Wednesday, June 28, 2017

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Vernon Downs will close this fall without a tax break, owners say

Written by James Gormley, Gazette editor on June 28, 2017

Last chance to pass tax relief legislation for the central NY racino is this week’s special session

A bipartisan coalition of state legislators representing Herkimer, Madison and Oneida counties is hoping to use this week’s special session of the Legislature to pass a bill that would provide financial assistance to the Vernon Downs racetrack and casino.

The lawmakers, calling themselves the Mohawk Valley Nine, say Vernon Downs will close this fall if a relief package is not approved and this special session may be the last chance to act.

This news was confirmed by part-owner Gary Greenberg, who says customers are going to other gaming establishments such as Turning Stone, Rivers and Del Lago casinos.

Greenberg said 300 jobs will be lost and 100 small shareholders could lose their investments if Vernon Downs closes. He said primary owner Jeff Gural has already filed paperwork with the state Department of labor to begin closing the track in September

“The country’s most beautiful and historic racetrack is at risk in today’s special session,” Greenberg said. “Vernon Downs will close without tax relief.”

The Senate earlier this year passed a bill giving Vernon Downs tax breaks for five years, saving the track an estimated $4 million a year. The Assembly passed a different version of the tax relief legislation, providing tax breaks for two years, saving the Vernon Downs an estimated $2 million a year.

The owners say only the Senate version of the bill can keep the track open at this point.

“Vernon Downs opened its harness season two weeks late this year to protest inaction from Legislature, Greenberg said. “Unless, the Assembly improves its bill to be the same as Senate in special session Vernon Downs will close.”

The nine lawmakers who are stepping in to try to save Vernon Downs are Senator James L. Seward, R–Oneonta; Assemblyman Bill Magee, D Nelson; Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-Rome; Sen. David Valesky, D–Oneida; Sen. Jim Tedisco, R–Glenville; Assemblyman Marc Butler, R–Newport; Assemblyman Ken Blankenbush, R–Black River; Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi, D–Utica; and Assemblyman Brian Miller, R–New Hartford.

In a joint statement they said, “Three hundred good jobs are at stake in the Mohawk Valley right now, and every day that goes by without resolution is another day of distress for these workers and their families.

“The governor frequently speaks about fighting to protect middle class jobs in upstate New York, so …[this] is the perfect opportunity for the governor and the Legislature to demonstrate this commitment.

“We understand there are other priorities the governor wants to address, but we are respectfully calling upon the governor to also include the future of Vernon Downs in any package of matters he plans to take up in an extraordinary session.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday morning confirmed he received the statement from the Mohawk Valley Nine and urged them to quickly negotiate a two-house bill and pass it.

“To be clear, I am 100 percent supportive of Vernon Downs and stand ready to sign a bill that will protect people’s jobs and ensure the viability of the facility,” Cuomo said. “However, the Legislature has not passed any such bill.

“I urge Mohawk Valley Senators James Seward, Joseph Griffo, David Valesky, and Jim Tedisco, as well as Assembly members Anthony Brindisi, Bill Magee, Marc Butler, Ken Blankenbush, and Brian Miller to pass a bill immediately and I will sign it.”

Claude Solnik

(631) 913-4244

Long Island Business News

2150 Smithtown Ave.

Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

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.

one otb ticket cashable anywhere in ny

special cuomo do somethings useful for ny otbs now

Cuomo Says He’d Back Vernon Downs Relief Bill

Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a statement Wednesday said he would back a bill design to aid the Vernon Downs racino in the Mohawk Valley and urged lawmakers from the area to pass a bill.

A joint statement from Senate and Assembly lawmakers on Tuesday warned the racino needed a relief package or could face hundreds of jobs losses.

“Three hundred good jobs are at stake in the Mohawk Valley right now, and every day that goes by without resolution is another day of distress for these workers and their families. The Governor frequently speaks about fighting to protect middle class jobs in upstate New York, so securing relief for Vernon Downs by leveling the playing field to compete with other similar business interests is the perfect opportunity for the Governor and the Legislature to demonstrate this commitment,” they said in the statement.

“We understand there are other priorities the Governor wants to address, but we are respectfully calling upon the Governor to also include the future of Vernon Downs in any package of matters he plans to take up in an extraordinary session.”

Cuomo urged them to take up a bill “immediately” and said he would back it. Lawmakers are back in Albany on Wednesday for a special session of the Legislature.

“I received a statement from nine Mohawk Valley legislators concerning Vernon Downs,” Cuomo said. “To be clear, I am 100 percent supportive of Vernon Downs and stand ready to sign a bill that will protect people’s jobs and ensure the viability of the facility. However, the Legislature has not passed any such bill. I urge Mohawk Valley Senators James Seward, Joseph Griffo, David Valesky, and Jim Tedisco, as well as Assembly members Anthony Brindisi, Bill Magee, Marc Butler, Ken Blankenbush, and Brian Miller to pass a bill immediately and I will sign it.”

PLEASE DELETE EASTER sunday FROM NY PML SEC 109

see ny const art 1 sec 3

Claude Solnik

(631) 913-4244

Long Island Business News

2150 Smithtown Ave.

Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

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.

About James L. Seward

Chairman, Majority Program Development Committee

REPUBLICAN, CONSERVATIVE, INDEPENDENCE PARTY

DISTRICT 51

Committees

InsuranceCHAIR
AgricultureMEMBER
EducationMEMBER
RulesMEMBER
FinanceMEMBER
HealthMEMBER
Heroin Task ForceMEMBER
Higher EducationMEMBER
LibrariesMEMBER
Technology and InnovationMEMBER

State Senator James L. Seward's two decades plus of service as a state senator cap a lifelong interest in politics, public affairs, and state government. A native of Otsego County, Senator Seward attended Oneonta public schools and graduated from Hartwick College with a B.A. degree in political science. He also studied at the Nelson Rockefeller Institute of SUNY Albany. In 1999, Hartwick College honored Senator Seward with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Senator Seward was elected to the state senate in 1986 and was appointed chairman of the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee, where he developed a reputation as a skilled negotiator and effective spokesman for the senate majority on statewide energy issues.

He won enactment of the "Power for Jobs" program, which has helped retain and create thousands of jobs in New York. Seward worked to ensure that the state's telecommunications industry remained competitive, and introduced legislation to restrict minors' access to electronic obscenity. In 1990, he negotiated key reforms in the 1986 Low Level Radioactive Waste Siting Law.

In 1999, Seward assumed chairmanship of the Senate Standing Committee on Insurance, where he immediately set out to develop state policy that helps consumers and ensures New York's leadership in this vital segment of the state's financial services industry, employer of thousands of New Yorkers. Seward has fought to broaden health insurance coverage and reform, and the writing of auto and property/casualty policies in a free, but fair, market that is sensitive to consumers' needs. He has pushed wider availability of health insurance for the uninsured and to reduce pressure on health insurance costs for workers and small business owners. He won passage of legislation in 2002 that extends group health insurance offered by chambers of commerce to sole proprietors of businesses, and in 2008 secured legislative approval of a bill to provide short term health insurance policies to young adults and college students. He sponsored the "Health Insurance Premium Integrity Act" to boost the percentage of premium dollars spent directly on health care, and was responsible for broadening health insurance coverage for voluntary firefighters and EMTs by letting them purchase policies through their municipalities.

Seward won statewide recognition for his "Freedom Plan" to match simpler, lower cost health insurance policies with federally authorized health savings accounts. The legislation is considered an innovative approach to addressing the rising cost of health insurance for employers and their employees. Seward has led the fight in New York against auto insurance fraud, a significant factor in rising auto insurance premiums. He is serving as immediate past president and nationally recognized leader in the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL).

In 2011, he was asked by Senate Republican Leader Dean G. Skelos to assume a key post in the senate leadership team as assistant majority leader on conference operations. The position allows Seward to work closely with senate leadership in establishing priorities and directing important legislation to the senate floor.

As chairman of the Senate Task Force on Volunteer Emergency Services, Seward was instrumental in establishing a low interest loan program for the capital needs and equipment purchases of voluntary fire departments and emergency squads in 1994. He has won funding increases for the program and for the state fire academy in order to improve training for firefighters. He has also served as chairman of the Senate Task Force on State and Local Emergency Preparedness following the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington.

Senator Seward has been a consistent advocate for education, securing state aid for local districts to offset rising taxes and to support technology and special education initiatives within his schools. He strongly supported enactment of the STAR school tax relief program and has championed property tax relief.

Seward is an advocate for more jobs and business growth. In his district, Seward is a partner in local economic development. He works to save and create jobs in his district through state grants and loans to businesses and partnerships with local economic development agencies and local governments.

Responsiveness to his constituents through personal contact and district office hours is one of Senator Seward's strengths and his highest priority. He has been recognized for his advocacy and responsiveness by the Farm Bureau, the Alliance for Affordable Health Care, local chambers of commerce and many community organizations.

Senator Seward is a former Milford town justice and former chairman of the Otsego County Republican Committee. He was a delegate to the 1976, 1980, and 1988 Republican National Conventions and an alternate delegate in 1996.

Long active in community and civic affairs, Senator Seward is a regional advisory board member of Community Bank, NA, a trustee of Glimmerglass Opera, serves on the boards of directors of Pathfinder Village and the Catskill Symphony, and is a member of the Milford United Methodist Church.

Senator Seward and his wife Cynthia (née Milavec) reside in Milford. They have two grown children: Ryan and Lauren.

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special

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N.Y. / REGION

Cuomo Calls Special Session to Address de Blasio’s Expiring Control of City Schools

By JESSE McKINLEYJUNE 27, 2017

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, in Albany last month. Groups are pushing to have issues like racetracks and mass transit considered during a special session. CreditNathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

ALBANY — “Such other subjects as I may recommend.”

Those seven words were the curious coda to the proclamationissued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday, declaring a special session of the Legislature for Wednesday afternoon, a rare extra period for a part-time body which usually spends only six months a year in the State Capitol.

The primary purpose of the extraordinary session is to address the looming lapse of mayoral control of New York City’s public schools, an issue that failed to gain consensus before the Legislature’s scheduled session ended last week.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s control would be terminated at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, but Mr. Cuomo has indicated that he wants the issue settled before that deadline. To that end, his office said he would introduce a single-year extension, no strings attached — including no mention of charter schools, which had been a sticking point between Republicans in the Senate, who want more charters, and Democrats in the Assembly, who do not.

Cuomo Says He’d Back Vernon Downs Relief Bill

Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a statement Wednesday said he would back a bill design to aid the Vernon Downs racino in the Mohawk Valley and urged lawmakers from the area to pass a bill.

A joint statement from Senate and Assembly lawmakers on Tuesday warned the racino needed a relief package or could face hundreds of jobs losses.

Cuomo urged them to take up a bill “immediately” and said he would back it. Lawmakers are back in Albany on Wednesday for a special session of the Legislature.

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The special session — which the governor has the power to call under the New York State Constitution — comes at the end of what has been a fractious eight months between the governor and the Legislature, beginning with the rejection of a pay raise for lawmakers by the governor’s appointees to a pay raise commission; the rejection of a December special session by lawmakers; and an extended and unpleasant budget season.

“He’s forcing them to come back, which has to get their backs up,” said Blair Horner, the executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, adding that while Mr. Cuomo has a stronger hand, “It’s a sign of the escalating tensions.”

Mr. Cuomo’s proclamation of the special session — only the second in his tenure as governor — came with the assurance from administration officials that mayoral control would be the prime bill on the table.

And yet, the prospect of a special session, and those seven words tacked on to the end of the proclamation, had seemingly encouraged a number of lawmakers and interest groups to urge that other issues be taken up, like supporting failing racetracks and mass transit. The latter came into sharp relief on Tuesday after an A train derailed in Harlem, injuring dozens of passengers and fanning the perception that the city’s subway system — which Mr. Cuomo controls — was on the brink of collapse.

“Every day it gets worse,” State Senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat from Queens, said of the subway crisis. “This is an extraordinary session.”

Specifically, Mr. Gianaris was pushing a proposalthat creates a tax on millionaires as well as hotels and motels in the city, which he estimates would raise more than $2 billion a year to fund upgrades for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, over which Mr. Cuomo has also sought to increase his influence. The proposal’s prospects were unclear, but another tax issue that might actually get an airing this week was the extension of local sales taxes in counties around the state.

On Tuesday, a group of county executives asked the Legislature to address the taxes — which expire later this year — saying “continued inaction on these measures will add significant uncertainty to the county budget process.” And Mr. Cuomo’s office has suggested it might be on the table this week, as well.

Another issue the governor plans to push is enhanced pension payments for some police officers, firefighters and members of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, echoing elements of a Republican proposal that was partly incorporated in an April budget bill.

Melissa DeRosa, the secretary to the governor, said that “the governor has discussed the extraordinary session with the legislative leaders.” But those legislative leaders were not exactly chatty on Tuesday. Neither a spokesman for John J. Flanagan, the Long Island Republican who leads the Senate, nor a spokesman for the Democratic leader of the Assembly, Carl E. Heastie of the Bronx, had any comment on the special session.

Ms. DeRosa reiterated the session would be focused on control of the city’s schools, and its 1.1 million students.

But given the governor’s propensity for stuffing the budget process with a variety of seemingly unrelated policies, it was not surprising that other groups were pushing for special-session consideration. The State Senator Daniel Squadron, a Democrat representing Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, called on the governor to address ticket scalping. A group of Mohawk Valley lawmakers wanted a relief package for Vernon Downs Casino.

Issues that the governor’s office has said will not be part of a session include additional speed cameras around schools, as well as naming a new bridge across the Hudson River in honor of Mr. Cuomo’s father, the former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, who died in 2015. But, once the lawmakers are in Albany, all bets could be off.