During the torturous last days of David Patterson’s reign as the leader of New York, Andrew Cuomo was on the campaign trail on his way to be the next Governor. His willingness to expand the state’s gaming enterprises was no secret to anyone. Now he’s elected, our budgets are on time, and his approval rate is up. Now Mr. Cuomo is sort of caught with his hand in the cookie jar. A major agenda item in his State of New York address this year was the proposed convention center, to be located adjacent to the Aqueduct race track in Queens. Long before the speech, negotiations were ongoing with a major casino operator (Genting,) who also controls the VLT’s at Aqueduct, to build and operate the facility. Guess what? All this at no cost to the taxpayer. Now, after probably heeding the advice of a ‘consultant’ hired by the state, the governor has done a complete 180 on the project. Why, because Genting was part of a huge donation to Cuomo’s own super PAC, the Committee to Save New York. Once this donation became public, the governor backtracked. Andrew, your transparency has surfaced. You had no idea that donation came from the New York Gaming Association. Would anyone, including Genting, build this $4 billion facility without the promise of a casino? If you want to build casino’s in New York, is the obvious start the one in Queens attached to the convention center? Aren’t projects involving state taxpayer’s money supposed to be put out for competitive bid? As the governor of the state of New York, the people are not going to tolerate back room deals. I think casino’s are a good thing for the state. They do not necessarily have to be located on the sites of the current VLT locations, and certainly do not have to be run by the current operators. This change in attitude, although good for the state, is not doing you any good, in my mind, in the court of public opinion. This, Governor Cuomo, will not go away with a whitewash. You need to get a handle on this, and you need to get a handle on the Committee to Save New York. Now.……….The New York Yankees are virtually unwatchable and unlistenable. Every time you watch a game, a different team of people are calling it. Poor Michael Kay, the only non-jock of the group, who has to corral the plethora of ex-jocks including Ken Singleton, David Cone, Paul O’Neil, John Flaherty, and Al Leiter. All of them, except for O’Neill, were average players in their day, go on and on about their playing days. WE DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PLAYING DAYS. It’s OK to have a little fun in the booth, but just call the freaking game. We definitely don’t want to talk about the girl who replaced Kim Jones as sideline reporter, and the radio side of Yankee broadcasts could be the entire subject of a blog. I guess I’ll have to learn how to lip read.
And that is “The Daily Take”