doing.”

Paterson last week confirmed that he and Cuomo have “talked about the Senate,” but wouldn’t elaborate on whether Cuomo expressed an interest in the job.

Sen. Martin Golden, R-Brooklyn, announced today what’s been expected for days and is calling on state senators to sign a resolution urging Senator-elect Hiram Monserrate not to file his oath of office until the felony assault charges against him are resolved.

“Monserrate is facing very serious charges and it would be in his own best interests, and the best interests of the people of this state, if he delayed taking his seat until he addresses the charges against him and lets the justice system take its course,” said Golden, a former city cop.

Monserrate, of Queens, said in a statement over the weekend that he will “look forward to continuing my role as the new representative of this community in the New York State Senate.”

Monserrate was charged Friday with two counts of assault after an alleged altercation with his girlfriend, and Senate Republicans are trying to make the case that Monserrate should not be seated until his case is decided.

Under state law, Republicans said, Monserrate has 30 days after the first of the year to file his oath of office. If he does not file the oath, the senate seat would be declared vacant. If Monserrate were to officially join the Senate, he would be automatically removed if he was convicted of a felony.

Republicans said the Senate can also “take steps to try, convict and remove him, based on the seriousness of the charges, even if he is not convicted of a felony offense.”

If Monserrate isn’t seated, it would be one less vote for Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith’s bid to become majority leader. So he would presumably have 28 votes, and Republicans would have 29 because the Frank Padavan seat in Queens instead expected to be resolved in time for the leadership vote Jan. 7.