The Cuomo Administration is finally naming names and revealing who will serve on its newly formed regional economic development councils.
Yesterday afternoon, lieutenant governor Bob Duffy stopped at SUNY New Paltz to announce the membership of the Mid-Hudson Council.
Changing the bureaucracy
Duffy says the Governor's plan is to empower each region to shape its own future.
"It's no longer Albany telling you what to do. It's no longer New York City telling you what to do," says Duffy, "It's having each individual region ... develop a team that ends up identifying your priorities."
He says New York's governmental structure is more to blame for its current economic situation than the national recession.
"In many ways, it's self-inflicted wounds. It's bureaucracy, it's headaches, it's frustrations," says Duffy.
The lieutenant governor will serve as chair to all 10 councils, but he says he'd like to be a hands-off facilitator, and let the other council members run the show. The councils will compete for a $1 billion pot of state funds to help grow their economies.
Leonard Schleifer heads a bio-tech company called Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and had less than a week's notice before being named as the Mid-Hudson co-chair.
"When the Governor's office calls, I feel it's my obligation to serve," he says.
Schleifer believes his council can deliver a strategic plan by the governor's deadline of November 14th.
"There's nothing like a deadline to sharpen the pencil and get things done. So we’ll work hard at it and I think we can do it," he says.
Economic success: "You know it when you see it"
Empire State Development will be charged with tracking the success of the councils through annual progress reports.
Schleifer admits it could be difficult to measure the number of jobs created. He compared it to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous quote about pornography.
"It's a little bit like obscenity. You know it when you see it," says Schleifer, "I think we'll know economic success when we see it. How the state goes about more sophisticated ways of measuring these things, we'll find out."
The council members are all volunteers, who were chosen by the administration to represent a cross-section of interests, including business, labor and academia.
Governor Cuomo will be at Schenectady County Community College to announce the Capital District council members today.
