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Editorial For months now, The New York Times has run a series of editorials condemning the backward ways of our state legislature. Entitled "Fixing Albany," the series has taken state lawmakers to task for everything from taking gifts from lobbyists, to voting on legislation they haven't even read and marginalizing themselves in a city where only the two leaders of the Assembly and Senate and Governor Pataki seem to matter. The way the legislature came to a decision on the legislation concerning the filtration plant would seem to be a textbook example of everything the Times finds wrong in our state capital. The legislation was debated in the wee hours of the morning on the very last day of the legislative session with no serious public hearings. There was an Assembly hearing in Manhattan, but other than Jeffrey Dinowitz, only two other members of the Assembly were present, and one left after about an hour. And there was no hearing in the state Senate. According to Dinowitz, there were more members present on the Assembly floor who voted against the bill than voted for it. How can that be? Well, that's because members who have swiped in their I.D. cards at the beginning of the day are considered present at every vote for the rest of the day. If a member is physically absent from the chamber, and a vote is called, the member is assumed to have voted "yes." We're not kidding. Members of the Assembly, who make $79,500 a year, can show up for a minute in the morning and then play hooky all day, but still get marked present. What if we all had jobs like that? Finally, the legislation had virtually no information about what the project is going to look like when it's done. And the city didn't even follow its own land use review process. The city is removing land from the jurisdiction of the Parks Department and therefore must, under the City Zoning Resolution, rezone the land as something else. The way that is done is through ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure), the six-month process during which every level of city government -- from community boards up to the City Council and the mayor Ð review the plan. But the city is not subjecting the Mosholu Golf Course site to ULURP, which is the only way it would be forced to seriously consider its appropriateness. The city has volunteered to do a supplemental environmental impact statement but there will be no point in that process where a decision can be made, if problems are found, to pursue another site. That's what ULURP is for. So with this legislation, the city has skirted its own law and the state legislature has provided a perfect case study on dysfunctional lawmaking. But still the Times is bullish on the plant, and has praised it in two editorials. Why? Hard to know exactly, but substitute Central Park for Van Cortlandt Park and we guarantee you the paper would be singing a very different tune. The Times' "Fixing Albany" series is a public service, but the paper enables the very behavior it purports to despise by supporting legislation that flouts every good-government principle the paper says it believes in.
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