Editorial: This is how our governor rolls

If anyone was wondering why our mayor, who used to lead rallies across the street from Long Island College Hospital to prevent its closing, has barely said boo about it since February, one need only to look north to the governor’s mansion.

You could get a clue by paying attention to Andrew Cuomo’s actions during this past primary season, when he faced what became a real threat from challenger Zephyr Teachout.
He obviously took her quite seriously back in the spring, culminating in a pragmatic deal he struck with the Working Families Party to gain their endorsement.
In a rare example of Cuomo doing something he really did not want to do, he cut a deal, giving the WFP what they wanted, or at least a promise to do so, in order to keep Teachout off of their line on the ballot.

Then, when Teachout decided to continue her challenge, he hired high priced local lawyer and former legislator Marty Connor in an unsuccessful attempt to knock her off again. When it looked as if she might get a significant number of votes, due in part to a well publicized NY Times article about his questionable handling of the Moreland Commission investigation of corruption, he used strong arm politics to ensure endorsements from state politicians, including de Blasio.

WNYC reported receiving anonymous complaints from politicians citing threats to their district, including future funding, were they to endorse Teachout. This is the crux of the whole Bridgegate scandal in New Jersey, where it is alleged that the governor’s office there tied up traffic in Fort Lee after not receiving that particular mayor’s support.

The governor is the Chief of State. He can approve or veto laws passed by the State Legislature. He appoints Appellate judges. He chooses the heads of many branches of state government, including the health department and SUNY. It is said that the only two politicians with any real power in the state are the governor and the assembly speaker.

Mayor de Blasio needs state approval for many of the local initiatives that he is invested in. City tax policy, education funding, the MTA and the Port Authority are just a few of the institutions directly affecting the city that are controlled by the Governor.

In April, 2013, Kiimberly G. Price, writing in the Star-Revue said: “the problem of whether or not Cuomo will instruct the Department of Health to close down LICH or keep it viable for the south Brooklyn community lingers. Maybe he sits on it until the perfect scenario is fully ripe. Or maybe he turns the property over for real estate development. If he is vying for future presidency – or even keeping his seat as governor – will he risk going against the unions?” https://www.star-revue.com/the-governor-and-lich-by-kimberly-gail-price

A few months later we published an extensive article about Carl McCall, who was appointed Chairman of the State University of New York (SUNY). McCall, who has overseen the efforts to close LICH, is a former State Comptroller who ran for governor in 2002. His campaign was derailed by Andrew Cuomo, who waged a surprise primary race at a time when the Democrats needed to concentrate on the November election against Pataki. Cuomo, who saw that he could not overtake McCall’s polling advantage, withdrew ten days before the primary, after forcing the McCall campaign to use up much of the funding it really needed to take on the incumbent.

McCall remained bitter, without endorsing Cuomo for Attorney General in 2006. In 2009, as Cuomo was already planning his gubernatorial run, he indicted McCalls’ company, Convent Capital, in a broad ranging sting involving “pay-to-play” corruption regarding the State’s pension fund investments. This case eventually put Comptroller Alan Hevesi in jail. Charges against Convent Capital were quietly dropped, for what reason we could never find out and by the fall McCall was actively campaigning for Cuomo.

McCall was further rewarded by the new governor by serving on his transition team and being named SUNY Chairman, and he has dutifully done Cuomo’s bidding in closing our local hospital. As a younger man, McCall was an advocate for the poor, and led a campaign to save Harlem’s Sydenham Hospital, which the Koch administration eventually closed.
Paraphrasing a recently popular expression, “this is how Cuomo rolls.”

Who knows whether the recent reduction of the NY Times newsroom staff is a consequence of Cuomo’s wrath after their Moreland reporting and non-endorsement in the primary. Probably not, but stranger things have happened.

The latest LICH sham involves a lawsuit filed by the NY State Nurse’s Union (NYSNA). After a much ballyhood but ultimately failed attempt by the community to retain a full service hospital, SUNY had entered into a deal with their preferred recipient of the LICH property, the Fortis Group. This last minute lawsuit, filed by NYSNA against SUNY for not living up to their commitment to hire NYSNA nurses at the enfeebled health facility that would remain, threatened the entire deal when Judge Johnny Lee Baynes expanded the suit to include NYU/Langone, who was to operate an emergency room.

NYU decided that being a party to a lawsuit was not worth their participation, and they decided to withdraw their participation in this mess.

The interesting thing is that two entities that SUNY was forced to negotiate with due to a revised RFP process forced upon by previous lawsuits were quickly dropped by SUNY for much smaller reasons.

Yet, according to a report in Capital New York, frantic negotiations between SUNY, NYU, Fortis and “officals from the governor’s office” resulted in Judge Baynes, who for over a year had ruled often in favor of maintaining the hospital, suddenly threw the case out of court, causing NYU to suddenly return to the LICH campus, preventing the scuttling of the deal.

It is ok to assume that a tremendous amount of work (and legal fees paid by NY State, reportedly in excess of $2 million), went into saving this deal. What Cuomo’s representatives said to Baynes will remain unknown.

Were Fortis to be dropped from consideration, as were the Brooklyn Health Partners and the Peebles Group, the state would be legally bound to offer the campus to the next bidder, Prime Healthcare, who had promised to run a full service hospital – which is what our communities really want.

The way it appears to us, this is politics at its very worst. Using raw power to get one’s way is the mark of a tyrant, not what some who started this country ever wanted. It reminds us of Boss Tweed, Tammany Hall, Dick Cheney, Chris Christie and Rick Perry.

It is hard for us to believe that despite the damning insinuations of the NY Time’s reporting of the Moreland Commission, and the outcome of the LICH debacle, all out there in the public press, these things can still happen – especially in what our Mayor calls the home of a new progressivism.

But of course, this is how our governor, who still maintains presidential ambitions, rolls.