Since 1846

[WNYresident]

Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion was beyond corrupt

The usual suspects had predictable reactions this week after a federal trial jury convicted three upstate real-estate developers and the State University’s onetime nanotech czar, Alain Kaloyeros, on charges of bid-rigging tied to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s upstate economic-development projects.

https://nypost.com/2018/07/13/cuomos...eyond-corrupt/

The good news: Since 1846, the state Constitution has banned any gift or loan of government money to private corporations — a provision that generations of politicians have bypassed via public authorities and development corporations.

[WNYresident]

Why can't this be stopped

Gov. Cuomo’s strategy of handing companies billions to create jobs has failed miserably. So what’s his plan now? Give the firms even more money.

As the Investigative Post reports, state officials are considering a second phase of a project launched with Albany Molecular Research Inc., a drug R&D company, as part of Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion program. The new deal is likely to include more state cash for yet another vow of jobs.

Yet five years after Phase One, which cost the state a cool $50 million, most of the 250 promised positions have yet to materialize. Though AMRI met its goal of 55 workers, the spinoff companies that were to gin up another 195 jobs appear to have created just a few dozen. (The state says it doesn’t track spinoff jobs — so why promise them in the first place?)

https://nypost.com/2018/07/24/cuomo-...hite-elephant/

[grump]

WNY, the one and only way to stop it is to lower taxes and give back the $$$ to the people who earned it in the first place. Economic development projects are inherently corrupt. There is no conceivable way that these clowns can predict which projects will generate economic growth so they just give the money to their friends and campaign contributors. As for the state constitutional provision, the NY Court of Appeals effectively stripped it of any meaning in a case brought a few years ago by a local attorney. It was a tribute to his diligence that he even got to the Court of Appeals with the case. The court system has been complicit in covering for the state for years in cases involving the corruption of economic development.

[WNYresident]

And it needs to be stopped. Wouldn't you agree?

Why don't we see Town board members and other elected officials bring this up? Our own Town Board Supervisor is still Vice Chair of the ecdem party. I still don't like that and it's my opinion it's a conflict of interest. I can see some decisions may play out differently because of politics.

If Cuomo runs for governor after what we have witnessed do you think the ecdems are still going to support his run? If so, what the hell is wrong these people. I'm tired of the BS.

I think that is what made Trump run. He was set and could have just been "Trump" until the day he passed away.