May 20, 2005
Pataki to pols: Less talk, more rock
If the New York Post's unnamed sources are to be believed, Gov. George Pataki is pissing off New York's legislative leaders by refusing to provide detailed answers about the $2.2 billion Jets stadium plan. "The questions, in my mind, have been answered," Pataki declared in response to state senate majority leader Joe Bruno's eight-point request for more information. "This has been the most discussed and debated public project in New York in decades, and people either know if they're for it or against it."
If that doesn't quite sound like Dale Carnegie material to you, you're not alone. As the Post reports:
And a Senate source said Pataki would not get Bruno's vote without a detailed response. ..."The Senate doesn't like being pressured needlessly, and what we are asking are very legitimate questions that we have a right to have answered," the source said.Another source said Bruno was in no hurry to act because the governor and his staff had routinely failed to treat the Senate with respect — often giving short shrift to Bruno's top aides and treating requests for information as "some form of insult." A lobbyist working against the stadium deal gleefully contended that Pataki's statement was sure to "make Joe [Bruno] even more angry than he is" and that "that's not the way to win him over, that's for sure."
Tea-leaf-reading madly, this could indicate that Pataki - by all accounts a more lukewarm supporter of the stadium than New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg - is more interested in forcing Bruno and state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver to vote on the stadium, one way or another, ASAP. If they vote it down, Pataki can pin the blame on them for killing the Olympics; if they give in and approve it, Pataki can take the credit for getting the stadium done. It would certainly be in character for the governor, who has so successfully ducked responsibility during his three terms in office that if you asked most New Yorkers to describe his main accomplishments, they'd likely say "he's really tall."
