3/302018
For Immediate Release
Penn Station Double Outrage as Governor Jams Legislature and Usurps City Government
Statement by Assembly Member Richard N. Gottfried
“After the Assembly leadership made clear to Governor Cuomo that we would not agree to his effort to take control of the area around Penn Station, the Governor has jammed his Penn Station bill into the final giant budget bill delivered to the Legislature on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. This extraordinarily hostile gesture puts the Legislature in a position of accepting his plan or shutting down government.
“It is wrong for the Governor to try to take over urban planning, traffic management and real estate development in New York City. That’s what this bill is aimed at. A project in the middle of midtown that is this large, complex, and important must be a collaborative effort and vision, including the Governor as well as the Mayor, along with area residents and businesses, the community board, and the area’s elected officials.
“The area’s elected officials — City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Representative Jerry Nadler, State Senator Brad Hoylman and I – along with Mayor Bill de Blasio all opposed this last-minute power grab against the City’s elected local government. None of this overwhelming local opposition mattered to Governor Cuomo.
“The closing days of the state budget process is not the time to do this. This proposal, which did not appear in the Governor’s original budget bill in January, has nothing whatsoever to do with the State’s fiscal plan and should be discussed outside of the budget process. I thank Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie for his strong support for my insistence on a full community input process on this issue.”
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