With assist from Shawn Ness
MTA SURPRISE: The MTA board will doubtless should vote on whether or not to implement congestion pricing. However these tasked with formalizing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s determination to indefinitely pause the tolling plan obtained no advance discover.
“I was not consulted, and other board members were caught off guard,” Midori Valdivia, a member of the MTA board appointed by the mayor, informed Playbook.
One other board member, who agreed to talk on background because of the sensitivity of the state of affairs, put it extra bluntly.
“We have no idea what the fuck’s going on,” the individual stated. “We haven’t since this all started.”
The issue for Hochul is that the Legislature has signaled it is not going to implement a final minute payroll tax on the final day of the legislative session, leaving the state in a $1 billion gap if it strikes by with Hochul’s name to droop congestion pricing.
“I believe the governor did misjudge this,” State Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger stated. Relating to the willingness of Senate Democrats to help a tax, she added, “I do not believe we have an appetite for that.”
There’s nonetheless hypothesis about how and if the governor can unilaterally implement her last-minute determination to close down the congestion pricing program. Rachael Fauss, a senior coverage advisor with Reinvent Albany, stated that if the Legislature doesn’t act, the transfer will go to the MTA board, placing intense scrutiny on the 23-person board.
“She hires and fires the MTA board,” Fauss stated of the governor. “But there’s a whole section of state law that requires MTA board members to fill out an oath and to essentially say that they are going to be fiduciarily responsible for the MTA. That is in complete conflict with the governor’s plan because they would have to vote to defend themselves. I think that that opens the MTA to lawsuits.”
The board is made up of 14 votes, however one emptiness on the board (a Cuomo appointee) leaves it at 13 votes. 5 gubernatorial appointees, 4 mayoral picks and one every from Suffolk, Nassau and Westchester counties comprise the physique.
Representatives from Rockland, Dutchess, Orange and Putnam counties every get one-fourth of a vote, totaling as much as one vote from the upstate counties. MTA Chair Janno Lieber, a champion of congestion pricing, can break a tie.
This all signifies that pro-congestion pricing advocates would wish to persuade seven members of the board to kill the governor’s new anti-congestion pricing plan to have a majority ought to a vote come earlier than the physique.
“If this doesn’t come to a board vote, then I am confused as to our role as a board,” Valdivia stated. She additionally identified the board had already voted on the difficulty twice.
Because the governor’s announcement, two prime metropolis officers and mayoral appointees to the board, Meera Joshi and Daniel Garodnick, have come out towards the governor’s transfer. Fellow board members David Jones, Valdivia and Samuel Chu additionally help congestion pricing.
That’s 5 board members who need the tolling plan, that means they’d solely want two extra to undo Hochul’s reversal.
In a March MTA board assembly, virtually all board members spoke in robust help of congestion pricing.
Mayor Eric Adams gently endorsed the governor’s anti-congestion pricing transfer.
“I feel that if she’s analyzing what different methods we are able to do it and the way we do it appropriately, I’m all for it,” Adams stated. “We have to get it right. This is a major shift in our city and it must be done correctly.”
Fauss anticipated this “will not be an easy fight for the governor at the board level if the Legislature washes their hands of this and says it’s your problem, governor.”
Because the Legislature scrambles to think about different choices to make up the $1 billion, and MTA board members proceed to piece collectively what occurred, the governor who began this all stays behind closed doorways.
She hasn’t spoken as soon as with reporters since making the consequential determination, and nothing’s on her public schedule at this time both. — Jason Beeferman
CLOSING REMARKS: Hospital lobbyists made an unsuccessful, last-ditch effort Thursday to cease the Meeting from passing laws to reform the state’s regulatory course of for hospital closures.
Hours after the Healthcare Affiliation of New York State circulated a four-page opposition memorandum criticizing the invoice as imposing “proscriptive and duplicative” necessities on hospitals, the Meeting handed the invoice by a vote of 106-38.
The invoice, which was sponsored by Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon and state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, would institute new public engagement and regulatory necessities for hospitals that search the state’s approval to both shut completely or considerably scale back companies. At the moment hospitals should get hold of the Division of Well being’s signoff on a closure plan, however native well being advocates have criticized the method as opaque.
The longtime legislative proposal was impressed by the 2014 closure of Lengthy Island Faculty Hospital in Brooklyn however gained momentum this session amid debate over the potential closure of SUNY Downstate Medical Middle, additionally in Brooklyn.
“This week’s motion within the state Legislature to offer closing passage to the LICH invoice is a serious step ahead in making certain that affected communities get a say when their hospitals are proposing to shut completely or eradicate such important companies as maternity, emergency and psychological well being care,” Lois Uttley, co-founder of Group Voices for Well being System Accountability, a statewide well being advocacy community, stated in a press release.
Greater than 40 hospitals throughout the state have closed within the final decade. — Maya Kaufman
‘LASALLE LAW’ MOVING AGAIN: Lawmakers are taking one other crack at a invoice that arose from the fallout over final yr’s blocked nomination of Hector LaSalle to the Courtroom of Appeals. Following a pro-LaSalle effort from unidentified donors, legislators handed a invoice that might topic lobbying efforts for or towards gubernatorial nominations to the identical disclosure guidelines as common lobbying.
Hochul vetoed that invoice, pointing to issues that the retroactive guidelines would topic teams to necessities they weren’t ready for. It has since been rewritten to make it solely proactive in an try and keep away from one other veto. The Senate handed a model by Deputy Chief Mike Gianaris a number of months in the past, and a model from Assemblymember John McDonald has been transferring by committee this week.
“The bottom line is when anybody’s being considered for nomination before the Senate, whether it’s for an agency head or the Court of Appeals, those individuals should be under the same rules for transparency,” McDonald stated. — Invoice Mahoney
CITY WORKER CHARGED BY FEDS: Tommy Lin, a longtime aide to Mayor Invoice de Blasio and donor to Eric Adams, was arrested at this time on federal prices, and accused of scheming to defraud banks out of at the least $10 million by submitting false declare reviews.
Lin is accused of offering names and birthdays of potential targets to 2 different defendants and operating background checks on them to ensure they weren’t underneath investigation. Lin can also be accused of arranging a $20,000 bribe with an federal immigration officer to arrest any individual who has been scheming with them, however grew to become disgruntled.
Lin was a constituent companies director in de Blasio’s Group Affairs Unit, and was a senior advisor to the NYPD’s Asian Advisory Council. U.S. Lawyer for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams accused him of “leveraging his connection in law enforcement” to additional the scheme in 2019 and 2020.
Lin gave a max-out $2,000 donation to Adams after he gained the mayoral major in 2021. Lin now works within the Adams administration as a group relations specialist within the Division of Surroundings Preservation. The Adams administration didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“Those in municipal offices are expected to conduct themselves with rectitude and obedience to the law, not engage in the purposeful manipulation of our economic infrastructure,” FBI Assistant Director in Cost James Smith stated in a press launch. — Jeff Coltin
— NEW YORK TO CONFORM: New York and Nevada are the one two states within the nation that don’t comply with the CDC’s tips on HIV screenings. Lawmakers need that to vary. The brand new invoice would require notification that an HIV take a look at shall be carried out and supply info on pre and post-exposure medicines. (State of Politics)
— RACEHORSES DYING AT ALARMING RATES: A Newsday investigation discovered that Belmonte racehorses are dying at charges larger than at different racetracks, regardless of Belmont and the state’s efforts to scale back horse racing deaths. (Newsday)
— IT’S A POST-DOBBS WORLD: A invoice that might defend New Yorkers’ well being information that’s not normally included underneath the purview of federal well being privateness protections is all set to go the state Legislature, regardless of tech corporations makes an attempt to stall it for the final yr. (POLITICO Professional)
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