Open On 1st Palm Sunday, Otb Rakes In $2m - New York Daily News
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Open On 1st Palm Sunday, Otb Rakes In $2m. BY JERRY BOSSERT DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER. Monday, April 14, 2003. New York City Off-Track Betting ...They Fume and They Bicker While Running City and State
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM, THOMAS KAPLAN and KATE TAYLOR
They fume about each other’s egos, moods and stunts. They have not appeared together at a single news conference all year. Each of their successes, real or perceived, can provoke envy or resentment in the other.
Who are these bickering nabobs? The new Odd Couple of New York politics: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
One year into Mr. Cuomo’s first term, it is something of an open secret that the relationship between the billionaire mayor and the gubernatorial scion has taken a deeply sour turn.
The men haggle for credit on all sorts of issues, like passing the same-sex marriage law and providing translation assistance to immigrants. When Tropical Storm Irene blew in, the governor tried to bar a state official from appearing at the mayor’s events. Some of their aides snipe and spar.
This week, when Mr. Cuomo convened a news conference in Albany to announce a deal on Mr. Bloomberg’s plan to improve city taxi service, the mayor was not given enough notice to trek upstate. Instead, he spoke briefly via speakerphone, his voice hanging over the podium where Mr. Cuomo was flashing a grin.
In public, the two remain circumspect, insisting that talk of any conflict is fiction.
“We’ve never had an argument,” the mayor said this week, before adding, “We’re not always going to agree on everything.”
But in private conversations with lawmakers and friends, they confide frustrations.
The governor portrays the mayor as inflexible, sanctimonious and someone who treats the democratic process as an inconvenience, according to people familiar with his thinking.
And Mr. Bloomberg is said to see Mr. Cuomo as the epitome of the self-interested, horse-trading political culture he has long stood against.
Each is ambitious, tough and accomplished, but the tension, as much about style as substance, has become a key factor in city-state relations, making it more difficult to settle complex issues. And as the ascendant Mr. Cuomo builds his national profile and the term-limited mayor seeks to solidify his legacy, the conflict is unlikely to disappear soon.
People who know both men are reluctant to discuss their relationship on the record, describing the subject as something of a minefield. (“Both of them will kill me,” one person who declined to comment said.) This article is based in part on interviews with more than two dozen individuals in and around state and city government who requested anonymity to avoid retribution from either man.
But even those who agreed to be identified expressed unease.
“Which one do you want to get me in more trouble with?” joked John Catsimatidis, the supermarket magnate and occasional mayoral candidate.
“They’re both very smart individuals, they’re both very capable individuals, and they’re both individuals with very large egos,” he said. Asked if the problems were more about substance or personality, he demurred: “It’s probably a little bit of both.”
Rather improbably, nothing has done more to inflame the Albany-City Hall axis than the seemingly banal question of whether a New Yorker should be able to step onto Queens Boulevard and legally hail a livery cab.
Both the mayor and the governor claimed to support legalizing street hails of livery cabs — and a measure to do just that was approved by the Legislature in June. But they battled over the details, delaying the signing of the measure for six months.
Mr. Cuomo, in conversations with confidants, said the mayor was acting like an entitled “king,” trying to jam through a politically tricky plan and bullying anyone who objected. Mr. Bloomberg’s camp, in turn, saw the governor as willing to hold hostage an important piece of legislation to squeeze the city on other issues.
Mr. Bloomberg, told by a state legislator that Mr. Cuomo might sign the bill on its merits, offered a sarcastic reply. “Do you think Andrew Cuomo is going to do something because it’s the right thing to do for New York City?” he said, according to the lawmaker. (The mayor’s office later said he did not say that and did not agree with the sentiment.)
Mr. Cuomo, a Baryshnikov of political footwork, does not shy away from back-room deals and intimidating lawmakers. But Mr. Bloomberg believes that for Mr. Cuomo, “it’s not the merits, it’s just about the politics,” said an official who has spoken with Mr. Bloomberg about the governor.
Mr. Cuomo, meanwhile, views the mayor as haughty and ham-handed in his approach to Albany, unfairly blaming the governor for his own longtime difficulties in the State Capitol. Mr. Bloomberg, the governor believes, expected Mr. Cuomo and lawmakers to sign off on his measures without regard to the political consequences, and then sent aides to disparage him to the news media when things did not go his way.
One high-ranking state official, who has direct knowledge of the governor’s thinking, said Mr. Cuomo saw the Bloomberg view as: “They’re good and you’re bad, and they’re right and you’re wrong. They’re operating in the best interests of the people and you’re political. That’s always the way they are.”
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, and Mr. Bloomberg, an independent, share many political positions, including a fondness for spending cuts and emphatic support for same-sex marriage.
They speak periodically on the phone, but other than a private three-hour dinner in April, they have spent little time together.
Tensions reached a head this month when Mr. Cuomo proposed an income tax overhaul that included a higher rate for the highest-earning New Yorkers. Mr. Bloomberg, pressed by reporters to comment, offered general praise for the governor but added that “you cannot tax your ways out of problems.” The remark left Mr. Cuomo livid.
For his part, Mr. Bloomberg had been angered by Mr. Cuomo’s first budget, which he believed shortchanged New York City, and City Hall aides grumbled that the mayor received too little credit for helping Mr. Cuomo win over several Senate Republicans whose support was needed to enact same-sex marriage legislation.
The men have had repeated difficulty sharing the spotlight.
In October, for example, tensions arose over a fund-raising dinner held by the Empire State Pride Agenda, where Mr. Cuomo gave the keynote speech and which Mr. Bloomberg did not attend. Some Bloomberg supporters believed the governor had sought to have the mayor excluded; Mr. Cuomo denied that, and gay rights leaders offered varying descriptions of what happened, but in City Hall, the episode bolstered a perception that the governor can be petty or petulant toward the mayor.
New storms are gathering: the state and the city have been at odds over the possible conversion of a nonprofit insurer, EmblemHealth, to a for-profit entity, and over costs at the World Trade Center site.
An aide to Mr. Cuomo, who would not speak for the record, discouraged the suggestion that the governor was anything but at peace with Mr. Bloomberg.
“Andrew works with all local politicians — big egos, small egos, ones that can work with people and ones that can’t, Democrats and Republicans — and helps them get things done for their area,” the aide said.
Mr. Bloomberg, in a radio interview last week, also offered a tempered assessment: “Everybody always wants to think there are big battles, and you know, there basically aren’t.”
But Mr. Bloomberg could not leave it at that. “I mean, there’s always some,” the mayor blurted out. “But personalities shouldn’t get involved.”
Who are these bickering nabobs? The new Odd Couple of New York politics: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
One year into Mr. Cuomo’s first term, it is something of an open secret that the relationship between the billionaire mayor and the gubernatorial scion has taken a deeply sour turn.
The men haggle for credit on all sorts of issues, like passing the same-sex marriage law and providing translation assistance to immigrants. When Tropical Storm Irene blew in, the governor tried to bar a state official from appearing at the mayor’s events. Some of their aides snipe and spar.
This week, when Mr. Cuomo convened a news conference in Albany to announce a deal on Mr. Bloomberg’s plan to improve city taxi service, the mayor was not given enough notice to trek upstate. Instead, he spoke briefly via speakerphone, his voice hanging over the podium where Mr. Cuomo was flashing a grin.
In public, the two remain circumspect, insisting that talk of any conflict is fiction.
“We’ve never had an argument,” the mayor said this week, before adding, “We’re not always going to agree on everything.”
But in private conversations with lawmakers and friends, they confide frustrations.
The governor portrays the mayor as inflexible, sanctimonious and someone who treats the democratic process as an inconvenience, according to people familiar with his thinking.
And Mr. Bloomberg is said to see Mr. Cuomo as the epitome of the self-interested, horse-trading political culture he has long stood against.
Each is ambitious, tough and accomplished, but the tension, as much about style as substance, has become a key factor in city-state relations, making it more difficult to settle complex issues. And as the ascendant Mr. Cuomo builds his national profile and the term-limited mayor seeks to solidify his legacy, the conflict is unlikely to disappear soon.
People who know both men are reluctant to discuss their relationship on the record, describing the subject as something of a minefield. (“Both of them will kill me,” one person who declined to comment said.) This article is based in part on interviews with more than two dozen individuals in and around state and city government who requested anonymity to avoid retribution from either man.
But even those who agreed to be identified expressed unease.
“Which one do you want to get me in more trouble with?” joked John Catsimatidis, the supermarket magnate and occasional mayoral candidate.
“They’re both very smart individuals, they’re both very capable individuals, and they’re both individuals with very large egos,” he said. Asked if the problems were more about substance or personality, he demurred: “It’s probably a little bit of both.”
Rather improbably, nothing has done more to inflame the Albany-City Hall axis than the seemingly banal question of whether a New Yorker should be able to step onto Queens Boulevard and legally hail a livery cab.
Both the mayor and the governor claimed to support legalizing street hails of livery cabs — and a measure to do just that was approved by the Legislature in June. But they battled over the details, delaying the signing of the measure for six months.
Mr. Cuomo, in conversations with confidants, said the mayor was acting like an entitled “king,” trying to jam through a politically tricky plan and bullying anyone who objected. Mr. Bloomberg’s camp, in turn, saw the governor as willing to hold hostage an important piece of legislation to squeeze the city on other issues.
Mr. Bloomberg, told by a state legislator that Mr. Cuomo might sign the bill on its merits, offered a sarcastic reply. “Do you think Andrew Cuomo is going to do something because it’s the right thing to do for New York City?” he said, according to the lawmaker. (The mayor’s office later said he did not say that and did not agree with the sentiment.)
Mr. Cuomo, a Baryshnikov of political footwork, does not shy away from back-room deals and intimidating lawmakers. But Mr. Bloomberg believes that for Mr. Cuomo, “it’s not the merits, it’s just about the politics,” said an official who has spoken with Mr. Bloomberg about the governor.
Mr. Cuomo, meanwhile, views the mayor as haughty and ham-handed in his approach to Albany, unfairly blaming the governor for his own longtime difficulties in the State Capitol. Mr. Bloomberg, the governor believes, expected Mr. Cuomo and lawmakers to sign off on his measures without regard to the political consequences, and then sent aides to disparage him to the news media when things did not go his way.
One high-ranking state official, who has direct knowledge of the governor’s thinking, said Mr. Cuomo saw the Bloomberg view as: “They’re good and you’re bad, and they’re right and you’re wrong. They’re operating in the best interests of the people and you’re political. That’s always the way they are.”
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, and Mr. Bloomberg, an independent, share many political positions, including a fondness for spending cuts and emphatic support for same-sex marriage.
They speak periodically on the phone, but other than a private three-hour dinner in April, they have spent little time together.
Tensions reached a head this month when Mr. Cuomo proposed an income tax overhaul that included a higher rate for the highest-earning New Yorkers. Mr. Bloomberg, pressed by reporters to comment, offered general praise for the governor but added that “you cannot tax your ways out of problems.” The remark left Mr. Cuomo livid.
For his part, Mr. Bloomberg had been angered by Mr. Cuomo’s first budget, which he believed shortchanged New York City, and City Hall aides grumbled that the mayor received too little credit for helping Mr. Cuomo win over several Senate Republicans whose support was needed to enact same-sex marriage legislation.
The men have had repeated difficulty sharing the spotlight.
In October, for example, tensions arose over a fund-raising dinner held by the Empire State Pride Agenda, where Mr. Cuomo gave the keynote speech and which Mr. Bloomberg did not attend. Some Bloomberg supporters believed the governor had sought to have the mayor excluded; Mr. Cuomo denied that, and gay rights leaders offered varying descriptions of what happened, but in City Hall, the episode bolstered a perception that the governor can be petty or petulant toward the mayor.
New storms are gathering: the state and the city have been at odds over the possible conversion of a nonprofit insurer, EmblemHealth, to a for-profit entity, and over costs at the World Trade Center site.
An aide to Mr. Cuomo, who would not speak for the record, discouraged the suggestion that the governor was anything but at peace with Mr. Bloomberg.
“Andrew works with all local politicians — big egos, small egos, ones that can work with people and ones that can’t, Democrats and Republicans — and helps them get things done for their area,” the aide said.
Mr. Bloomberg, in a radio interview last week, also offered a tempered assessment: “Everybody always wants to think there are big battles, and you know, there basically aren’t.”
But Mr. Bloomberg could not leave it at that. “I mean, there’s always some,” the mayor blurted out. “But personalities shouldn’t get involved.”
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