A bumpy road into Long Islanders' hearts
Daily Point
Running for ‘Governor Pothole’?
Do not accuse election-driven Gov. Kathy Hochul of being new to the basics of civic life, let alone to politics, let alone to the Long Island lifestyle.
In a virtual Zoom meeting with the Newsday editorial board on Wednesday, Hochul declared: "I love filling potholes and so we are coming at it with new money. And I’m excited about it." She was responding to a question about the item, played up in her something-for-everyone budget address a day earlier, for a new billion-dollar state fund devoted to the perennial and iconic problem of roads so broken they cause big damage day after day.
"I will tell you, Long Island is the inspiration for that," the Buffalo-accented governor said during the meeting. "I have spent so much time getting knocked around as I drove all over the state countless times. And the LIE, it’s rough. And people should not have to have that experience."
For anecdotal backup, she recalled one instance in which she received a call from Hempstead Assemb. Taylor Darling. "I asked her where she was. She was in a tire repair shop, ‘cause they’d just blown out a tire on a pothole on Long Island. This is a quality-of-life issue. Nobody should be having to waste time and $500 for repairs because there are substandard roads in a place like Long Island or … the Bronx or anywhere else."
According to one estimate by Trip, a transportation research nonprofit, New York State drivers paid out $632 a year in added costs due to bad roads. Hochul described her "Pave our Potholes" program as more than just an enrichment of current state services. She described it as the creation of a separate, dedicated funding stream, so that the pothole pot will no longer be diluted by other highway and bridge repair obligations.
"We’re going to get out there and the communities are going to help tell us where the potholes are. We’re going to have pothole finders. I'd like to have a site we can have people go to and tell me where the potholes are and work closely with the elected officials to get it done," she said.
Of course, ex-U. S. Sen. Al D’Amato from Nassau County back in the day got a ton of mileage out of his nickname as "Senator Pothole" and of course he received a media request for a reaction when Hochul unveiled her budget.
"I think that we need more people in government who are concerned with the citizens’ problems, everyday problems, getting good drinking water, having good roads, repairing the potholes," D’Amato told Bloomberg News. "For those communities that don’t have adequate resources to take care of those, that’s a big deal." And he called the condition of the Meadowbrook Parkway "a disgrace."
Told of the pothole senator’s remarks, Hochul said Wednesday: "He was also an inspiration."
— Dan Janison @Danjanison
Talking Point
Post-Election Day fundraising
Tim Sini’s reelection bid for Suffolk DA is over, but fundraising for it does not appear to be.
In a Tuesday email to supporters, Sini ally and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone announced a Jan. 31 event at the Stonebridge Country Club in Smithtown with all proceeds going to Tim Sini for DA "to aid the committee in outstanding obligations."
Sponsorship levels are set to range from $100 for an individual ticket, up to an eye-popping $10,000 to be an event chair.
Sini’s bid for another term as DA was foiled by Ray Tierney, but Bellone cited his former deputy county executive and police commissioner’s "years of public service" and "incredible work for Suffolk County" to encourage generosity from donors.
Sini did not respond to The Point’s questions about the event, including the level of campaign debt he may be carrying. New campaign finance filings posted Tuesday did not include a notation of unpaid bills, though the filings did show a negative end-of-period balance as well as big recent payments of tens of thousands of dollars for TV ads and other services. The expensive campaign saw Sini raising and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars overall.
The fundraiser invitation does not hint at what may be next for Sini or Sini’s campaign account, beyond praising his time in office: "The lives he has saved, the wrongful prisoners he has freed, and the communities he has served will leave a lasting impact for years to come."
— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano
Pencil Point
Going too far
Credit: PoliticalCartoons.com/Pat Byrnes
For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons
Final Point
PAC-ing for Zeldin?
New fundraising numbers show Gov. Kathy Hochul fundraising at a clip that puts her millions ahead of Rep. Lee Zeldin, while the Shirley Republican is still in the process of pushing out other contenders for the GOP nomination. All of which means Zeldin surely wouldn’t mind some outside firepower for his cause.
Perhaps that’s one reason for the chatter about prospective super PACs, singular or plural, which might someday come together behind Zeldin.
One of them is focused on national and state donors who have a goal of $20 million by primary day, according to Suffolk GOP chairman Jesse Garcia.
This group, which had not filed paperwork as of early this week, has pledges of seed money for about a million dollars, Garcia said. "This is a show of strength" for Zeldin's candidacy, Garcia said.
Separately, there’s an attempt by political consultant and former Zeldin campaign manager Chapin Fay to gin up interest and funding for a "New Yorkers for LEEdership" state super PAC. It would be "hyper-focused on running a NYC voter contact program in areas and demographics the campaign will need, but likely ignore," according to a draft deck for the entity shared with The Point.
The pitch deck proposes a fundraising goal of $10 million and begins bluntly with the observation that there is "no path to victory that does not include increasing the vote total in New York City."
The super PAC suggests attacking this problem with NYC messaging "focused on shared values within different demographics." That would include "education messaging targeted to Asian communities" and "faith, family and freedom targeted to Hispanic and Eastern European communities."
This strategy gained attention after some members of those communities aided the mayoral victory of Eric Adams, one of the Democratic field’s more moderate candidates last year. It is also the same demographic that Hochul’s Democratic rival, Tom Suozzi, is looking to for a primary upset of Hochul.
The draft document further outlines the challenges of a Republican candidate who "will need to either ensure there is no primary, or win one. Either requires conservative messaging that will repel the coalition of Blanks and Democrats in New York City needed to win a general election against the incumbent Governor (or any other eventual Democrat nominee)."
Asked about potential help from outside entities, Zeldin campaign spokeswoman Katie Vincentz said the campaign looks forward to people from "all walks of life … continuing to do everything they can to support this mission."
Like the other super PAC, the state group is still fairly up in the air. Fay told The Point Tuesday that he was close to the first big commitment but not in the door yet.
Still, political junkies can expect to hear more about possible efforts like this. Asked about why the potential super PAC news was being floated now, Garcia gave a simple 2022 answer: "Because we’re in cycle."
— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano
