Albany Times Union. October 9, 2023.

Editorial: Connecting New York

A report on rural counties’ struggles emphasizes the need for universal broadband.

A recent report from the office of state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli laid out the challenges faced by New York’s rural counties — lack of jobs, poor access to health care and a dearth of grocery stores, to name a few, along with, unsurprisingly, a resulting drain in population. The causes of these demographic changes are many, and potential solutions are dauntingly complex — but one item in the comptroller’s list stood out: a lack of rural broadband access.

The number of households statewide without access to high-speed internet is small. But in some rural counties it represents a sizeable portion of homes – up to 25 percent in the counties the comptroller studied.

Let’s take a step back here. In 2008, the state distributed $160 million in federal funds to make internet access universal. In 2015, the state launched a $500 million initiative to expand access in rural communities. Then American Rescue Plan money was earmarked for broadband. And last year brought Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $1 billion ConnectALL Initiative.

So it’s been at least 15 years. How are we still talking about the need for universal broadband?

Yes, projects are under way. And yes, some isolated houses may never get hookups. But some places lacking this technology aren’t exactly in the hinterlands. Some, like Albany County’s Hilltowns, are just a handful of miles from the Capitol.

Gov. Hochul’s ConnectALL program has some good initiatives to streamline buildouts and lower costs. Here’s an idea: Put the state’s economic development muscle behind that push by having the state’s Regional Economic Development Councils make broadband expansion their top priority – just for a year – to get as many projects launched as possible.

Modern life depends on internet access. Reversing rural counties’ decline will be a pipe dream without it.

When every minute counts

A September bus crash in Orange County – Long Island kids on their way to band camp – killed two passengers and injured nearly four dozen others. The cause of the wreck is still under investigation, but one potential boost to highway safety is already clear.

Local officials in the town of Wawayanda want a crash gate on that stretch of Interstate 84 – an access point where police, paramedics and other first responders can get onto the interstate without having to drive to the nearest exit ramp and then backtrack to an accident site.

There’s more than 10 miles of highway between the Goshen and Mountain Road exits, and first responders in the area say that an emergency entrance could help them cut 10 to 15 minutes off of their response time. For people waiting for help, that’s an eternity.

The most remarkable part of this: Local officials say they’ve been asking for installation of a crash gate in that stretch of I-84 for more than 20 years.

That’s astounding. The state Department of Transportation should act on this request immediately. And the long delay has us wondering whether other communities, too, have languishing requests for such access points on their own stretches of interstate – and whether the procedure for seeking their installation is more complicated than it needs to be.

This shouldn’t be complicated. Local first responders know their roads best. When they tell you what they need, listen to them.

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Dunkirk Evening Observer. October 10, 2023.

Editorial: New YORK STATE Seeking a better way with checks

A piece of Republican-driven legislation should receive serious consideration from Democrats when the next legislative session begins in January.

We refer to Assemblyman Joseph Angelino’s bill to exempt hunters and concealed-carry permit holders from additional background checks when they purchase ammunition. The additional check and associated fees are required in the Concealed Carry Improvement Act passed by the state Legislature in 2022 and which took effect in September. The law has been challenged at least twice in federal court, including once by Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, William Ortman of Stow and Assemblyman David DiPietro, R-Buffalo.

Angelino’s says those who already carry a pistol permit or who have earned a semi-automatic rifle endorsement have been through a significant background check and are required to recertify that permit– meaning they have been through the background check again. It’s hard to argue with Angelino’s logic.

The state has a legitimate public interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of those who would harm others. But making those who have repeatedly earned the state’s trust to carry a weapon undergo even more background checks isn’t making the public safer. It’s a hassle and a money grab from a group people who have done nothing wrong. If the background checks are that important, require them for people who aren’t already in the state’s system.

A court will decide whether the ammunition tax and background checks to purchase ammunition are legal — but in our view requiring the checks from those who have already been cleared by the state is bad policy either way.

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Jamestown Post-Journal. October 9, 2023.

Editorial: State Can’t Ignore Local Questions About Change To Electric School Buses

New York state’s road map for school districts is starting to resemble the Titanic’s road map across the Atlantic Ocean.

The recently released document shows a possible route to begin electrifying bus fleets, but much like the ill-fated ocean liner the state ignores the hazards lurking in the dark.

Dr. Kevin Whitaker, Jamestown Public Schools superintendent, makes a good point about simple availability. The costs for electric school buses is already higher than diesel-powered buses, but will costs go up when the limited supply of buses available on is being purchased by not only New York state’s 600 school districts as well as other states trying to make the move to electric school buses at the same time?

The road map assumes buses can be charged during down times and be available to make their afternoon runs. But that doesn’t take into account extra-curricular runs, late bus trips for districts that offer them and districts like Jamestown that have athletic trips that will require charges during the trip to get students back home.

Financially, state aid timetables for bus purchase aid is extended to 12 years to reflect the higher cost of the buses. But just like a seven-year loan on a new personal vehicle, does a 12-year repayment cycle make sense if the bus won’t last 12 years?

Other districts, like Bemus Point, appear to be paying for the new buses without state aid because of their district’s property values. Having to do so will undoubtedly affect educational offerings, because even affluent districts can’t increase taxes too much before taxpayers start voting budgets down.

As is the case with most of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act programs to convert to an electric power grid, there is a need to begin moving toward electrification of buses. But documents that act as a cheerleader for the state’s plans rather than deal with the serious issues the transition creates don’t do anyone any favors.

The iceberg warnings are being issued, but the state continues plowing full speed ahead. We know how this story ends.

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New York Post. October 5, 2023.

Editorial: NYC activist Ryan Carson’s murder was not random — progressives chose it

Make no mistake: The violent stabbing murder of Ryan Carson, caught on gruesome video, was not random.

It was the inevitable outcome of New York City and state’s progressive policy choices.

Like the refusal to pass reforms so the city can get the dangerously mentally ill off the streets and into treatment.

But also our still-broken bail law that’s seen countless thugs and dealers walk free to target other law-abiding citizens.

And our “Raise the Age” disaster, which upped the age of criminal responsibility while removing any serious consequences for young offenders and has driven teen violence and bloodshed skyward.

The progressive politicians responsible for driving those policies now have Carson’s blood on their hands — as they have the blood of so many others.

The tragedy occurred late at night in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; Carson’s killer appeared agitated and violent before the attack, kicking over scooters as he ran along the street.

He turned his rage on Carson, stabbing him in the chest.

Carson died in his girlfriend’s arms.

A suspect is in custody over the killing: Brian Dowling, 18.

True to an all-too-common narrative, he’s a young man with a history of violence: summonses for disorderly contact, plus a 911 call from a relative after he blew up and went on a smashing spree at his girlfriend’s apartment following a fight in August.

That same relative called him “mentally disturbed.”

Whatever his history, he clearly felt empowered to knock over scooters in fury and to murder a bystander — possible only in a city where public safety is on the wane.

One of Carson’s friends told The Post that the attacker is “the least important part of this conversation.”

Wrong.

The attacker is the crux of the matter. He is a single, specific human, who took an innocent life.

As much as progressives insist to the contrary, violent crime is not random. Nor is it the product of vague socioeconomic factors that deprive killers of their agency.

Another Carson pal, lefty Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, seemingly seized on the murder to make precisely that argument on Twitter:

She implied that when the left gets everything it wants, life will be great — even as she took zero responsibility for the fact that policies her comrades champion played a key role in the murder.

And if friends die along the way to the perfect society?

In fact, it’s a war on all public order — making it nearly impossible to hospitalize the dangerously deranged; decriminalizing quality-of-life offenses; making meaningful pre-trial detention impossible; chaining down public prosecutors with insane discovery requirements; letting violent kids escape consequences.

Different aspects of that devil’s brew take center stage in different outrages, but it all combines for rising disorder that deepens the damage on every front from teen gun crime to subway shovings and gang warfare.

Every “eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog” in the cauldron has been championed, fought for and achieved by the Empire State’s progressives.

The results are brutally plain: elevated levels of major crime; retail crime so ubiquitous it’s starting to drive out shops like Target; fear and paranoia on the subways.

And now Ryan Carson.

If progressives sleepwalk through the safety crisis after Carson’s death, as they seem eager to do, the nightmares will keep coming, faster and more frequently.

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Wall Street Journal. October 6, 2023.

Editorial: Legal Weed for (Almost) Everyone

Step right up and get your pot license, if you check the right boxes in New York.

New York takes pride in inclusivity these days, and the marijuana business is no exception. Convicts were the first group prioritized for licenses, but the state broadened the circle this week to include women, minorities, veterans and more. White males with clean criminal records should keep their day jobs, however.

The state Office of Cannabis Management launched the new rules Wednesday, which it says will cover about 1,000 applications for commercial licenses. The board will prioritize applicants who can check off at least one box on its list of “social and economic equity” categories, and it wants to give at least 50% of its slots to those entrepreneurs.

New York put felons at the front of the line for commercial licenses when it legalized recreational pot in 2021—in the name of redressing the harm done by previous, supposedly unjust drug laws. The rules specify that top applicants are those who “were convicted of a cannabis-related offense,” or who have a relative who was. They must also earn less than 80% of the median in their county and belong to “a community disproportionately impacted by the enforcement of cannabis prohibition,” which sounds like code for a high-crime area.

The update this week adds preferences for minority- and women-owned businesses. The rationale here should be clear to anyone who’s watched progressive politics since summer 2020, as well as government contracting since 1977. Yet other additions have stranger origins, like the preference for “service disabled” veterans. Did Empire State progressives catch the patriotism bug?

Not quite. The veteran preference is a concession from the cannabis board, meant to moot a lawsuit that four disabled vets brought against the state in August. A judge blocked the state from issuing any more licenses until the case is settled, saying the original guidelines were likely discriminatory. At least one plaintiff took this week’s update as a victory. “We are finally being prioritized,” Carmine Fiore told the New York Post

The last group getting a high in the weed business is “distressed farmers.” The purpose of this one is to invite marijuana growers who say a lack of licensed shops is letting their crop wither in the field. The growers have a point, as only about 23 legal dispensaries have opened statewide since the law took effect. But count on more than a few Brooklynites to stretch the common definition of “farmer.”

The smell of skunk weed is already so ubiquitous in New York these days that we wonder why there’s a need for any licenses. No doubt it’s for the tax dollars, and it’s nice to know the state is promoting the drug’s production in a spirit of progressive equity.

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