Monday, December 9, 2013

Manhattan based Satanists and Lucien

Greaves would do well to provide a lawyer for the bettors of New York who object to Andrew Cuomo picking and choosing the day Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday fall on, picking his religion over that of all others.

Send Andrew Cuomo to hell in a court of law. We want to bet and/or work.  Help us Satan as no one is coming to the aid of those of us who believe in NY Const. Art. 1, Sec. 3. 

What do you think Lucien Greaves?

Long Island
is debating which of these MLB players deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.

Satanists seek spot on Oklahoma Statehouse steps

The Oklahoma Statehouse is shown in Oklahoma City,
Photo credit: Oklahoma.gov | The Oklahoma Statehouse is shown in Oklahoma City, Okla.
OKLAHOMA CITY - In their zeal to tout their faith in the public square, conservatives in Oklahoma may have unwittingly opened the door to a wide range of religious groups, including satanists who are seeking to put their own statue next to a Ten Commandments monument on the Statehouse steps.
The Republican-controlled Legislature in this state known as the buckle of the Bible Belt authorized the privately funded Ten Commandments monument in 2009, and it was placed on the Capitol grounds last year despite criticism from legal experts who questioned its constitutionality. The Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking its removal.
But the New York-based Satanic Temple saw an opportunity. It notified the state's Capitol Preservation Commission that it wants to donate a monument and plans to submit one of several possible designs this month, said Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the temple.
"We believe that all monuments should be in good taste and consistent with community standards," Greaves wrote in letter to state officials. "Our proposed monument, as an homage to the historic/literary Satan, will certainly abide by these guidelines."
Greaves said one potential design involves a pentagram, a satanic symbol, while another is meant to be an interactive display for children. He said he expects the monument, if approved by Oklahoma officials, would cost about $20,000.
Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, who spearheaded the push for the Ten Commandments monument and whose family helped pay the $10,000 for its construction, declined to comment on the Satanic Temple's effort, but Greaves credited Ritze for opening the door to the group's proposal.
"He's helping a satanic agenda grow more than any of us possibly could," Greaves said. "You don't walk around and see too many satanic temples around, but when you open the door to public spaces for us, that's when you're going to see us."
The Oklahoma Legislature has taken other steps that many believe blur the line that divides church and state. The House speaker said he wants to build a chapel inside the Capitol to celebrate Oklahoma's "Judeo-Christian heritage." Several lawmakers have said they want to allow nativity scenes and other religious-themed symbols in public schools.
Rep. Bobby Cleveland, who plans to introduce a one such bill next year, said many Christians feel they are under attack as a result of political correctness. He dismissed the notion of Satanists erecting a monument at the Capitol.
"I think these Satanists are a different group," Cleveland, R-Slaughterville, said. "You put them under the nut category."
Brady Henderson, legal director for ACLU Oklahoma, said if state officials allow one type of religious expression, they must allow alternative forms of expression, although he said a better solution might be to allow none at all on state property.
"We would prefer to see Oklahoma's government officials work to faithfully serve our communities and improve the lives of Oklahomans instead of erecting granite monuments to show us all how righteous they are," Henderson said. "But if the Ten Commandments, with its overtly Christian message, is allowed to stay at the Capitol, the Satanic Temple's proposed monument cannot be rejected because of its different religious viewpoint."



HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.

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.


http://churchofsatan.com/news.php

Suffolk County Legislator Kevin McCaffrey

is the President of Teamsters Local 707 which represents Nassau OTB employees.


Nassau OTB parlors dwindling
by David Winzelberg
Published: December 9th, 2013

OTB_HorseWith another office closing and more slated to follow, indications are Nassau County Off-Track Betting Corp. is trimming labor and real estate costs in a continuing shift to automated gambling.
The latest Nassau OTB office to close will be the 4,800-square-foot betting parlor on Sunrise Highway in Freeport, which should be shuttered by the end of the year. Its landlord, owner of the Freeport Plaza shopping center, wants to replace the betting office with a more upscale tenant.
Nassau OTB officials said they may look to lease comparable space somewhere else in the neighborhood – but they said the same thing after closing their 6,000-square-foot Wantagh office two years ago, a branch they’ve yet to replace.
Internet wagering and dwindling betting revenue has spurred the consolidation of Nassau OTB’s operations in recent years.
There were 15 betting offices in Nassau in 2003. By the end of February – when the 5,500-square-foot branch at the Green Acres Mallin Valley Stream is slated to close – there’ll be just six.
The lease for the Valley Stream office is expiring, and the mall’s new owner, Santa Monica, Calif.-based Macerich, wants OTB out.
Macerich, which paid Vornado $500 million for Green Acres in January, is gearing up for a major renovation of the 1.8 million-square-foot mall, and it has advised several underperforming merchants that their leases won’t be renewed.
“We are looking at doing a redevelopment and a re-merchandising mix of stores,” mall manager Joseph Floccari said.
OTBNassau OTB Chairman Joe Cairo said the company would likely replace the Green Acres location with another in the area. He said an ideal spot would be between 4,000 and 6,000 square feet with ample parking.
Nassau OTB has had branches in Valley Stream since the mid-1970s – the Green Acres office opened in 1996 – and Cairo said the neighborhood is a money-maker. Since New York City OTB closed in 2010, the Valley Stream branch has seen an uptick in activity, with bettors coming from nearby communities in Queens.
“It gets a lot of traffic,” Cairo said.
But he added OTB’s Fast Track automated wagering system, placed in restaurants and bars, is “the wave of the future” because it reduces OTB’s labor and real estate costs.
Featuring touch-screen betting and video race simulcasts, there are 15 Fast Track locations throughout Nassau, in pubs such as Mulcahy’s in Wantagh, Murphy’s Bar & Grill in Mineola and Edison’s Ale House in Manhasset.
Predictably, the move to automated gambling hasn’t gone over well with Nassau OTB’s 200 or so workers, who see the trend as a serious threat to job security. That’s why their union, Teamsters Local 707, negotiated a limit of 18 Fast Track locations in its latest collective bargaining agreement with OTB.
Local 707 business agent Barry Yomtov said Fast Tracks aren’t a panacea for Nassau OTB and only account for a negligible part of its revenue. Yomtov said that most of OTB’s customers would rather do their wagering at brick-and-mortar locations where they can socialize and interact with cashiers.
“They don’t want to spend money on food and drinks when they don’t have to,” he said.
Yomtov added that only a small number of bettors will migrate to another OTB branch once their neighborhood office closes.
“It’s a local clientele,” Yomtov said. “They’ll likely lose that business.”
Besides the Fast Tracks, there is another revenue stream around the bend for Long Island’s OTBs.
In June, the state Legislature approved a measure that allows for up to 1,000 video gaming machines in both Nassau and Suffolk counties. Nassau OTB is contemplating putting the machines at its branch at the Race Palace in Plainview, a building it owns.
Suffolk OTB, which filed for bankruptcy last year, has chosen Buffalo-based gaming company Delaware North to build and run its planned 80,000-square-foot gambling machine parlor, and it’s been looking for a casino site along the county’s major thoroughfares.
Despite the closing of a couple of branches, Cairo said Nassau OTB is doing better lately, and will likely turn a profit in 2013, after many years of operating in the red.
“We’ll give more than $2 million to the county this year,” Cairo said.
Yomtov, who worked at New York City OTB for 39 years and witnessed its demise firsthand, sees the closing of OTB branches a bit differently.
“It’s a sad situation,” he said. “This thing is disintegrating before our very eyes.”


David Winzelberg
Reporter
631.913.4247
917.796.1801

please attend the Tuesday Meeting of

the Nassau OTB Board of Directors.



Meeting Of The Nassau OTB Board-Of-Directors
Date:
12/10/2013

Time:
10:30 AM

Description:
A public meeting of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS of the NASSAU OFF-TRACK BETTING CORPORATION will be held on Tuesday, December 10th at 10:30AM at the Nassau OTB Executive Office in Hempstead, which is a handicapped-accessible facility.

Location:
The Executive Office is at 220 Fulton Avenue, Hempstead, NY 11550 (at the corner of Fulton & Franklin).

Contact:
Judy Czak


Long Island Business News
Nassau OTB parlors dwindling
by David Winzelberg
Published: December 9th, 2013

OTB_HorseWith another office closing and more slated to follow, indications are Nassau County Off-Track Betting Corp. is trimming labor and real estate costs in a continuing shift to automated gambling.
The latest Nassau OTB office to close will be the 4,800-square-foot betting parlor on Sunrise Highway in Freeport, which should be shuttered by the end of the year. Its landlord, owner of the Freeport Plaza shopping center, wants to replace the betting office with a more upscale tenant.
Nassau OTB officials said they may look to lease comparable space somewhere else in the neighborhood – but they said the same thing after closing their 6,000-square-foot Wantagh office two years ago, a branch they’ve yet to replace.
Internet wagering and dwindling betting revenue has spurred the consolidation of Nassau OTB’s operations in recent years.
There were 15 betting offices in Nassau in 2003. By the end of February – when the 5,500-square-foot branch at the Green Acres Mallin Valley Stream is slated to close – there’ll be just six.
The lease for the Valley Stream office is expiring, and the mall’s new owner, Santa Monica, Calif.-based Macerich, wants OTB out.
Macerich, which paid Vornado $500 million for Green Acres in January, is gearing up for a major renovation of the 1.8 million-square-foot mall, and it has advised several underperforming merchants that their leases won’t be renewed.
“We are looking at doing a redevelopment and a re-merchandising mix of stores,” mall manager Joseph Floccari said.
OTBNassau OTB Chairman Joe Cairo said the company would likely replace the Green Acres location with another in the area. He said an ideal spot would be between 4,000 and 6,000 square feet with ample parking.
Nassau OTB has had branches in Valley Stream since the mid-1970s – the Green Acres office opened in 1996 – and Cairo said the neighborhood is a money-maker. Since New York City OTB closed in 2010, the Valley Stream branch has seen an uptick in activity, with bettors coming from nearby communities in Queens.
“It gets a lot of traffic,” Cairo said.
But he added OTB’s Fast Track automated wagering system, placed in restaurants and bars, is “the wave of the future” because it reduces OTB’s labor and real estate costs.
Featuring touch-screen betting and video race simulcasts, there are 15 Fast Track locations throughout Nassau, in pubs such as Mulcahy’s in Wantagh, Murphy’s Bar & Grill in Mineola and Edison’s Ale House in Manhasset.
Predictably, the move to automated gambling hasn’t gone over well with Nassau OTB’s 200 or so workers, who see the trend as a serious threat to job security. That’s why their union, Teamsters Local 707, negotiated a limit of 18 Fast Track locations in its latest collective bargaining agreement with OTB.
Local 707 business agent Barry Yomtov said Fast Tracks aren’t a panacea for Nassau OTB and only account for a negligible part of its revenue. Yomtov said that most of OTB’s customers would rather do their wagering at brick-and-mortar locations where they can socialize and interact with cashiers.
“They don’t want to spend money on food and drinks when they don’t have to,” he said.
Yomtov added that only a small number of bettors will migrate to another OTB branch once their neighborhood office closes.
“It’s a local clientele,” Yomtov said. “They’ll likely lose that business.”
Besides the Fast Tracks, there is another revenue stream around the bend for Long Island’s OTBs.
In June, the state Legislature approved a measure that allows for up to 1,000 video gaming machines in both Nassau and Suffolk counties. Nassau OTB is contemplating putting the machines at its branch at the Race Palace in Plainview, a building it owns.
Suffolk OTB, which filed for bankruptcy last year, has chosen Buffalo-based gaming company Delaware North to build and run its planned 80,000-square-foot gambling machine parlor, and it’s been looking for a casino site along the county’s major thoroughfares.
Despite the closing of a couple of branches, Cairo said Nassau OTB is doing better lately, and will likely turn a profit in 2013, after many years of operating in the red.
“We’ll give more than $2 million to the county this year,” Cairo said.
Yomtov, who worked at New York City OTB for 39 years and witnessed its demise firsthand, sees the closing of OTB branches a bit differently.
“It’s a sad situation,” he said. “This thing is disintegrating before our very eyes.”


David Winzelberg
Reporter
631.913.4247
917.796.1801

Sunday, December 8, 2013

10, 9,8,7,6,5,...........?

Moody's Research Reports give you an in-depth perspective into the credit quality of an issuer. Each report is a comprehensive credit analysis examining the financial strength and risk factors particular to each issuer.

Search reports:

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By Issuer
General Obligations

NASSAU (COUNTY OF) NY - Moody's Research Report

Moody's assigns A2 to Nassau County, NY's $92M GO Bonds Series 2013C&D

Posted on: November 26, 2013, 8:30 pm
NEW YORK, November 26, 2013 --Moody's has assigned a A2 rating to Nassau County's (NY) $90.9 million General Improvement Bonds, 2013 Series C and the $1.1 million General Improvement Bonds, 2013 Series D (federally taxable). The bonds are secured by a general obligation pledge as limited by the Property Tax Cap - Legislation (Chapter 97 (Part A) of the Laws of the State of New York, 2011). Concurrently, Moody's currently maintains a A2 rating and stable outlook to various general obligation bonds issued by the county; the county currently has $1.6 billion in GO debt outstanding. Additionally, we currently maintain a Baa1 rating on $11.6 million of the county's Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation's (NROTB) Revenue Bonds. The series C bonds will be issued primarily for capital projects ($50 million), tax certioraris ($35 million) and termination pay ($7 million). The series D bonds will be issued for capital projects. The bonds were approved by the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, a requirement for issuance, on November 25, 2013...



Gretchen is on her way to the Nassau

OTB Board of Directors Meeting to help bring clarity to Nassau OTB employees, bettors and citizens of NY

Events

Meeting Of The Nassau OTB Board-Of-Directors
Date:
12/10/2013

Time:
10:30 AM

Description:
A public meeting of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS of the NASSAU OFF-TRACK BETTING CORPORATION will be held on Tuesday, December 10th at 10:30AM at the Nassau OTB Executive Office in Hempstead, which is a handicapped-accessible facility.

Location:
The Executive Office is at 220 Fulton Avenue, Hempstead, NY 11550 (at the corner of Fulton & Franklin).

Contact:
Judy Czak
Phone: 516-572-2800 Ext: 136



Kevin McCaffrey, Suffolk County Legislator and President of Teamsters Local 707 with a pension plan in critical status commends her for her educational efforts on behalf of  Nassau OTB employees represented by Teamsters Local 707





Fair Game

Playing Pension Games

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Pity the municipal bondholder. Between Detroit’s bankruptcy and the rising concerns over unfunded pensions in Illinois and elsewhere, it has been a rough year for many muni bond investors. While the Standard & Poor’s municipal bond index has recovered from its September lows, it is still off 2.7 percent for the year.

Fair Game

Gretchen Morgenson writes the Fair Game column for the Sunday Business section.
A big problem for investors in this $3.7 trillion municipal market — mostly individuals — is that financial disclosures by states, cities and other issuers of tax-exempt debt can be decidedly inadequate.
Securities laws require issuers of municipal debt to provide the information investors need to make informed decisions when buying or selling these instruments. But lax disclosure practices remain, making it hard to spot signs of problems like those hobbling some states and cities. Disclosures about the soundness of public pensions, for example, can be essential to weighing the health of municipal bond issuers that are responsible for funding them.
Investors aren’t the only ones who need more information. This was on full display last week, when a judge in Detroit suggested in a groundbreaking ruling that the city’s pensioners would not get priority in the city’s bankruptcy, and their retirement pay could be considered an unsecured obligation.
John R. Mousseau, executive vice president and director of fixed income at Cumberland Advisers, a money management firm in Sarasota, Fla., said: “Detroit’s pensioners may be as eligible to take a haircut as the city’s bondholders or vendors. This development should demand more disclosure.”
But better disclosure practices among tax-exempt issuers are slow in coming, investors say.
If issuers make material misstatements or omit information, they can face civil or criminal penalties. The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought eight cases contending disclosure failings by municipal issuers this year.
A large case last March involved accusations that the state of Illinois misled investors about its unfunded pension. From 2005 to 2009, a period when the state issued $2.2 billion in bonds, the S.E.C. said Illinois failed to warn investors about the pension system’s woes and “the resulting risks to the state’s financial condition.”
Among the details missing from the state’s offering statements and filings, the commission said, were those relating to the contributions made by the state to its various pension funds. The commission said investors were not told that the state was contributing far less to the pensions than was required each year. Last week, the Illinois Legislature voted to shore up the pensions by raising the retirement age for some workers and lowering cost-of-living adjustments. The state is facing a pension shortfall of $97 billion.
Illinois settled with the S.E.C., but the agency did not impose fines or penalties. The S.E.C. doesn’t typically exact penalties in such cases, its officials said, because the money would come out of a state or city budget, making matters worse.
Disclosures about pensions in the muni arena rank high as an S.E.C. concern, according to John J. Cross III, director of its Office of Municipal Securities. “Our office expects to take a good hard look at pension disclosure issues,” he said. “It is a major concern because of the magnitude of unfunded municipal pension liabilities and the size and opaqueness of the investment portfolios.” 
But the S.E.C. can’t dictate disclosure rules related to accounting, Mr. Cross explained. “We can’t mandate line-item things, but we could highlight more of what we think is appropriate to address material disclosure issues in the pension area as simply and clearly as possible.”
If issuers took the initiative on greater transparency, they’d most likely benefit from reduced borrowing costs, Mr. Mousseau said. Investors who feel confident that they understand the risks in a muni bond will accept a lower interest rate on that security, he explained. “Fewer unknowns in a world fraught with headline risk are a good thing,” he said.
Many people who put money in municipal securities are individual investors looking for a small but safe return, not a big gain on a risky investment. So investors not only need more information from tax-exempt issuers, they also need that information to be relatively simple. That’s the view of Chris Tobe, a public pension consultant and a former trustee of the Kentucky Retirement System. He is also author of “Kentucky Fried Pensions — Worse than Detroit.” He added: “Bad financial practices are a signal of stress down the road and should be disclosed. Investors need to be able to discern between good actors and bad actors.”
A crucial metric that should be found in issuers’ offering statements and filings is one cited by the S.E.C. in the Illinois case: the shortfall in annual contributions that are needed to keep a pension fully funded. Known as annual required contributions, or ARC, many states fail to meet them.
This has the effect of masking an issuer’s financial troubles, Mr. Tobe said. “There almost needs to be a bold statement saying the state is not paying 100 percent of its ARC payments,” he said.
He cites a December 2011 offering statement for $72 million of bonds issued by the University of Illinois. Nowhere does it detail the shortfalls in state contributions to the university system’s pension fund in recent years. Investors seeking this information must go to the Illinois State Universities Retirement System website.
On that website are annual reports and other revealing filings. The fiscal 2012 report shows that for the last five years, Illinois has contributed only 60 percent of the university system’s annual required contributions, on average. With each year the state pays less than the required contributions, the pension fund goes deeper into the hole.
The system has 200,000 members in the defined-benefit plan, 45,548 of whom are retired. The pension’s assets available to pay out benefits fell from 44.3 percent to 42.1 percent in 2012, the report said. The system’s actuarial liability is $19.2 billion.
I asked officials at the Illinois State Universities Retirement System if they planned to offer investors more clarity in future bond offering statements, given the S.E.C.’s recent case against the state.
Thomas Hardy, executive director for the office of university relations, said the pension’s unfunded liability is not the obligation of the university under current state law. But, he said, the Illinois university system’s filings would start including figures on unfunded pension liabilities in its 2015 fiscal year, which begins next July. It will do so to comply with new accounting rules issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, he said.
That’s a good thing. But many pension problems remain hidden from view. Bondholders lose because “they don’t get the interest rate they deserve for the risks they are taking,” Mr. Tobe said. “While issuers play these games, it’s investors who feel the losses.”

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Ed Fountaine applies for job at Nassau OTB

at Board of Directors Meeting

Click Here!

New York Post Eliminates Racing Coverage




The New York Post fired three horse racing reporters June 7, one day before the $1 million Belmont Stakes (gr. I), and will no longer have staff cover the sport.
Writer Ed Fountaine, along with handicappers John DaSilva and Anthony Affrunti, were let go immediately. They were informed that the paper, one of New York's three major metropolitan dailies, will have no staff coverage of the Belmont Stakes.
Fountaine, 60, was a Post employee for 15 years and formerly worked for Daily Racing Form.
The paper will no longer feature racing analysis or news. Earlier this year, the New York Daily News also reduced coverage, although that publication still includes analysis, news, results, and entries.  
 
A June 7 memo from Post editor Col Allan to the staff said 13 full-time positions were eliminated throughout the organization.

Read more on BloodHorse.com: http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/78754/new-york-post-eliminates-racing-coverage#ixzz2moYF9Ug4


Meeting Of The Nassau OTB Board-Of-Directors
Date:
12/10/2013

Time:
10:30 AM

Description:
A public meeting of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS of the NASSAU OFF-TRACK BETTING CORPORATION will be held on Tuesday, December 10th at 10:30AM at the Nassau OTB Executive Office in Hempstead, which is a handicapped-accessible facility.

Location:
The Executive Office is at 220 Fulton Avenue, Hempstead, NY 11550 (at the corner of Fulton & Franklin).

Contact:
Judy Czak
Phone: 516-572-2800 Ext: 136

and who will attend? bettors? employees?

elves
Meeting Of The Nassau OTB Board-Of-Directors
Date:
12/10/2013

Time:
10:30 AM

Description:
A public meeting of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS of the NASSAU OFF-TRACK BETTING CORPORATION will be held on Tuesday, December 10th at 10:30AM at the Nassau OTB Executive Office in Hempstead, which is a handicapped-accessible facility.

Location:
The Executive Office is at 220 Fulton Avenue, Hempstead, NY 11550 (at the corner of Fulton & Franklin).

Contact:
Judy Czak
Phone: 516-572-2800 Ext: 136