Kathy Hochul Closing Her Appearances To The Media

What do you make of these items from the State of Politics "Here and Now" update:

At 1:30 p.m., LG Kathy Hochul tours KPH Healthcare Services, 6040 Tarbell Rd., Syracuse. (The tour is closed to members of the press, but a media availability will follow).

Ar 2:30 p.m., Hochul visits Destiny USA, NYS’ largest retail mall and a major CNY tourist attraction, 9090 Destiny USA Dr., Syracuse. (This tour is also closed to the press, a media availability will follow at Margaritaville Restaurant).

At 3:30 p.m., Hochul tours JMA Wireless, 7645 Henry Clay Blvd., Liverpool. (Again, closed press with an availability immediately afterwards).

Closing Hochul's appearances to the media and only holding an "availability" afterward suggests to me that the Cuomo administration has something to hide.

What, exactly, are they afraid of members of the press seeing at Destiny USA mall that they're keeping them away from Hochul's appearance there but offering an availability at "Margaritaville" afterwards?

Cuomo Backs Appeal Process For APPR Teracher Evaluation System

It seems that even Governor Cuomo knows that his APPR teacher evaluation system, with its dramatic shifts in VAM scores and teachers getting dinged as "developing" even as their schools are given excellence awards, cannot be defended as is:

As the Board of Regents moves to create a process for teachers to appeal the findings of their performance evaluations, the idea gained the endorsement of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Both the teacher evaluations and an appeals system for teachers doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive, Cuomo said on Wednesday.

“Yes, I think they should have an appeals process, I think there should be an evaluation process, but it should be fair and it should be transparent,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo, a key architect of the current evaluation system approved by state lawmakers in the March budget plan, told reporters there “should be an appeals process” out of fairness to teachers.

“That evaluation has to be fair and it has to be transparent,” Cuomo said while in Rochester. “It’s only right if a teacher believes that if the evaluation is wrong, they should have a right to an appeals process. You’re talking about their evaluation that could determine their seniority, their raise, etc.”

Cuomo's bending ever so slightly in order to not be broken backward defending APPR.

The Lederman case exposed the bell curve that rigs 7% of teachers as "ineffective" as well as the arbitrariness of the test score VAM (Lederman went from 14 out of 20 to 1 out of 20 in one year's time while her students garnered similar scores on their state tests.)

In addition, APPR horror stories where districts are given awards for the excellence of their schools while the teachers at those schools are rated "developing" on Cuomo's APPR system have surfaced, further making the system indefensible.

Same goes for the stories of teachers at schools slated to be closed, many rated "ineffective" or "developing" one year, then getting magically rated "effective" after they go to other schools that aren't closing.
 
So Cuomo, in order to look fair about his APPR system, says he's okay with an appeals process for it, but only if it's "fair and transparent."

Ah, that is the rub, isn't it?

As has been shown in the Lederman case, APPR is anything but fair and transparent - NYSED refused to tell Sheri Lederman why she went from 14 out of 20 to 1 out of 20 on her test score VAM and twice tried to have Lederman's lawsuit dismissed on grounds that she wasn't harmed since she was rated effective overall (see here and here.)

Cuomo never had a problem with NYSED failing to explain to Lederman and other teachers just how they came to their test score VAM, but now all of a sudden he's in favor of appeals only if they're "fair and transparent."

In fact, Cuomo responded with a straw man argument when he was asked about the Lederman lawsuit, claiming teachers just don't want to be evaluated rather than acknowledging the problems that Lederman raised with the system.

It remains to be seen if by "fair and transparent," Cuomo means the kind of fairness and transparency currently on display in the APPR system and with how NYSED wields it.

I'm skeptical this "appeals process" is anything other than more PR, another "tweak" that will amount to little change when all is said and done.

We shall see.

Cuomo Transparency Summit: A Press Conference In The Guise Of A Summit

The lone legislator to attend Governor Cuomo's transparency summit (via phone) explains how Cuomo tried to keep him away from it:

Two weeks ended up turning into two months; the governor’s office said it was difficult to schedule the event given the number of parties involved. The meeting, held at the governor’s office in Midtown Manhattan, fell short of a historic gathering: From the Legislature, only a representative from the Assembly’s Republican minority participated.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, was represented at the meeting by three members of his staff, including his top aide, William J. Mulrow, who expressed disappointment at what he described as a boycott by most of the Legislature.

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, both Democrats, sent representatives, and a Republican assemblyman from western New York, Andy Goodell, joined via telephone.

...

In a telephone interview afterward, Assemblyman Goodell described the meeting as “a press conference in the guise of a summit, aimed at criticizing the Legislature.”

He said it took days of phone calls to the governor’s office just to find out when and where the meeting would be held. “I don’t think his staff wanted me there, or even wanted me to participate, but just couldn’t figure out how to get rid of me,” he said.

Classic Cuomo - a press conference masquerading as a summit with the aim of attacking the legislature and thus taking the heat off himself.

Cuomo's Sham Transparency Summit

Jimmy Vielkind at Capital NY:

The summit is scheduled for 2 p.m. at Cuomo's New York City office. It's unclear whether the press will be able to attend.

So far, Democratic leaders in the Assembly and State Senate, as well as the Republicans who control the upper chamber, have said they won't participate.

The summit was announced after Cuomo took criticism for the 90 day email deletion policy he has put into place in state agencies.

Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin put the sham summit into perspective:

“Cuomo has a history of using half-hearted promises and deception to appear as though he is actually working on behalf of the people of New York," Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, a Republican from Troy, said in a statement. "Why waste taxpayer money and hold a summit on a Friday just before Memorial Day weekend when he could easily hold a meeting on a session day when most legislators are in Albany? The answer is that he doesn’t want anyone to show up so there is no dissent and he can claim the credit and media coverage himself. 

"This event has been botched from the beginning and is just more smoke and mirrors from a feeble leader,” McLaughlin said.

Cuomo does love his sham panels, commissions and summits, doesn't he?

The only reasonable response to this sham summit is scorn.

Cuomo Hides Details Of His Transparency Summit

Nixon on the Hudson at it again:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s highly touted transparency summit remains more an idea than an event: Currently scheduled for Friday afternoon, the meeting doesn’t even have a location yet — though the administration has narrowed it down to either Albany or New York City.

Cuomo, who has taken heat for broadly instituting a policy that automatically deletes emails after 90 days unless they’re actively retained, wants to use the meeting to hammer out a uniform email retention policy for all state entities, and also wants to discuss the Legislature’s current exemption from many of the provisions of state Freedom of Information Law.

“The administration will finalize details as it compiles information from all stakeholders and prior to the date scheduled for the meeting,” said spokesman Rich Azzopardi.

Azzopardi would not say what information is still being compiled. Also unclear: Whether the meeting will be (wait for it) open to the public.

He's having his transparency summit in an undetermined locale with unknown participants that will likely be hidden from the public.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Time For The Press To Put Andrew Cuomo On Notice

Jimmy Vielkind at Capital NY explains how Il Duce Cuomo hides his political fundraising records:

ALBANY—The administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo has refused to release details about the governor's political fund-raising, stating more than six months after Capital requested records under the Freedom of Information Law that it considers anything not posted on his pre-edited public schedule to be "exempt" from public disclosure.

Cuomo's prodigious fund-raising has netted nearly $45 million since he was elected in 2010, and has drawn scrutiny this electoral season from Republicans and Democrats alike. Capital requested schedule records that would have offered details on Cuomo's Hollywood junket in late January as well as another event in Albany last September.

The administration delayed for four months, before closing the request without stating a justification. Only when Capital's attorneys began contacting Cuomo's aides did the administration offer a reason for withholding the documents—that they are simply drafts meant for internal use. The aides then waited several more months before denying the request.

An independent arbiter, the state's Committee on Open Government, last week gave an opinion last week that the administration was beyond its rights in denying Capital's request. Now, a Cuomo spokesman says the records will be released "in the coming days."

Vielkind goes on to write that the Capital NY experience in trying to get the records of Cuomo's Hollywood junket is not an "isolated experience," that Cuomo "has repeatedly delayed or denied requests for information from journalists and advocates."

Cuomo's starting a press tour today as PR rollout for his book.

It would be nice if somebody in the press would ask him about his lack of transparency on camera while he tries to talk about his book.

Same goes for all the meddling he does in his supposedly independent commissions and panels.

Probably not going to happen, but if it does, I bet he won't react well - as seems to have happened at an off-the-record dinner with some Times journalists:

In February, Governor Andrew Cuomo and others from his office had dinner at a restaurant in Midtown with several New York Times journalists: Albany bureau chief Susanne Craig, Albany reporter Thomas Kaplan and deputy metro editor David Halbfinger.

It was meant to be the type of off-the-record bread-breaking that politicians are known to have with the people who cover them—except at some point things went sideways. Before the meal concluded, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting, Cuomo became visibly angry, raised his voice and stormed out of the restaurant.

Melissa DeRosa, a spokeswoman for Cuomo, disputed this characterization while confirming that the dinner took place.

"We cannot discuss this as we respect the rules of off the record conversations," she said.

...

While it's unclear why exactly the dinner went south, the governor has publicly acknowledged his rocky relationship with the Times, most recently in an interview with the Times itself, pegged to the release of his memoir, All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life, on shelves tomorrow via HarperCollins.

I suspect it will be all niceties on camera, but it sure would be nice to get Cuomo to have a ferret moment if somebody presses him on something he doesn't want to answer.

Last thing I would note here.

Does Andrew Cuomo really think he can run for president with this insane need for control he exhibits?

Cuomo: Secrecy = Transparency

You just can't make this stuff up:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo today defended the closed-door budget negotiations, saying “just because something is done behind closed doors doesn’t mean the process isn’t transparent.”

He said he and legislative leaders have made their budget positions know publicly, and they need to meet privately to hash out the details.

 “Just because something is done behind closed doors doesn’t mean the process isn’t transparent,” Cuomo told reporters today. “You can’t do everything in the public view always and have frank, candid meaningful conversations.”

In short, you can't threaten, bribe and otherwise get your way on the budget when others are watching.

Better to be behind closed doors and do all that in secret.

A secrecy which is of course totally transparent.