Here, I try my hand at an abbreviated version of a musical review. First time. Be kind.

This article is awesome. So much so, I’ll let it speak for itself.

Also, check out the News’ call for consolidation. That is as likely as snow on July 4th, no matter how stupendous of an idea it is:

Now Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer has appointed a statewide Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness, headed by former Lt. Gov. Stan Lundine, to study this once more and plan a state push to move government structure from the 19th to the 21st century. You can weigh in at a daylong hearing Oct. 24 in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Erie County has submitted six consolidation initiatives, among the 26 cited by this eightcounty region, but only Allegany and Genesee counties are considering dissolving or merging governments (the full list is at www.nyslocalgov.org/local_initiatives_county.asp). Wholesale change is blocked not just by entrenched politicians but by residents who don’t want to give up their own village police force, their own boards and councils, their own anything. That costs.

Oh, and there’s a Buzz, too. I’ll let it speak for itself, too. Huh?

Think Myanmar, people. Think Myanmar.

Glenn Gramigna, who until recently wrote for Joe Illuzzi, has started up his own website, which you can catch here.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will be holding a community forum at the Southside Elementary School in Buffalo on Thursday (tomorrow) at 6:30 pm.

Attendees will learn how the AG’s office can help your community with respect to such issues as health care, consumer protction, civil rights, public integrity, and student loans.

All’s well that ends well begins the post, and indeed the City is backing off its harassment of a North Buffalo woman because of her well-tended, large garden.

While the blog posts, as well as some posts on Buffalo Issue Alerts, strike a conciliatory tone with respect to whether or not it was one City official who prompted the now-moot court action, I respectfully disagree.

It’s one thing if it was a neighbor, or a couple of neighbors, who complained to the City about the garden. Why? Because it’s highly doubtful that the City’s action against the homeowner would have been so zealous had it been so.

The number of visits by inspectors - 5 or 6 - indicates that someone with some juice in City Hall made some calls and got inspectional services into high gear.

Presumably the complaints would be on file somewhere. Are they public record? Would a FOIA request reveal the identity of the complainant? It’s not a gardening issue; it’s an abuse of power issue from where I’m sitting.

From the New York Times:

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a business executive thinking about moving your company — an upscale, high-tech company — to New York or maybe Connecticut or perhaps California. After a little research, you find out that most of New York’s system for encouraging new businesses is based on one thing: political pork.

There is no workable economic development plan for the whole state. Instead, businesses are forced to beg for a hodgepodge of handouts, each of which depends less on what the companies have to offer in terms of jobs or revenue than on which bigwigs they know in Albany. Suddenly, Massachusetts and North Carolina and Texas begin to look better and better and better.

Could politics be affecting a North Buffalo woman’s garden?

According to this post on the Garden Rant blog, probably.

The Crescent Street garden has been written up by City of Buffalo inspectional services for an appearance ticket based on the complaint of a well-connected neighbor in the City of Good Neighbors.

Flowers include rudbeckia triloba (the basic type), peonies, cosmos, and zinnia. I think the main reason housing inspectors are quick to flag Jean’s yard is that they don’t understand it. They’re building inspectors, not plantsmen. To them, it’s overgrowth. As for the neighbors, Jean tells me that at least three of her closest neighbors will be with her in court testifying on her behalf, saying how much they love her yard. My sense is that it is really one person. And here’s where the plot gets sordid.

This neighbor is a city official. He supports other candidates than the ones Jean supports and he is a big player in the local political machinery.
I am not saying this is the sole reason—he probably truly hates Jean’s yard, judging from his grass, shaved within an inch of its life—but I bet he hates her politics (environmental activist, peace activist, anti-casino activist) even more.

I am heartened to learn that the City of Buffalo, having solved all of its problems concerning property inspections, has now turned its watchful eye on the gardens of Parkside.

The New York State Thruway Authority should be abolished.

State roadways should be maintained and governed by a state department that already exists - the Department of Transportation.

The Thruway Authority was created by the state legislature in 1950. The Thruway itself was completed from Buffalo to Deegan in 1956 at a cost of $600 million, financed by almost a billion dollar in bonds. Those bonds were paid off in full in 1997, at which point the tolls were supposed to automatically come down. Obviously, they didn’t, thanks to the legislature, which has other uses for Authorities such as the NYSTA.

The Thruway Authority is, in some respects, a conduit for Albany to borrow and spend without it appearing on the state’s books. Consider:

The State Constitution provides that no longterm debt may be contracted “by or in behalf of the state” without voter approval by referendum. But New Yorkers are often skeptical of the state’s borrowing proposals. Of ten bond issues totaling $10.7 billion that have appeared on the ballot in the past 20 years, only five, amounting to $6.5 billion, won approval. But the state has managed to borrow another $20 billion, and plans to borrow an additional $7.1 billion, by evading the constitutional limitation.

The trick is “backdoor financing.” A public authority, such as the UDC or the Thruway Authority, does the borrowing and declares that only it, not the state, is liable for the debt. Then, through a complicated set of transactions, the state actually pays off the debt. In one well-known scheme, the UDC and the Thruway Authority sold $230 million in bonds and used the proceeds to purchase Attica prison and Interstate 287 from the state. The authorities then leased the prison and the highway back to the state; the Legislature fixed the “rent” under the “leases” at an amount equal to the annual debt service obligation. In other words, the state is paying off the debt under the pretense of paying rent.

The courts have upheld such borrowing on the grounds that because the state is not legally obligated to pay, there is no incurrence of debt “by or in behalf of the state.” The constitutional requirement of popular approval, therefore, does not apply. But if the state defaulted on its “rent” payments, bondholders would take over the prison and the highwaya practical impossibility. The state would never allow a default.

According to today’s Buffalo News, the Authority has about an $80 million budget gap that it has to fill. That’s why a toll increase - the second one in about 4 years - is being proposed. But some say there’s an easy way to plug that gap - have the Thruway divest itself of management of the Erie Canal.

Instead of raising tolls, critics say the agency should make a strong pitch to turn back to the state the Thruway’s responsibility to pay for the operations of the state’s canal system. A 1992 fiscal gimmick, moving the canal off the state’s general fund and over to the Thruway’s budget saves the state about $80 million annually — which, coincidentally, is the amount Thruway officials say they are looking at in yearly deficits.

The Thruway blames high gas prices and a drop in toll-paying motorists for the need to up tolls. Naturally - trucking concerns will find alternate, free routes to use whenever possible. Tolls on the Thruway, which is upstate’s main artery, is one of many reasons why upstate is economically stagnant. A toll increase will only make it more so. In order to meet the new cost, trucking companies will pass the cost on to consumers whenever possible. In cases where logistics is handled under a multi-year contract, the trucking concerns will simply lay people off. Either way, it’s just a further flushing of the toilet that is upstate’s apparently never-ending downward spiral.

Oh, not only will the tolls go up, but the discount for using EZ-Pass will mostly be eliminated.

So, why should the Thruway Authority go? Well, for starters it’s way too expensive. As I posted about here, the 2007 Thruway budget budget ballooned to over a billion dollars. Toll revenue was $610 million. “Operating expenses” amount to over half that amount; $340 million. Bridge and road maintenance costs $371 million. It costs $44 million just to collect the tolls.

So, it costs $371 million to actually maintain the roads and bridges, yet the Thruway authority’s budget is a billion dollars.

According to the Thruway, about 230 million vehicles use the road annually. In several European countries, in order to use the autobahn system, motorists need to buy a toll sticker and affix it to their windshields. The Swiss vignette costs SFR 40, and Austria’s is as little as €7.60 for ten days, and €72.60 for a year. A $2.00 yearly vignette chargable to every motorist intending to use the I-90 would more than cover the cost to maintain the roadway. I don’t know if that’s the most effective means to make users pay to maintain the road on which they’re driving, but it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than the bloated bureaucracy we’re paying for today.

Family Guy’s hommage to Star Wars aired last night and it was both brilliant and hilarious.

One thing’s for sure - the elevator music version of the Imperial March would make an awesome ringtone.

The Albany Project reports on some responses to Spitzer’s call to reform local governments:

Speaking to the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC), Governor Eliot Spitzer today released a list of nearly 150 initiatives to improve the operation of local governments ranging from municipal consolidation and restructuring to the sharing of services.

Responding to a request made by the Governor earlier this year, local governments submitted initiatives they believed to be ripe for efficiency measures. Lists were submitted to the Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness (LGEC) established by the Governor in April of this year.

Here are the proposals put forth by Erie County :

Countywide Emergency Dispatch: Considering consolidation of twenty-four public safety answering points into one operation

Health Insurance Consolidation: City of Buffalo is exploring consolidation of health insurance for employees across city-related entities, including the City itself, the Buffalo Board of Education, the Buffalo Sewer Authority, and the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority

Information Technology Consolidation: Working to establish the Erie/Niagara Geographic Information System Initiative

Smart Growth: Exploring creation of a local law to link approval of new multi-family developments (except for senior developments) to adequacy of school facilities and other public facilities

Water/Sewer System Oversight: Creating a regional watershed and infrastructure coalition, including the City of Buffalo, the Buffalo Sewer Authority, and the Erie County Department of Environment & Planning – to identify regional solutions to overflows by preparing regional infrastructure improvement plans and seeking joint funding

Water System Consolidation: Consideration of a “lease management agreement” between the County Water Authority and Town of Colden to eliminate testing and monitoring costs in Colden Water District No. 1

Kinda milquetoast, as compared with, say, Tioga County, which included this:

Local Government Restructuring: Council of Governments exploring options for county dissolution (with portions joining neighboring counties), as well as other restructuring options

Whatever ends up happening, the counties recognize the problems of duplicative services and too many governments and bureaucracies. What’s different this time is that there’s a real initiative to do something about it, and a receptive governor.

Fidel got his copy of Greenspan’s memoir at Barnes & Noble.

I didn’t realize they had a Havana store.

/sarcasm

JetBlue is running this promotion. I think it’s pretty cool.

This would make the basis for an amazing screenplay.