Archive for December 21st, 2006
As long as taxpayers are supporting private development the economic conditions hurting the area will persist.
The Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency approved a $2 million low-interest loan that will help finance the development of the Warehouse Lofts project. The loan package was approved during the agency’s meeting Thursday.
The Warehouse Lofts are the latest in a lengthy series of downtown residential projects. Since 2002, more than 1,000 people have moved into more than 400 apartments and lofts in the immediate downtown area.
Schneider said he expects that trend to continue.
“We’re still bullish on the market,” he said.
The government guaranteed financing takes the money out of tax payers pockets to subsidize apartments for a select few individuals. If this is such a bullish market, why is taxpayer support needed for an apartment building?
The apartments will include 10 single-bedroom units and 20 two-bedroom units. The apartments will range in size from 1,100-square-feet and 1,600-square-feet.
These are not small apartments meant for low income individuals. Build what people can afford without relying on taxpayers’ subsidies. Robbing Peter to pay for Paul redistribution of wealth programs must end.
Democracy is akin to “three wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.” That is to say, that in a democratic society, it is the will of the masses which ultimately prevails. And, since the “have-nots” will invariably outnumber the “haves”, you can bet that “have-nots” will eventually elect to eat the “haves” for breakfast.
Source: Ellicott Street project secures BURA loan - Business First of Buffalo:
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We should be able to look forward to the end of the TV commercials by Nancy Naples.
One Western New Yorker will replace another in the new gubernatorial administration.
Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer Thursday named nine top administrators, including David Swarts as commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles. Swarts will give up his post as Erie County Clerk for the Albany assignment. Swarts has held his county job since 1987 and was re-elected in November to another four-year term.
Source: Swarts to replace Naples as head of DMV - Business First of Buffalo:
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At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many F.B.I. cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government’s first automatic declassification of records.
Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret.
Historians say the deadline, created in the Clinton administration but enforced, to the surprise of some scholars, by the secrecy-prone Bush administration, has had huge effects on public access, despite the large numbers of intelligence documents that have been exempted.
This should reveal some illuminating never before revealed to the public.
The C.I.A. has reviewed more than 100 million pages, released 30 million pages and created a database of documents, Crest, that is accessible from terminals at the National Archives. Although most of the documents are exempt, they can be requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
Combing through these documents for important facts is going to be a monumental task that will take years. Click on the source below for the entire story.
Source: U.S. to Declassify Secrets at Age 25 - New York Times
By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau
Last updated: 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, December 20, 2006
ALBANY — State Comptroller Alan Hevesi will agree this week to resign to avoid an indictment stemming from an ethics scandal in which he used public employees to chauffeur his wife, according to sources familiar with his decision.
I’m sure he’ll be able to protect his huge state pension after serving many years in public office since 1968. The fools who reelected him should have their voting rights suspended for the next 4 years.
The comptroller, a 66-year-old Queens Democrat, will also plead guilty to a criminal charge, which will not be higher than a Class E felony and will not require him to spend any time in jail, according to the sources.
What is the actual punishment here? He walks away a free man, keeps his mighty pension and lives happily ever after. The Albany County DA ought to be strung up for accepting this plea deal. He should have taken him to court and prosecuted to the fullest extent. The crime committed by Hevesi was against the taxpayers, did we have a voice in this plea deal?
Hevesi’s decision to resign puts the power to select his successor in the hands of the 212-member state Legislature, the majority of whom are Democrats. That means Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, will control the process.
Sheldon Silver appoints the next State Comptroller. What a joke. The election was a sham. Where was Mr. Right or Wrong Spitzer, the Sheriff of Wall Street? He just stood by the sidelines like a stooge of the democratic party while all the backroom wheeling and dealing took place. Perhaps if the crime(s) were committed by Alan Hevesi, Inc., Eliot Spitzer might have been lured by headlines and become involved.
Source: Hevesi expected to step down by Friday — Page 1 — Times Union - Albany NY
