Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
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Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
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Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
NYS chief judge won't serve on pay raise commission
Chief Judge Janet DiFiore (Howard Simmons/New York Daily News)
The following is an expanded version of the second item of my "Albany Insider" column from Monday's print editions:
The state's chief judge has declined to serve on a commission that will consider enacting the first executive and legislative pay raises in 20 years.
The state budget passed in March created a five-member commission to consider imposing the first state level pay raise in 20 years.
Among the the five people the law places on panel is state Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, whose counsel in a memo obtained by the Daily News argues is not eligible to serve.
"In sum, the proposed appointment of the Chief Judge to the compensation committee would raise serious constitutional issues, and—if signed into law and left unamended—will present the Chief Judge with the impossible ethical choice of either violating the Constitution (by serving on the committee) or violating a statute (by declining to serve)," state court system counsel John McConnell wrote.
The memo sent to the governor and legislative leaders cites a provision in the state Constitution that says a judge may not "hold any other public office or trust except an office in relation to the administration of the courts."
McConnell said intent of the restriction is to avoid conflicts with judicial services, including those involving issues of separation of powers.
It's also meant to ensure it doesn't "give the appearance of compromising judicial impartiality and independence (including independence from the political process)" while keeping a judge from taking a position on issues that might ultimately wind up before the courts, he argues in the memo.
DiFiore spokesman Lucian Chalfen told the News that the chief judge is "fully aware she can't serve."
But even without DiFiore, the panel's work will go on. The four others who will serve are the state and city controllers and the chairmen of the State University and City University systems.
Even though he is the only one on the panel who could potentially benefit from a pay raise, assuming he's re-elected, state Controller Thomas DiNapoli will serve on the commission, spokeswoman Jennifer Freeman said.
"He was not consulted beforehand, but he will serve," Freeman said.
Under the law, the commission could consider raises that would be phased in over three years. The recommendation would automatically be enacted unless the Legislature takes specific action to change or reject it. The current base salaries for lawmakers $79,500.
If nothing is done by the end of the year, lawmakers will have to wait two more to consider the issue again because a sitting Legislature can't give itself a raise,
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