Prison Guards Want More Money from Cuomo

State Prisons have been asking Governor Cuomo to consider adding more funding from the state budget to state prison facilities. Over the past years, prison violence has been on the increase, which endangers our prison guards significantly. The union that represents New York’s 54 correctional facilities has started a campaign to raise awareness on the uprising issue.

They have started fund raising for a radio ad that is aimed at the state to help provide additional funding for officer safety within state prisons. The ad is a 60 second radio recording that states facts about increasing drug and violence in prisons lead to more fights between inmates.

Governor Cuomo’s budget at this time includes around $3 million set aside to fund New York’s States Department of Corrections. The $3 million set aside for New York’s correctional facilities is a 1.4 percent increase from the 2014-2015 budget.

http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/State-prison-guards-seek-more-funding-as-6151861.php

Inmate population has decreased since 2011, when Cuomo took office. Through various justice reforms, he has been able to close more prisons and decrease the inmate population, which is at an all time low in state history.  13 correctional facilities closed, over 5,500 beds reduced all over the past four years.

With the closing of prisons, it still means some inmates are just moved across the state, which could cause over crowding in others. Over crowding in prisons is a ticking time bomb for riots or other fights. Prison guard assaults are at an all time high with drug activity increasing in prisons.

Just in the past month, a female prison officer was attacked in Rikers Island Correctional Facility and nearly raped by an inmate. With the lack of officers on duty the response by other officers was slow to her rescue. Luckily, a group prison inmates who had witnessed the attack jumped in to save the guard until more correctional officers were able to get to the attack. 

Unfortunately attacks like this happen everyday across the state. Attacks like these scare officers and prevent them from a safe work environment. More money from Cuomo’s budget is needed to help fund more officers on duty, not just keep the prisons under control, but to keep each other safe as well. correctional officers need more resources, and improvements in technology to help fight against prison violence and attacks on prison guards.

"Ban New York City's Horse Carriages"

The American Farm Bureau Federation has requested that Mayor Bill de Blasio drops plans to prohibit the movement of Horse carriages in New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio had initially planned to ban the use of horses in the city because of complaints from animal activists. Complaints made by the activists suggested that the horses are not being well treated or taken care of, mistreated and tortured. This is partly because the horse handlers have no animal training, as there are no requirements for moving the carriages in the City.



The announcement of the ban by the Mayor back in 2013 at the candidate forum increased the excitement amongst interested activists. Animal activists held up signs at Central Park to protest, and to also mark their support for the Mayor's ban on Horse carriages. Protesters also held up signs in front of Hollywood star Liam Neeson's house accusing him of loving animal cruelty. Liam Neeson had spoken out opposing Mayor Bill de Blasio's campaign to prohibit horse draw carriages in NYC. However, it's been two years as there has been constant debate concerning the issue from both opposing and supporting sides.

President of the American Farm Bureau Federation Bob Stallman commented that horse carriage movers have no "horse sense". His comments however show support for the continuity of the historic fashion of movement in horses. The horse carriages connect touristic people and average New Yorkers to the history and tradition of the City. The horses are an "important asset to the city" according to the Mr. Stallman. The lives of those who own the horses and those who drive the Horses are dependent on this source for revenue.

The American Farm Bureau Federation ripped into the animal activists, saying their allegations on animal cruelty are false. The animals are well taken care of, Nurtured and treated properly said a Spokesman of the Farm group. If it makes anyone feel better to know that the Mayor will be planning on replacing the horses with electric car, therefore, erasing part of NYC history.

Click here to learn more about the measures taken by the Farm group against the Mayoral proposal

Vote Yes Then Pray

Governor Cuomo has been a strong supporter of education but has been criticized on how he has gone about education reform. In a recent budget proposal, Cuomo’s plan includes a financial carrot, an increase of over one billion dollars in state aid if the Assembly passes the budget and only 377 million if it does not pass. New York Sate wants local voters to vote on their school district budget before the state reveals their own budget. Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi, a Democrat, says it is impracticable for districts to plan a budget without knowing the state aid they are going to receive. Many districts rely heavily on state aid, so not knowing the state budget will cause panic among local voters.

In Governor Cuomo’s 2015 Opportunity Agenda Plan, he presented a few new proposals to the education system. These proposals are making teacher evaluations based more on statewide tests, raising the number of charter schools, and if a school is failing to let it be taken over by an outside agency. Teachers unions have been vocal about the new schemes saying that if they do not abide by these new regulations, they feel they will not get the state funding which they need. While continuing to develop the education system to benefit the student is imperative, there are many sides to education reform.

The Governor has established a six-member committie of which two of the members of both the Legislative and the House are appointed by the Governor. The committee will develop new ideas to continue to reform the evaluation and report back to the legislature by June 1^st.  Cuomo stated that they stated would withhold aid until the evaluation is completed. The teachers unions are against the creation of the committee saying it will not achieve anything beneficial to the school districts and students. The unions suggest having school district employees being involved in the committee because they are the experts in the field. Will the committee come back with useful information that can be presented and benefit both sides or will it be heavily biased towards the New York State Education Department. Go to stop common core to learn about the common core and sign a petition to get rid of it.

Senate Authorizes Hunting of Extinct Animal

On Tuesday, the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee passed a bill that will authorize a hunting season for moose and elk. This would have been productive if half of these animals actually existed in New York State, elk have been extinct in New York State since 1877.

According to a report the top 5 locations for hunting elk are all in the west or southwest of the country. This really makes Patrick Gallivan's, a republican from Eric County and main sponsor for this bill, statement that elk have been reintroduced in several states questionable. If elk  being reintroduced in states close to New York, then this bill would make more sense. This bill has put into question the focus of some members of our main legislative body in New York.

Patrick Gallivan. Source: http://amhersttimes.com/?p=24773

With the budget process in full stride, the deadline coming up in just a week, and voters not being impressed with the ethics of the legislature or its overall performance it would seem that this bill is a microcosm of the legislature as a whole. Instead of being focused on relevant issues we are working to authorize the hunting of extinct animals. To let Senator Gallivan know how you feel about hunting extinct animals you can reach him here. If we work hard we can save the precious elk from further extinction.

In Cuomo We Don't Trust

During the past few months, ethics reform has been a hot topic from the federal, state and local level. Governor Andrew Cuomo is pushing for a Purging Policy on state employees email. The new provision would automatically delete workers emails after a maximum of ninety days. Many voters say the new policy could create a more non-transparent administration loosing trust in the Governor.

Over eighty percent of voters said emails should be saved for a much longer time than the ninety-day proposal. Voters feel that the ninety-day email purge would create more corruption than it would help eliminate. Voters believe that politicians would use this new policy in a way that would be more unethical than if the email were kept.

This past Thursday, Albany responded in an unfriendly way. The introduction of two bills that would preserve state employees emails for a minimum of seven years is currently being drafted. The same day, Attorney General Schneiderman told the press that they would suspend the procedure of automatically deleting email until about solution will be implemented.

Voters are getting annoyed with the way the Governor is handling ethics reform in Cuomo’s Administration. Since 2007, Cuomo’s Administration has been automatically deleting emails after the ninety-day grace period. The Cuomo Administration has been called out for going out of their way to leave no trace of evidence behind. Many believe this situation could end up like the Hillary Clinton scandal regarding her personal emails. Does Governor Andrew Cuomo have to much power within his Administration?

New York State Attorney General Calls For Full Time State Legislature

With the state budget around the corner and ethics reform hanging over everyone's head Eric Schniderman New York's Attorney General has taken the time to criticism New York's State Government and Call for a full time legislature.

According to copies of remarks the Attorney General made at New York State Law School. We are dealing with a cycle where revelations of misconduct by a lawmaker prompts "ethics reform" measures which do not address the real underling problems of the New York State Government. These measures set off a round of self congratulation and complacency with lasts until there is inevitably another scandal.

In order to bring meaningful reform to Albany Schniderman says that there should be a ban on legislatures having outside income apart from their legislative salary. As long as legislators draw pay from somewhere other than that state budget the Attorney General belies corruption of the appearance of corruption is unavoidable.

Newpoint's presentation of thier study this Wednesday

Currently the Massena’s Town Council is looking to privatizing the Massena Memorial Hospital. The Town Council hired Newpoint Health Care Advisors back in August after the Massena Memorial Hospital Board of Managers had voted on whether to move further with converting the hospital into a private, nonprofit facility.

Newpoint Health Care Advisors was only hired to do a six-month study, in which they also had to spoke with hospital employees. If the hospital does privatize, the hospital employees will no longer be part of the state retirement system. Newpoint also looked into if the hospital will be eligible to receive intergovernmental transfer money if the hospital does privatize.

There will be a public meeting on this Wednesday at 5:30 at the Massena Town Hall, in which the Newpoint Health Care will present their findings. But before the meeting, Town council members will meet privately with the consultant at 4:30 that same day.

Mr. Gray (Town Supervisor) expects a good crowd to show up. After looking at Massena’s website: http://www.massenaworks.com/index.asp , there is not a posting or notification of the meeting on the site. Also there isn’t one posted on the Massena Memorial Hospital website either: http://massenahospital.iarbiz.com/MbW8LyXfOGo= .

Keep Massena Memorial Hospital Public is a Facebook page where their goal is: “We are building a community coalition of Massena NY residents and businesses to keep control over OUR public hospital”. This group didn’t have a post of notification about the meeting, but did have a site where you can sign their online petition (link to online petition www.change.org/petitions/keep-mmh-public).

It will be interesting to see how many people do show up to the presentation on Wednesday with the current lack of postings or notifications.

Sources

Fairchild, Benny. Town’s consultant to issue findings from Massena Memorial Hospital study Wednesday. Watertown Daily Times. Received from: http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/news05/towns-consultant-to-issue-findings-from-massena-memorial-hospital-study-wednesday-20150323