andrew cuomo and the ny attorney general and the president of nassau otb close nassau otb on there easter sunday in preference to the other guys
Mayor aims to avoid specialized high
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
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.
schools lawsuit
Why the mayor doesn't change the admission policy on five schools not named in state law
Photo: Flickr/Nïall Green
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday explained that he has not unilaterally changed the admission policy at five test-in high schools because he is not sure that he can legally do so. Instead he is seeking state legislation, which he has a slim to modest chance to get from Albany next year if Democrats win control of the state Senate (and no chance if they don't).
The mayor has targeted the admissions policy because in the past 25 years, Asian-American students have become the predominant ethnic group in the eight test-in specialized high schools, and the number of black, Latino and white students has dropped dramatically. De Blasio blames the test for screening out blacks and Latinos, although the same test was used in 1989 when minorities were well represented in the three original specialized high schools.
Admission to those three is governed by a 1971 state law that specifically names them. The other five test-in schools did not exist at the time, but the law anticipated their creation by the then-Board of Education.
The text of the statute, known as Calandra-Hecht for the names of its sponsors, says:
"Admissions to The Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School and Brooklyn Technical High School and such similar further special high schools which may be established shall be solely and exclusively by taking a competitive, objective and scholastic achievement examination, which shall be open to each and every child in the City of New York in the eighth or ninth year of study, in accordance with the rules promulgated by the N.Y.C. Board of Education, without regard to any school district wherein the child may reside."
That's what the mayor was referring to when he said on Brian Lehrer's radio show Friday:
"It’s a gray area and a debatable area legally and when—I’m a firm believer when you meet a legally unclear situation, the best way to resolve it is through legislative action."
Let's game out the scenarios facing de Blasio.
The mayor now controls the school system, so in theory he could close any number of specialized high schools and reopen them as something else, evading the state law. But that would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater and would be politically tone deaf to a degree that not even de Blasio has demonstrated. The Legislature might well respond by letting mayoral control of the schools expire next year. Or it could pass a law protecting the specialized high schools from being re-engineered, which is exactly what happened in 1971.
The other problem with doing an end run around Calandra-Hecht is that Asian-American groups would sue, drawing even more notoriety to de Blasio's diversity plan than it has already received. Such negative attention would be a headache the mayor doesn't need as he heads into lame-duck status and tries to keep his political career alive after 2021.
Diversifying these high schools in such a heavy-handed manner would not render the mayor a hero of the underprivileged because he would be displacing an underprivileged group: Asians, who have the highest poverty rate of any ethnic group in New York City. Some 45% of students at Stuyvesant (which is 75% Asian overall) are poor.
On the other hand, Asians have little political power in New York (Ron Kim, D-Flushing, is the only Asian in the state Legislature), which is why de Blasio dared to propose his reform plan in the first place.
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