Clothes be they an emperor or empress
Laugh them both out of town singing here come ny const art 1 sec 3 and the dead and faithful of nyc and Nassau oTB
Nassau County exec signs order defying Hochul’s ‘autocracy’ on mask mandates
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.
In direct defiance of Gov. Kathy Hochul,newly installed Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman wants to let school districts decide if kids must wear masks inside buildings.
The Republican official signed a trio of executive orders Thursday — including one that would give Nassau’s school boards the ability to scrap student mask mandates.
Arguing that Albany was imposing an “autocracy” upon the state, Blakeman repeatedly ripped Hochul’s mask decrees prior to the signing.
“School boards are comprised of elected officials who make decisions based upon the unique circumstances of each district,” Blakeman said at a Thursday press conference. “They are in the best position to make these decisions, not an autocracy in Albany.”
But Hochul fired back at Blakeman later Thursday — and suggested that his orders would ultimately prove toothless. The governor said “state laws will prevail” and that “children in masks, that is safer for them.”
“I hope I don’t need to say anymore on that topic,” Hochul said.
The New York State Teachers United Teachers union also opposed Blakeman’s offensive on Albany.
“Public health experts have been unequivocally clear that masks are an important part of the strategies designed to keep students, educators and our communities safe,” said NYSUT chief Andy Pallotta in a statement. “And the governor was clear this afternoon that state law prevails in this matter.”
New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa asserted that the order won’t supersede the state directive.
“School officers take an oath to obey all legal requirements,” Rosa said in a statement. “It is the State Education Department’s expectation that school boards will follow all legal requirements, including the face covering regulation.”
Blakeman said he was confident that the order carries sufficient legal weight to enable districts to defy state masking rules, but that remains to be seen.
“This executive order gives the school districts their own individual right to make decisions within the county under our home rule authority that we have as a county,” he said. “Our county is larger than nine states and we don’t need people in Albany telling us what we should be doing.”
Blakeman signed two additional orders, one that allows public county workers to not wear masks indoors and another that formalizes his decision not to enforce Hochul’s mask mandates that “unfairly fine residents and small businesses thousands of dollars.”
“We are taking a very aggressive approach in fighting COVID-19,” he said. “But this aggressive approach must be balanced by keeping in mind the psychological and economic risks of every decision we make as well as individual constitutional rights.”
Blakeman also announced that the county will double distribution of free test kits this weekend, establish free vaccination sites and provide KN95 masks to all private and public school teachers and employees.
“I think there is an unreasonable focus on these masks, especially the paper mask,” he said. “The data is not there that they materially provide the kind of protection that people would want. It’s a false sense of security. So what we are doing here in Nassau County is we’re doing meaningful things, we’re doing material things.”
Blakeman reiterated that Nassau cops and firefighters won’t enforce mask-related mandates from the state.
“They have far more important things to do than chase people around to see if they are wearing masks,” he said. “They will not be doing that.”
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