Editorial Roundup: New York

Newsday. March 14, 2021.

Editorial: Nursing home reform needed

Over the last year, there have been many stories like Carole Major’s, the former licensed practical nurse from Ronkonkoma who died after contracting COVID-19 in a local nursing home. Except Major, 78, entered the facility for rehab treatment just this January, and died late last month.

Clearly, the scrutiny on nursing home care from the COVID-19 crisis should not wane. Significant reforms are needed - to the way nursing homes are managed and operated, to the way money is spent and how the homes are overseen, to the importance of making public key details about facility ownership, management and infection control, to how regulations are enforced, and most important, to how everything translates into better patient care.

State lawmakers can make that happen right away. It’s smart, for instance, to require that at least 70% of a nursing home’s total revenue go to direct patient care, and within that, that 40% of the total goes to staffing. Instituting a minimum number of hours of care, per-patient, per-day, is also important, though that will require state funds to support it.

Mandating audits on infection control, and posting results online, so families know exactly how their loved one’s home is performing, also will be important.

But the attention on nursing homes must also deal with more immediate concerns, including the continued impact of the pandemic on staff, and residents like Major. State officials said there’s been some hope on that front: COVID cases in nursing homes have dropped more than 70% from the post-holiday highs in January.

But concerns remain, particularly in terms of the low rates of vaccination among nursing home facility staff. Within the federal program that vaccinated nursing home staff at the facilities, only 47% of nursing home staff on Long Island were vaccinated. It’s unclear how many more have been vaccinated since. Every nursing home operator should post its percentages of vaccinated staff, and update them daily, so families and others know. If they won’t do that on their own, the state should require it.

State officials have indicated that vaccinating nursing home staff remains a priority. So, wherever possible, the state should create additional opportunities for staff to be vaccinated at or near the facilities. While union leaders have tried to encourage vaccination, they, too, need to do more to push the message or even incentivize vaccination. Newly arriving vulnerable residents should not be worried that they’re going to get COVID-19 from a staff member unwilling to get a shot.

The larger and longer-term issues are far more difficult to solve. A commission is needed to analyze how many beds are needed statewide, evaluate how homes are funded, look at individual homes’ best practices, and study how other states manage and oversee the industry differently. Its recommendations must be part of any reform effort. The significant steps state officials can take now are necessary, but a larger rethinking is key to improving care.

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New York Times. March 13, 2021.

Editorial: Can Andrew Cuomo Continue to Lead?

The governor has lost his political allies, and the public’s confidence is falling.

Few political families have had more of an impact on New York politics than the Cuomos. Father and firstborn son both had public service woven deep in their DNA, and both developed a reputation for toughness in service of the common good and their own political ambitions.

When we endorsed Andrew Cuomo for another term as governor in 2018, we noted that he was “strategic and at times bullying in his use of power, driven and maddeningly evasive.” Supporters and critics, we wrote, agree that Mr. Cuomo is “a formidable political animal.”

There is a lot Mr. Cuomo can be proud of. The governor used his considerable political talents to great effect. He persuaded the State Legislature to legalize same-sex marriage, pass strong gun-control legislation and raise the minimum wage, and he saw New York through several crises, from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 to the coronavirus pandemic. Few people understand how to make government work as Mr. Cuomo does.

But those traits translated into a ruthlessness and power that Mr. Cuomo failed to control. Several female staffers have come forward with accounts of sexual misconduct and harassment. These allegations are under investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James and the State Assembly. Mr. Cuomo says he is confident that investigations will clear his name.

Undergirding these specific accusations is the widespread description of his administration by many former aides as a toxic workplace in which Mr. Cuomo and others ruled by fear and emotional abuse - and drew women whom Mr. Cuomo saw as attractive closer into his orbit, actively encouraging them to wear heels and dress in tightfitting clothing whenever he was around. In New York politics, Mr. Cuomo’s bullying style was an open secret. But the public caught only a glimpse of the dangers of Mr. Cuomo’s behavior recently.

It is always preferable to let official investigations run their course, to establish evidence from accusation. If crimes were committed, they should be fairly adjudicated. But the question of the governor’s continued fitness for office is about more than a criminal matter, with different standards.

The reality is that Mr. Cuomo has now lost the support of his party and his governing partners. The Democrats who control the State Legislature appear willing to impeach him, to say nothing of the Republicans. New York’s congressional delegation and city leaders, key to his base, have called on him to resign.

Voters, who returned him easily to office, will not have their say until the next election, should he decide to run for re-election.

The governor has jeopardized the public’s trust at the worst possible moment. The state is facing the hard and urgent task of vaccinating millions of people and recovering from a pandemic that has killed nearly 50,000 of its residents, sickened hundreds of thousands more and devastated the economy.

Mr. Cuomo, unsurprisingly to anyone who knows him, brushed off calls to step down and railed against what he called “cancel culture.” Asked whether he had a consensual relationship with any of the women who have come forward, Mr. Cuomo dodged: “I have not had a sexual relationship that was inappropriate. Period.”

What the governor failed to grasp during his news conference on Friday was that he owes the public a far more robust explanation for the slew of credible harassment complaints against him, as well as an articulation of why the public should give him its trust.

At this point, it is hard to see how Mr. Cuomo can continue to do the public’s important business without political allies or public confidence.

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New York Post. March 15, 2021.

Editorial: $100B from feds only inspires NY’s Legislature to spend, tax even more

As we predicted the other day, the Legislature is looking to take advantage of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s weakness to push tax hikes that New York can’t afford.

Three days after OKing a full impeachment inquiry, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced a mind-numbing $208.3 billion spending plan, which includes a whopping 22.6 percent jump in general-fund outlays over last year, plus nearly $7 billion in tax hikes.

This comes as New York’s getting a huge $100 billion federal bailout, including $12.7 billion straight to state government. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer crowed last week that the new law just erased the state’s budget deficit and negated any need to raise taxes.

But the Legislature’s addiction to spending is strong; the bailout just gives it reason to get greedier. Heastie’s plan adds all manner of gifts for the Democratic majority’s allies, donors and special interests. No matter that dropping more cash into bloated social services and education budgets won’t put hurting New Yorkers back to work.

Yes, many of the new taxes are aimed at the rich alone. But it’s easier than ever for the rich to move away and pay no New York taxes - nor employ any New Yorkers. And Heastie’s $2.45 billion in new business taxes is basically a giant “kill some more jobs, please” sign.

“The combined state and city (income-tax) rate for city residents would top out at 15.75 percent, the highest in any state,” notes the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon. Florida is rubbing its hands in anticipation.

Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the pro-business nonprofit Partnership for New York City, warns Heastie’s plan would make it “very difficult to attract or retain the talent and private investment that we need for a healthy recovery.” What the pandemic began, this lunacy would finish.

And Gov. Cuomo, desperately dealing to keep his job, may well go along with it.

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Plattsburg Press-Republican. March 16, 2021.

Editorial: Sunshine week – a ray of hope

We are celebrating Sunshine Week, an occasion revered by journalists across America but, more correctly, the gift to every American, whether they know it or not.

Sunshine Week was the creation of the American Society of News Editors in 2005. It actually broadened an initiative by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors in acknowledging Sunshine Day first in 2002.

These special occasions were designed to underscore the importance of all governments acting in the spirit in which they were formed: to conduct the public’s business openly and with applause, criticism or input from the people they work for.

New York, we’re proud to say, had been hard at work on that issue since the 1970s.

Early in that decade, a news reporter would attend a meeting of the Plattsburgh Common Council, for instance, to report on the critical or otherwise simply interesting deliberations that could affect citizens’ lives.

Those meetings were preceded by so-called “executive sessions,” where the issues were actually haggled over before the group moved into the public portion of the meeting for a perfunctory vote.

Reporters began pestering the mayor and council members to attend the executive sessions, realizing that that was where the news was actually being made.

Eventually, they were allowed in with the proviso that certain comments could be “off the record.”

Even that was not good enough, though. Too much of it was off the record.

Under prodding from newspapers, the State Legislature passed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) in 1972, with significant changes in 1977, 1982, 2008 and 2010.

It was clear that “off the record” and refusal to disclose records were acts often contrary to the public’s “right to know.”

Robert Freeman was appointed executive director of the State Committee on Open Government, which he did well for 43 years, until he was fired in 2019 for sexually inappropriate behavior.

During his tenure, however, the public was allowed its rights to information.

Some matters are still off the record. Executive sessions are allowed to privately discuss pending litigation, matters that might unfairly affect project costs or reveal certain personnel information, for example.

But in New York and across America, we citizens can either be sure public business is conducted fairly and legally or, if not, soon will be.

That is a reality that we take for granted these days and may not even give a thought to.

But news organizations – particularly newspapers, which track government operations daily – have a deep appreciation for the steps that have led to this openness.

To them, it is truly a cause for celebration and an annual nod to their forerunners.

As it should be for all of us.

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Auburn Citizen. March 16, 2021.

Editorial: ‘Vaccine czar’ for New York wearing too many hats

As millions of New Yorkers continue to wait for access to COVID-19 vaccinations, the person in charge of vaccine distribution in the state has demonstrated that he is too close to Albany politics to effectively focus on the task.

A longtime ally of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been making inquiries to gauge statewide support for the governor, who is under investigation following several allegations of harassment. The problem is that some people receiving those calls felt like their answer might affect their status on the vaccine distribution hierarchy.

Larry Schwartz, a longtime political aide to the governor, said that he has always conducted himself with the highest ethical standards and that any suggestion of a quid pro quo regarding vaccines is false.

Municipalities are waiting for instructions and further guidance from the state - and waiting for more shipments of vaccine. So some county executives have naturally been off-put - even downright suspicious - to get a call from the state’s “vaccine czar” regarding anything other than an update on plans for distribution.

Cuomo is having enough difficulty governing as it is, as calls for his resignation or impeachment continue to come in, both from within the state and beyond. New Yorkers can’t afford any additional distractions within the executive branch, and public health needs to be the only priority of anyone in government involved in fighting COVID-19.

Schwartz said that his inquiries to assess support for Cuomo had nothing to do with his work on vaccines - and there is no evidence that any counties got shortchanged of vaccine shipments based on a lack of support for the governor.

But if working to help Cuomo weather the biggest political and legal storm of his career is a priority for Schwartz, he should have no involvement in the state’s vaccination efforts.

We call on the governor to replace Schwartz as vaccination czar immediately to help restore public trust in this vital mission.

The Citizen editorial board includes publisher Michelle Bowers, executive editor Jeremy Boyer and managing editor Mike Dowd.

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