Leonard Litwin "Thanks" Andrew Cuomo For His Support

From the Observer:

The Alliance for Tenant Power, a left-leaning pro-tenant group, is circulating a meme and quote parodying Mr. Cuomo’s ties to scandal-scarred Glenwood Management. The meme portrays Glenwood’s 100-year-old founder, Leonard Litwin, raising a martini glass and smiling like Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2013 film The Great Gatsby.

Mr. Litwin is “thanking” Mr. Cuomo for calling for the straight renewal of a controversial real estate tax break known as 421a. Many progressives, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, want 421a reformed or scrapped altogether.

“The world’s upper class can sigh in relief. A straight extender on 421-a is exactly what we paid for. We know that billionaires want a 50’ lap pool and their tax break as well. Thanks to the Governor we will deliver nothing less,” reads the parody quote from Mr. Litwin. Alliance for Tenant Power noted the quote was delivered “from the stone whirlpool spa in his main penthouse.”

The meme arrived in the form of a press release from a fake gmail account for Charles Dorego, CharlesDoregoNY@gmail.com. Mr. Dorego is Glenwood’s senior vice president.

Dorego is "cooperating witness-1" in the corruption case against former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son Adam.

This is a parody, but like all good jokes, it's got truth at the center of it.

Cuomo's making as if the deadline for getting 421-a reforms snuck up on him, but the truth is, he and the legislature knew this was coming and chose not to do anything about it.

So now Sheriff Andy says a straight extender of the tax giveaway is the best way to go - and of course that benefits Leonard Litwin and all of Cuomo's real estate donors and buddies.

You bet Litwin and Company will be happy if they get a straight extender to the 421-a program with no changes - and they'll "thank" Governor Cuomo and the legislators who give them that straight extender.

Let's List The Quid Pro Cuomo Deals (UPDATED - 12:05 PM)

Let's see, how many examples of Quid Pro Cuomo deals do we have in the public record?

The IBTimes reported Cuomo took $132,000 in campaign donations from JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup and gave them $3 billion in bond business in return.

The IBTimes reported Cuomo received at least $700,000 in compensation from News Corporation for his memoir, All Things Possible, "after Cuomo’s administration backed a series of state initiatives that benefited the media giant."

All Things Possible has sold slightly more than 3,000 copies.

Hacked Sony emails showed "Cuomo’s campaign pressing Sony to deliver $50,000 worth of donations before a July 15, 2014 campaign filing deadline as he ramped up his re-election campaign last summer."

Film industry executives have donated $900,000 to Cuomo since 2011 while the film industry receives $421 million a year in tax breaks from New York State.

Cuomo's quid pro quo relationship with the real estate industry was revealed last summer in the NY Times' Moreland Commission expose:

The Real Estate Board of New York’s power and influence over state government is, as a well-known Democratic operative put it, “about as new as hieroglyphics.” Albany politicians often transition into lucrative real estate careers, and Governor Andrew Cuomo is a tuxedo-clad fixture at REBNY’s annual gala. But an investigative story in the New York Times yesterday laid out the extent of the industry’s influence with Cuomo in the most explicit manner yet. The industry’s initial response to the story, however, suggests that it is unlikely to impact how REBNY does business.

The Times’ three-month investigation chronicles the tempestuous saga of the short-lived Moreland Commission, which was formed by Cuomo last July to crack down on public corruption. It details how Cuomo sought to block a subpoena that the commission intended to send to REBNY in order to investigate, among other things, the organization’s political donations, its materials related to the controversial 421-a abatement used by New York developers including Extell Development and Silverstein Properties, and its communications with public officials.

In the newspaper’s story, REBNY president Steven Spinola seems to make a direct connection between the financial support and the industry-favorable policy to which it gives rise.

In a memo to REBNY members seen by the newspaper, Spinola said that based on private meetings with Cuomo, the Senate majority leader [Dean Skelos or Jeffrey Klein] and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, he had come to a clear conclusion: REBNY’s “past efforts to maintain a personal and supportive relationship was critical in shaping the outcome” of legislation. “Our future ability to adopt favorable legislation, stop terrible legislation or modify legislation to limit the pain to our industry is directly tied to our continued positive relationship,” Spinola continued in the memo.

Cuomo's largest donor, Glenwood Management, is at the center of both the Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos corruption cases.

Cuomo received $1.5 million from Glenwood during the last campaign cycle.

Cuomo said he would continue to take money from Glenwood because they have done nothing wrong and besides, he's never met with anybody from Glenwood to discuss anything related to real estate.

Except that he has - at least three times.

Here's Gothamist:

It's been two days since Governor Cuomo told reporters that he has "never" talked about rent regulations with real estate company Glenwood Management—one of the state's largest political donors, best known these days for allegedly passing favors under the table to both Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Today, however, Capital reports that Cuomo appears to be suffering from selective memory loss: According to the Governor's public schedule, he actually met with Glenwood three times back in 2011 to discuss, you guessed it, "rent regulations."

In one of those meetings, the only people in the room were the governor, Glenwood President Leonard Litwin, and Senior VP Charles Dorego, the guy who just signed a non-prosecution agreement with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and consequently has Albany lawmakers shaking in their loafers.

New York City's rent regulation law is set to expire June 15th, along with 421-a, a '70s-era tax subsidy that favors large developers like Glenwood. For the past few months, housing advocates have been pushing for stronger rent regulation laws, and the abolishment of 421-a. Cuomo has spoken out in favor of renewing both.

It's worth noting that Cuomo received a combined $1.5 million in donations from Glenwood and Litwin, in his last election cycle. Just this week, an indictment against Skelos accused the Senate majority leader of supporting developer-friendly rent control legislation, in exchange for Glenwood paying his son, Adam, for doing very little.

And in January, Silver was accused of sending Glenwood business to law firm Goldberg & Iryami, P.C. in exchange for referral fees. Of Albany's notorious three men in a room, Cuomo is the last one standing.

As if all this doesn't look bad enough, Capital notes that Cuomo's Glenwood meetings took place in the leadup to June 2011, the last time rent control laws and 421-a were up for renewal. 

David Sirota from IBTimes with a little more on Cuomo and Glenwood:

Neither Cuomo's office nor Glenwood Management responded to International Business Times' request for comment about the governor's relationship with Litwin. But documents reviewed by IBTimes illustrate Cuomo’s role in the developer's state business.

The Cuomo-run New York State Housing Finance Agency, for instance, approved a $260 million state-supported low-interest loan in 2014 to finance Glenwood’s new luxury apartment building in midtown Manhattan. At the time the loan to Glenwood was approved, the NYHFA was headed by Cuomo appointee Bill Mulrow, an executive and registered lobbyist at Blackstone, a private equity and real estate firm. Mulrow was just appointed to be the governor’s chief of staff. According to NYHFA documents, Glenwood also has had other business with the agency.

And then there was the "ethics" deal Cuomo got out of former Assembly Speaker Silver and soon-to-be-former Senate Majority Leader Skelos in return for shutting down the Moreland Commission that was investigating Albany corruption and had uncovered some dirt on both Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos.

That ethics deal was so lukewarm that the NY Times reported not much had really changed afterward. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that prosecutors were investigating "whether New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo or his staff directed an anticorruption commission to not refer cases to district attorneys for prosecution, according to people familiar with the matter."

In addition, the WSJ reported that prosecutors

are investigating whether the Cuomo administration interfered in the commission's work, and why the commission was disbanded.

Finally, prosecutors have indicated they want to know whether the governor's office pressured several commissioners to issue statements in recent weeks disputing the notion the administration had interfered in its investigations, these people said.

This is the stuff that's in the public record.

I'm sure there's a lot more that we don't know about, but given the Cuomo's administration's official policy to delete emails after 90 days, a lot of that may never be revealed.

Unless US Attorney Preet Bharara has wiretaps on people in Albany.

Oh, wait - he does.

And maybe if US Attorney Preet Bharara has some bad players cooperating with the feds against Albany politicians.

Oh, wait - he does.

I dunno if the feds are actually going after Cuomo for all this corruption, but there sure is a lot of smoke around Cuomo and his merry minions.

Seems to me if the feds look at Cuomo as closely as they looked at Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos, they'll find plenty to take him for an early morning police car ride downtown.

NY State Fast Tracks $26 million Tax Break For Sony, Cuomo Gets $300,000 From Sony Execs

This sure sounds like a Quid Pro Cuomo:

Just weeks before a California fund-raiser with Sony executives that netted Governor Andrew Cuomo's re-election campaign $300,000, a Sony executive requested the fast-tracking of $26 million in film credits from New York State.

Keith Weaver, executive vice president for worldwide government affairs at Sony Pictures Entertainment, wrote to an Empire State Development employee about some "pending production tax credits."

"I need your help, as we need to resolve a number of pending production tax credits by 1/15/14 in order to realize the benefit this year.  Our tax and production finance folks were steadfastly working the process, but now we have approximately $26M in tax credits outstanding…  We most assuredly can’t leave $26M hanging out there for another full year (i.e., next tax filing period)," he wrote on Dec. 20, 2013, according to emails obtained by hackers and published in searchable form Thursday by Wikileaks.

Weaver asked if the E.S.D. employee, Rhonda Glickman, could "help move this forward."

And boy did Glickman ever move it forward - she got back to Weaver that day and Sony got indication it would get the $26 million in tax breaks three days later:

Three days later, Weaver wrote in an internal email that he believed the credit had been expedited.

"I just wanted to send you a quick note about this, as it looks like Gov’t Affairs will be effective in expediting $26M in outstanding film credit claims in time for our 1/15/14 tax filing date… I will know definitively by 1/6, but I just wrapped up a call were some commitments were made. While this a timing issue, our effectiveness will mean realizing a significant cash benefit in 2014 versus the next likely opportunity in 2017," he wrote, in the email released by Wikileaks. "Happy holidays!"

A few weeks after that, Governor Cuomo's reelection campaign took in $300,000 from a California fundraiser.

Preet, where are you?

Cuomo Gives Rupert Murdoch's FOX $52 Million In Film And TV Tax Breaks Through Empire State Development

Gannett's Joseph Spector obtained the record of tax breaks handed out by New York State between 2011 and April 2013 for film and TV production via Empire State Development.

A whopping $472 million dollars has been handed to film and TV companies to make productions in New York, with HBO topping the list with more than $91 million in subsidies, NBC coming in second with more than $83 million in subsidies and Rupert Murdoch's FOX receiving more than $52 million in subsidies.

Spector reports that the tax breaks can add up to 30% of total production costs and come at a price:

Critics said the money for the shows should be used instead to repair the state's infrastructure and fund services.

"Our roads and bridges are crumbling, and yet we're subsidizing Hollywood millionaires to do television productions. It does not make any sense," said Assemblyman Bill Nojay, R-Pittsford.

Conklin Supervisor Jim Finch said his Southern Tier town received $3 million when 500 people were displaced and 200 homes were destroyed in tropical storms Irene and Lee in 2012.

"That's baloney," Finch said when told of the money for Orange is the New Black. "They already make all the millions on the movies, and we get nothing back from the profits."

Before 2013, the state was able to keep the tax subsidy information private, but that changed with a new law passed in 2013.


Governor Cuomo has done quite well with donations from Hollywood movie moguls and the like, as reported by Bloomberg News back in September 2014:

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who added $2.1 billion to an incentive program for the movie and television industry, has collected almost $900,000 in campaign contributions from Hollywood since taking office in 2011.

Cuomo, who lured NBC’s “The Tonight Show” back to New York City from Los Angeles, collected $121,600 from Comcast Corp. and its NBCUniversal unit, campaign-finance records show. Paramount Pictures Corp. Chairman Brad Grey gave $35,000, while Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Chief Executive Officer Michael Lynton and nine other executives donated a combined $45,200. Paramount’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Sony’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” are among productions that took advantage of New York’s tax-credit program, the most generous in the U.S.

“What makes this industry more special than any industry that would invest here if you paid them to do it?” said E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for New York State Policy in Albany, which opposes government subsidies. “The difference is, well, it’s high-profile and it’s really glamorous. And oh, incidentally, it’s run by people who are really savvy, generous political givers too.”

Cuomo, a 56-year-old Democrat, who ran for governor vowing to clean up Albany’s pay-to-play culture of corruption by limiting contributions, has instead reaped the benefits of a system that allows individuals to give as much as $150,000 per year -- and even more through limited-liability corporations. Federal prosecutors are also probing the Cuomo administration’s effort to stymie investigations by an anti-corruption committee he created and then disbanded before its term was finished. 

In addition, Cuomo got a book deal out of the Rupert Murdoch-owned HarperCollins that is worth somewhere between $700,000 and $880,000 dollars, with $188,000 already paid to Cuomo.

Cuomo refuses to reveal the book contract and won't say what the final total of compensation will be.

The book has sold fewer than 3,000 copies.

David Sirota at IBTimes reported that Murdoch's News Corp received millions in tax breaks out of the Cuomo administration after lobbying both before and after the book contract.

Add the film and TV production subsidies that Murdoch-owned FOX received to the tax breaks that Murdoch-owned News Corp received and there's enough money going from the Cuomo administration to Rupert Murdoch and then going from Rupert Murdoch back to Andrew Cuomo himself to make someone go "Hmmm...."

The Hollywood/Cuomo connections needs more scrutiny, that's for sure.

Of Course The News Corp Book Deal With Cuomo Was A Bribe

Sometimes it's fun to go back and look at something you wrote in the past and see if you were right.

Back in 2014, I wrote this over the news that Andrew Cuomo would be paid $700,000 for a book he was supposed to write for HarperCollins, the Rupert Murdoch/News Corporation-owned publisher:

How many copies of this book do you think Harper Collins sells?

Do they think there's a readership out there for Andrew Cuomo's memoir?

Or maybe they think fans of Chris Cuomo will buy it?

Andrew Cuomo has the reputation for being one of the biggest asses in politics.

I can't imagine the book sells more than a few thousand copies at best.

So why did Murdoch give Cuomo at least $700,000 in compensation for this memoir?

Notice when the contract with Harper Collins was signed - right after his first year in office.

That was when Cuomo and Harper Collins Rupert Murdoch were still best buds (as demonstrated by how Murdoch flack Fred Dicker treated Cuomo in the NY Post.)

Even then, Murdoch had to know that few copies of this book would be sold.

This was a bribe from Murdoch to Cuomo in the form of a book contract.

I can't wait for the book to come out and see how many copies get sold.

I suspect this Cuomo memoir will be up there as a loss-leader, along with Murdoch's other great loss leader, the NY Post.

Then, when it was revealed that HarperCollins was going to run 200,000 copies foe the first printing, I wrote this:

A 200,000-copy first run?

Just who is Harper Collins (owned by Rupert Murdoch, btw) planning to sell this book to?

Let's assume Cuomo's family, friends and loved ones buy some copies.

Let's assume too that suck-ups who work for him buy some.

Let's assume Billy Joel takes $30 out of his drinking fund and buys a copy too.

And let's assume Cuomo's consort, Sandra Lee, forces people in her coterie to plunk down the money for the book to try and drive some numbers.

How many copies sold is that?

Now I've been watching the Hillary Clinton book sales closely, because she got a huge printing for her book too - much bigger than Sheriff Andy got actually, and her sales have not been too good.

Here's Politico on June 17:

Officials with Hillary Clinton’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, insist her book has fared well amid reports of weak sales, and that it’s succeeded despite a dramatically altered retail landscape since her last memoir.

The book sold roughly 100,000 copies from the Tuesday when it was released through the following Saturday, according to a Simon & Schuster source. The source added that the book, titled “Hard Choices,” is debuting at No. 1 on the Indie Bestseller List, which reflects sales at independent bookstores.

The 100,000 figure for “Hard Choices” includes pre-orders and e-books, the publishing sources said. Those figures get rolled into the first-day sales.

The New York Times best-seller list, which will be released Wednesday, is another metric people are watching to see how the memoir is faring.

The first 1 million copies printed of the book were pre-ordered by bookstores, although that figure does not reflect how many were bought by customers.

...

 People close to Clintonland also said the market for books has changed greatly since “Living History,” noting the closure of several hundred Borders bookstores and dozens of Barnes & Noble outlets.

Not a great start for a book that got a $14 million advance.

And it's gotten worse since:

There’s hand-wringing and finger-pointing at Simon & Schuster over the soft performance of Hillary Clinton’s “Hard Choices,” for which she got a $14 million advance, sources said — and which was replaced at No. 1 on the best-seller list this week by an “exposé” about Hillary and Bill Clinton.

The former secretary of state’s tome sold 161,000 copies in its first three weeks, according to Nielsen BookScan — but 85,000 of those were sold in the first week. That number has dropped sharply to 48,000 and 28,000 in subsequent weeks, with the most recent numbers due out Wednesday.

Simon & Schuster shipped an optimistic 1 million copies to stores. Hillary reportedly got $8 million for her last book for the publisher, “Living History,” which sold 438,000 copies in its first week and more than 1.15 million overall.

Adding insult to injury, the new book was pushed from the No. 1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list this week by Edward Klein’s story of the Clintons’ pained relationship with Barack and Michelle Obama, “Blood Feud.” A source close to Hillary has blasted the book, along with its author, as “dastardly” and a combination of “pathological lying, hate and just flat-out creepiness.”
“There’s lots of finger-pointing going on at Simon & Schuster” over the very expensive Clinton deal, a source told Page Six.

Another insider said sales of 161,000 for “Hard Choices” would be “OK” for a normal book without such a big advance and expectations. “It’s an OK number — it’s very solid — a good amount to sell in three weeks,” the source said. “And the book is $35, significantly higher than most.” Also, BookScan only measures 85 percent of the print market, and not e-books.

A rep for Simon & Schuster did not respond to a request for comment. Reports have said the early numbers for “Hard Choices” reflect that it will not sell enough to cover Clinton’s advance, or to sell the million copies shipped, which are sent on consignment, with unsold copies ultimately going back to the publisher.

Now that's the Murdoch-owned NY Post ragging on Simon & Schuster for the absurd $14 million advance they handed Clinton for a book that not too many people planned on buying.

But the Murdoch-owned Harper Collins is likely going to have a mini-disaster on its own hands with the Cuomo book, because it's hard to see how if Hillary Clinton could only sell 161,000 copies of "Hard Choices," Andrew Cuomo is going to sell 200,000 first-run copies of “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life.”

Now I dunno, maybe all the Chris Cuomo groupies out there go out and buy the book and make me eat my words, but I just have a difficult time seeing the $700,000 advance and the 200,000-copy first run printing from Murdoch's Harper Collins as anything other than payback for Cuomo's corporate-friendly policies as governor, in particular Cuomo's pro-charter policies which Murdoch loves.

Murdoch has long been known to use his media outlets to reward friends and punish enemies - he keeps the NY Post open and operating despite its losing hundreds of millions of dollars for just that purpose.

I can't see any business reason why Harper Collins would pay Cuomo $700,000 in advance for his book and print 200,000 copies in the first run other than paying him back for stuff Sheriff Andy did that Rupert liked.

So far, Cuomo has sold less than 3,000 books of the 200,000 copy first printing.

He's disclosed $188,000 in payments from HarperCollins on his finance forms, though we do not now whether he's going to get additional payments for the book despite the poor sales because he refuses to release the contract.

All of this matters because Cuomo is in the middle of taking on the legislature over ethics reform, including increased disclosure of lawmakers' outside incomes, while he refuses to be transparent on his own.

Cuomo says he doesn't have to disclose anything because he's not subject to the same kind of corruptive influences that legislators are - except that David Sirota at IBTimes reported on Wednesday that the Cuomo administration was lobbied on multiple issues by News Corporation both before and after Cuomo signed his $700,000 book contract with the News Corp-owned HarperCollins.

The book deal Cuomo got from News Corporation starts looking an awful lot like a quid pro quo arrangement and/or bribe from News Corporation to Cuomo when you see that the corporation got millions in tax breaks and other goodies out of Cuomo.

How is that different than former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, now under indictment for corruption, taking bribes and kickbacks?

NT2 says it's not in their latest post called "Monetizing The Office":

“Shelly was paid 700k and Andrew was paid 700k. What did they do for that money?”

“Silver facilitated referrals to a law firm and Cuomo wrote a book.”

“Both of them monetized their office.”

“Nah. That can’t be.”

“Really? Would Cuomo have got a book deal without being Governor? Of course not.

Nobody would read a book about him if he wasn’t Governor.”

“Well, nobody seems interested in the book anyway,” we quipped.

“Cuomo personally received $700,000 or more for doing what? He didn’t write that book. You know that. He’s politically smart, but he’s not a reader or a writer. His staff wrote the book for him and that’s another problem.”

“But lots of governors do the same thing.”

“And lots of legislators are rainmakers. You can make the case that Cuomo’s monetizing of the Governor’s office was more egregious than Silver’s because he used staff to do it and it produced less value.”

“Produced less value?”

“Silver received 700k, right? That was for generating referrals for the law firm. And what was the value of the referrals? If he got one mesothelioma case, it might have been worth 100k to the law firm. If he got two it was worth 200k. We don’t know how many referrals he generated.  Maybe it was half a dozen. Maybe it was a hundred. But you know there was some value generated. Now think about Cuomo. He and his government staff produced a book that was worth what?  Well, the book tanked. That means that Cuomo was paid $700,000 for nothing of value.”

“Isn’t this just a bad decision by the publisher? They thought his book would sell. They took the risk on it and they were wrong. That’s the nature of their business.”

“That’s true. But how did the book deal come together. Did he write it and show it to them. No. He got a huge advance and that advance looks like a sweetheart deal. He got a huge up front payment. He’s getting a cut rate on purchases of the book that he can then provide to his supporters for promotional purposes. He also benefits from the promotion of the book by the publisher. He’s making out like a bandit. He monetized his office, didn’t he?”

“When you say it like that, it’s hard to disagree.”

“And we haven’t even mentioned the other side of it. What benefits accrued to the publisher? How did News Corp. benefit? Nobody has looked at that. Nobody has gone back 10 years like Preet did with Silver. What did Cuomo do in office as AG or as Governor that benefitted News Corp.  Silver directed a grant to a hospital for cancer research in 2005 and they called it a bribe in 2015. What did Cuomo do for News Corp during the last 10 years? I’ll bet you could find something, no?”

“This can’t be.”

“This is the world we live in. If Preet can make a case against Silver, he can make a case against Cuomo.”

I'm still skeptical that US Attorney Preet Bharara is going to do to Cuomo what he did to Silver, but it sure seems if Bharara decides to dig into Cuomo's business dealings with News Corporation, he'll find plenty of interesting items to scrutinize.

This News Corp/book deal stuff is in addition to the Moreland tampering that Preet is allegedly looking into already, as well as the subpoenas to donors that Cuomo's secretary, Larry Schwartz, had "pulled back" by the Moreland Commission even as they subpoenaed legislative targets.

Cuomo's pushing ethics reform this budget, claiming he'll shut the government down if the legislature doesn't give him what he wants on ethics reform (i.e., ethics reforms that pertain only to the legislature, not to statewide officials like the governor.)

Here's hoping the feds shut Cuomo himself down with a 7 AM visit and a car ride to central booking over all the criminality he's engaged in.

If they could get Silver on this stuff, you can bet they can get Cuomo too.

But will they?

Cuomo Says He'll Go After Tax Cheats - He Should Start With Himself

From the Poughkeepsie Journal News:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office on Thursday announced it will seek legislation to let the state recoup millions in school tax breaks paid to high-income New Yorkers who did not qualify to receive them.

The announcement came five days after an investigation by The Journal News found an estimated $28 million in school property-tax subsidies since 2011 were granted to households ineligible to receive them because they earned more than $500,000 a year. And it came 10 weeks after the administration said it was the responsibility of local assessors to recover the state's ill-spent STAR tax dollars.

Assessors had roundly panned that plan.

"We'll be pursuing legislation to empower tax and finance officials to directly recover STAR benefits previously granted to ineligible property owners and to increase penalties for STAR fraud," said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi.

Three candidates seeking to oust Cuomo — Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout and Green Party hopeful Howie Hawkins — last week had called on Cuomo to act.

"It's unfortunate that it took a newspaper expose to convince the governor to take action," said Astorino campaign spokesman Bill O'Reilly. "By doing nothing he was driving property taxes even higher for those least able to afford them. We are hopeful that the governor will have a real change of heart now and allow the tax assessor into his own home to determine how much he, himself, has been underpaying the Town of New Castle for the past four years."

O'Reilly was referring to another Journal News investigation in May, which found that extensive renovations had been done at Cuomo's $1.2 million home in 2008 and 2009 without building permits or an increase in its taxable value. In June, the New Castle assessor hiked the assessment by 29 percent but based that on an inspection of the outside of the house. Cuomo and his partner, Food Network star Sandra Lee, would not let the assessor inside.

Two things to say here.

First, is it a surprise that the Cuomo administration had to be shamed by public expose in a newspaper to collect taxes owed by people making more than $500,000?

Second, how hypocritical that Cuomo is going to go after these tax deadbeats while sparing himself and his consort, Sandra Lee, from paying the taxes they may rightfully owe on their Westchester home.

Alas, since Cuomo refuses to allow the tax assessors into his home to see what upgrades he and Sandra Lee made to it, we'll never know whether he owes those taxes or not.

Andrew Cuomo's Budget Causes SUNY Tuition Increases

From Newsday:

Students at Suffolk County Community College will face a tuition increase of $250 this fall, bringing the annual charges to $4,390 at the two-year school.

The tuition hike is part of the $208.4 million 2014-15 operating budget that college trustees sent to county officials Friday.

The increase comes even though the Bellone administration agreed after two days of talks with college officials to a 2 percent increase in the county share of college costs -- or $780,000. College trustees, in the budget vote Thursday night, also included a one-shot use of $4.3 million from the college's $24.9 million reserve fund to keep tuition from rising further.

"Two hundred and fifty dollars may not sound like much unless you don't have it," said trustee Jim Morgo, head of the trustee budget committee, noting the college's mission is to provide affordable education where many students come from "very challenging economic backgrounds."

...

College officials blamed the increased tuition on the state, which increased operating aid for each full-time student by only $75. College presidents had sought $250 and the State Senate had proposed $125. The Assembly, which had sought a $50 increase, compromised with the Senate on $75, to make the per student aid $2,497. In all, the state share is 25.9 percent of college costs.

County aid has remained flat over the past six years with just a 1% increase in aid to SCCC in that time frame, another contributing factor to the cost of SCCC tuition going up next year.

Tax breaks for rich people, tuition hikes for community college students - that should be an Andrew Cuomo campaign ad.

The Assembly and Senate are to blame too.

But this is Cuomo's budget, the one he's bragging about every chance he gets, so the buck and the responsibility for it lie with him.

Cuomo Takes Home $600,000 In Cash Bribes From Hollywood

From the Hollywood Reporter:

A high-wattage gathering of Hollywood moguls feted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Brentwood on Thursday night, raising nearly $600,000 for his reelection campaign and quietly discussing their hope that Cuomo will seek presidency, if Hillary Clinton decides not to run.

Behind Hillary, he's the second pick," said one attendee at the evening gathering, held at the Spanish-style manse of Fox Film chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos and his wife Ann.

Cuomo addressed the crowd -- which included Jeffrey Katzenberg, MPAA chief Chris Dodd and NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt -- from a podium set up in Gianopulos' backyard. About 150 people -- who paid between $5,000 and $25,000 to attend the event -- stood under heaters as Cuomo boasted about his state's tax credit program for movie and TV production, saying he hopes to lure more filming to New York. He also surprised some members of the audience by "trash talking" Eliot Spitzer, saying his predecessor created a mess at the statehouse.

His straight talk delighted the crowd. "It was like we were listening to Mario," said one insider. "He was great," said Katzenberg, whose political consultant, Andy Spahn, helped organize the event.

Co-hosts include a selection of entertainment industry A-listers. Among them: Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, Paramount’s Brad Grey, Sony CEO, Michael Lynton, Disney chairman Alan Horn, CBS CEO Les Moonves, NBC Universal’s Jeff Shell and Ron Meyer, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara and Dodd.

Cuomo hands out the Hollywood tax credit to studios wherein NY State essentially pays them to film in New York and they pay him back by feting him in Hollywood, handing him $600,000 in cash and talking him up for president in 2016.

How is this not quid pro quo?

Cuomo Pays Hollywood To Film In New York

Next time you hear Sheriff Andy lecture about fiscal discipline, remember this:

ALBANY—New York's tax rebates for movie and TV studios are so generous that the state is actually paying them to film here, according to an analysis prepared for—but not published by—one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's tax commissions.

The 137-page addendum to the commission's formal report asserts the Film and Television Tax Credit—which Cuomo has expanded to $420 million a year—now accounts for nearly a quarter of all business tax subsidies the state offers, and should be rolled back.

The analysis was funded by Blackstone founder Peter G. Peterson and commission co-chair Peter Solomon, an investment banker and former deputy to New York City mayor Ed Koch.

Both conservatives and liberals have criticized business tax credits for unfairly picking winners and losers with scarce taxpayer dollars. But the Solomon panel's decision to commission a critical review of their efficacy and recommend the Cuomo administration move in the opposite direction was not in the original script.

Cuomo named the commission late in 2012, a year after he rankled business leaders by renewing most of an expiring income tax surcharge on the wealthy—something the freshman Democrat had pledged not to do. It worked through this year looking for revenue-neutral changes to the state tax code, only to have the governor abruptly convene a second panel to examine ways to cut taxes in October. H. Carl McCall, who chairs the SUNY board of trustees, co-chairs both commissions, which have several members in common. While the governor insisted the commissions would work in parallel, some liberal groups charged he was sidelining Solomon as he scrutinized the tax credits.

“The film production credit, now generally 30 percent of qualifying costs, is large relative to industry profits and tax liability,” the addendum says. “Because the credit exceeds tax liability many times over and is refundable, in effect it is a program of cash payments by the state to credit recipients.”
“It is not clear from our analysis that there is sufficient justification for the size of the film credits. The state should consider scaling back the credits and monitoring the film industry closely to determine the impact on its activities of such a cutback,” the addendum concludes, suggesting a reduction of $50 million per year.

Paying an industry to do business here can be effective, the addendum acknowledges. But why target Hollywood?

The addendum says a similarly tailored credit for manufacturing would offer factories 40 times what they would otherwise owe in state taxes. While film has blossomed in New York—especially since the opening of Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard—the addendum notes that “the industry accounts for less than one percent of the state’s employment” and “many of the film industry jobs are temporary.”

The addendum also questions whether movies or projects, including Steiner Studios, wouldn't have come anyway.

Given how Cuomo handed out million in tax breaks to the real estate industry in return for campaign donations and took a couple of million from the gambling industry in return for legalizing casinos and expanding gambling across the state, it behooves some independent entity not connected to Cuomo to look and see just what Sheriff Andy is getting in return for his Hollywood largesse.

Andrew Cuomo And His PAC Took $576,000 In Campaign Contributions From Real Estate Investors In Return For Tax Breaks

On top of the news from last week that Andrew Cuomo took $400,000 in campaign donations from a real estate develop and his affiliates in return for giving $35 million in tax breaks comes this new report from the Daily News:

ALBANY — The deep-pocketed real estate investors who own a landmark former stock exchange building in lower Manhattan lavished Gov. Cuomo with $76,000 in campaign donations just weeks before Cuomo approved a lucrative tax break for their property.

Three partners at Fisher Brothers, which owns the historic New York Curb Exchange at 86 Trinity Place, each cut $25,000 checks to Cuomo on Dec. 27. One exec kicked in an additional $1,000 on Jan. 11, and Cuomo okayed the tax breaks Jan. 30. Fisher plans a high-rise residential tower at the site.

The contributions from the Fisher Brothers execs are just the latest to emerge in the controversy over five Manhattan properties that were singled out for tax breaks in a January bill. The Daily News reported last week that one of the other beneficiaries, Extell Development Co., gave $100,000 to Cuomo days before he signed the bill.

The breaks mean $35 million in tax relief over 10 years for Extell’s planned One57 luxury apartment tower on W. 57th St.

Extell President Gary Barnett also donated $100,000 three weeks after the bill was signed to a state Democratic Party account that Cuomo was using to pay for ads pushing his agenda.

...

In addition to the December and January contributions from Fisher execs, the company gave $500,000 in 2011 to the Committee to Save New York, a pro-business group created to push the governor’s agenda. Two of the execs had previously made only small contributions to Cuomo.

Cuomo aides say the bill was supported by the city and Legislature, but lawmakers who drew it up insist they don’t know who inserted the tax breaks for the five developers into the bill.

Add the $400,000 Cuomo took from Extell to the $576,000 he and his Committee To Save New York PAC (just a front group for Cuomo) took from the Fisher Brothers and you have the governor or the governor's PAC taking nearly a $976,000 in campaign contributions in return for giving out at least $35 million in tax breaks.

The more you dig into Andrew Cuomo, the more corruption you will find.

He is as dirty as anybody else in Albany.

Why Is The Daily News Going Light On Sheriff Andy Cuomo?

Following the news that Governor Andrew Cuomo received $400,000 in campaign donations direct into his account or to a Democratic Party account that his campaign could tap for ad money from a real estate developer and his affiliates in return for $35 million in tax breaks, the Daily News is kinda sorta calling for an investigation into Cuomo:

The commission investigating Albany’s outrageous tax giveaway to five luxury condo towers in Manhattan must expand its inquiry to include large campaign donations to Gov. Cuomo.

As the Daily News’ Kenneth Lovett has reported, the builder of one tower, Extell Development, and its president, Gary Barnett, gave the governor’s campaign $300,000 over the past two years — including $100,000 days before Cuomo signed the tax breaks into law as part of a larger housing bill. A few weeks later, Barnett sent an additional $100,000 to the state Democratic Party, which has been sponsoring TV ads touting Cuomo’s record.

This is not to suggest a quid pro quo between Barnett’s cash and Cuomo’s signature. But it is to state that a developer who stood to gain a $35 million tax discount delivered big checks while exploiting loopholes in state campaign finance law.

The commission Cuomo has tasked with exploring the nexus between money and power in Albany would fatally damage its credibility were it not to examine these contributions — along with money that went to the Legislature.

The law in question was first drafted last year. What began as an extension of tax protections for condo and coop owners became stuffed with other provisions in last-minute wheeling and dealing.

Among them was difficult-to-decipher legalese singling out five Manhattan projects for special access to the so-called 421a program. Who added that language has not been explained.

Cuomo initially refused to go along with the package because it was a rushed hodgepodge. The Legislature passed it in the next session, once again including the tax breaks. Cuomo signed the overall package, which had many worthy provisions. His office appears to have been among the many that missed the hidden tax breaks.

Even so, having taken up the subject, his commission has to look at all contributions made by Extell and other developers as this bill gestated — with the single most important question being: Who put those tax breaks in there?

The DN editors give Cuomo too much credit here.

There's no quid pro quo between the $400,000 in campaign donations (that we know of so far - there may have been more given through other avenues) and the $35 million in tax breaks?

Cuomo's office seems to have missed the hidden tax breaks that directly benefited the company that gave him the $400,000?

Please.

Can you imagine what the News would be saying were this Shelly Silver who took $400,000 from a real estate developer who got $35 million in tax breaks from the state?

Yet somehow the DN editors are treading lightly with Cuomo, as if these tax breaks just happened to float down from the sky into the legislation and how could Governor Cuomo's staff be taxed to actually read that legislation before Sheriff Andy got his pen out to sign it into law?

Switch the names "Cuomo" for "Silver" and the DN editors would be calling for indictments.

But they're treating Sheriff Andy with kid gloves here.

You have to wonder if the DN, owned by real estate magnate Mort Zuckerman, hasn't received similar largesse from Sheriff Andy and tax break pen.