Pay up! (mcorriss.com)

Transit wonks are hoping Governor Andrew Cuomo might still be their secret savior, and it's starting to look like he might be. Not only has the governor selected a crack team to replace outgoing M.T.A. chief Jay Walder, but he is even said to be considering the impossible—congestion pricing.

Governor Cuomo dodged the congestion pricing question on the campaign trail, and he has remained mum even as éminences gris have continued to call for bridge tolls. Now, while mulling whether or not to veto new Port Authority tolls, the Cuomo administration could actually use the PA tolls as cover to finally implement them on East River bridges. According to City Hall News' Adam Lisberg, Governor Cuomo could embrace certain toll increases if others are cut.

People close to the discussions believe Gov. Andrew Cuomo will accede to a $2 toll hike despite his public protests. And once Cuomo establishes that a toll increase does not fall under his “no new taxes” pledge, these people believe that would lay the groundwork for a coordinated toll plan that would raise the price to enter crowded Manhattan but reduce it elsewhere.

“The bridge tolls will become the way to solve the MTA problem,” said one person involved in the long-term effort. “In this situation, it’s ludicrous to leave some of the bridges free.”

The key difference between this latest proposal and the one that died two years ago is that it cleverly reduces tolls on outer-borough connections, such as the Triborough, Throgg's Neck and Whitestone bridges. This could please many of the local pols who quashed the plan before and underscore the goal of bridge tolling as a means to reduce congestion in the Central Business District and not simply a revenue raiser.

The idea, which would also charge vehicles traveling below 60th Street as before, was conceived by former transportation commissioner "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, who believes it could raise $1.9 billion for transit funding.

Maybe Jay Walder should not have left so soon.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

I'd be even happier if the M.T.A. was. (Getty)

The M.T.A. decided to take on nearly $7 billion in debt today in order to balance its capital budget, which is short $9 billion for the next three years. Former Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch has a novel idea to solve the problem: bring back congestion pricing.

When The Observer spoke with Mr. Ravitch over the weekend about what Conductor Cuomo should do with the M.T.A., he endorsed the same idea he has been putting forward for years. "I would hope the governor would examine the options of tolling the bridges again as a means to finance the M.T.A.," the man many credit with turning around the agency said.

The governor has been dodging questions about the M.T.A. since the campaign, and his continued silence seems to speak volumes. About congestion pricing, the then-attorney general said simply "I understand the concept," as The Observer reported at the time. He told WNYC it was "moot." As for the rest of the agency:

“I believe the governor should be accountable for the M.T.A. These authorities that are often nameless and faceless–I understand the theory behind an authority. I also understand the theory behind accountability,” Cuomo said. “In a situation like the M.T.A., I think that people have the right to know who’s in charge, who’s responsible and I think it should be the governor of the state.

It would seem Governor Cuomo has yet to take on that responsibility.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

All aboard? (wikispaces.com)

Transportation wonks have a habit of talking about Jay Walder, the outgoing head of the M.T.A., in messianic terms, as though he were the only man capable of fixing the agency’s myriad problems—an aging system, run by intransigent unions, with almost no political support. While many of them have greeted his resignation with shock and concern, there is a growing sense that this could actually be the best thing to happen to the M.T.A. since Mr. Walder’s arrival two years ago.

“I guess I’m partly responsible for inflating the importance of Jay,” said Gene Russianoff, head of the Straphangers Campaign and dean of transit advocate.

Indeed, there have been others—Richard Ravitch, the team of Kiley-Gunn, even Mr. Walder’s predecessor, Lee Sander—who have done a lot to resurrect mass transit from the death throes of the 1970s. Mr. Walder, though, was different. He had moved from McKinsey to run London’s transit system, introducing successful innovations, including the vaunted oyster card, which speeds up bus and Tube boardings, as well as implementing that dread scourge, congestion pricing. He was supposed to bring the same innovation and ingenuity to New York.

“You have to hope it’s a wake-up call to the people in Albany,” blogger and M.T.A. kremlinologist Benjamin Kabak said.

That hope is directed at one man in particular: Andrew Cuomo.

The governor grew up riding the same subways from Queens as the Rockaways native he must now replace, though he is not the likeliest booster. On the campaign trail, Mr. Cuomo expressed indifference that bordered on antipathy when reporters questioned him about mass transit. This included an uncharacteristically testy press conference outside City Hall, when he unveiled his Urban Agenda. Of its 230 pages, 25 covered affordable housing, 32 on criminal justice, 20 on health care but only two on transportation. He has done nothing of note on the subject during his first seven months in office besides reappointing Mr. Walder. Despite that, they have a cool relationship with limited communication.

Still, transit advocates and straphanging pols are hitching their train to the governor, either out of desperation or legitimate belief that he could transform the M.T.A. in ways that have been talked about but rarely acted upon. “It puts the governor on the hook,” Mr. Russianoff said. “It will be his pick running the agency, and he will be accountable for what happens to the M.T.A.”

There are few greater political liabilities than the M.T.A., which is why the Cuomo administration has held it at arm’s length for so long. Even with Mr. Walder in place, he could keep this up for only so long, but now, unable to point to a Paterson appointee calling the shots, the responsibility will be his all the more. “When the big issues come, from fare policy to safety and the reliability of the system, in the end this is America, and the elected officials are held responsible,” said former Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who used to oversee the agency in the Assembly.

Should the governor embrace the M.T.A, advocates believe he has a singular ability to fix its problems, many of which stem from a Legislature that shortchanges the M.T.A. on a regular basis, thwarting projects like congestion pricing and other forms of transportation funding and even raiding the agency’s budget on occasion, as happened twice last year. “A big part of this is getting the support of the Legislature,” Mr. Brodsky said.

With his string of victories this year—the rent regs/property tax cap deal, gay marriage and an on-time, balanced budget—Governor Cuomo has shown an ability to bend Albany to his will.

“I think a lot of people feel our public transportation system is being held together by chicken wire,” said Assemblyman Micah Kellner, who represents the Upper East Side. “There’s a lot of speculation Jay left because why oversee a crumbling system when you can oversee the best in Hong Kong. That’s a wake up call to New York that we need to do something transformative. So whether that’s the governor taking more control of the M.T.A. or possibly breaking up the three systems, they don’t work so well anymore.”

Mr. Kellner put forth Mr. Brodsky’s name as a possible change agent. "Nobody's smarter or worked with it more deeply than him," Mr. Kellner said. Many of the other names that have been batted about come from within the M.T.A., chief among them hard-charging Thomas Prendergast, head of New York City Transit, and Helena Williams, the L.I.R.R. president who has served as interim chair in the past. Mr. Kabak points out that a dark horse is always possible. "Jay was pretty firmly ensconced in London when they picked him, so you never know," he said.

Meanwhile, State Senator Lee Zeldin of Long Island laid out a 10-point to-do list in The Post on Monday, which included capping agency managers’ compensation, selling real estate and pursuing public-private partnerships. Other reform agendas have begun to emerge, as well. The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor once charged with rescuing the M.T.A. in the 1980s, told The Observer that the idea that the authority needs to be torn down and rebuilt was “dumb as shit.” Instead, it’s a matter of approach. “It all depends on what you define as broken,” Mr. Ravitch said. “The M.T.A. isn’t broken. It’s just facing a lot of challenges, and it will always face a lot of challenges. In a way, that’s how it was set up.”

So how can the governor tackle those challenges, many of which are fiscal? The M.T.A. faces a $9 billion hole in its five-year capital budget that must be addressed by the start of next year. Between now and then, the agency must negotiate a new contract with the union representing most of its workers. Both will be expensive propositions, and while the Cuomo administration has shown an ability to broker compromise in the Legislature, taxes or any other revenue increases have been antithetical to that platform—that balanced budget allowed the millionaire’s tax to expire at the same time it cut $100 million from the M.T.A. Gay marriage is free, mass transit is not.

"The message from Andrew has been that revenues are hard to come by," Mr. Brodsky said.

The first indication of the governor's position, barring an unexpected address on a mass transit revolution, will come from who he appoints to run the agency. "Some governors want to be hands on and in control and take credit and blame for whatever happens at the M.T.A," Mr. Ravitch said. "Other people are delighted to have someone who is a reputable, well-regarded professional and independent."

Still, the governor is on a political roll. “It has wetted his appetite for more victories,” said one Democratic operative, who said that in addition to Medicaid and the Port Authority, the administration is looking very closely at the M.T.A. for an overhaul. “It would be quite the feather in his cap.”

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Congress: Proof the world is drifting right: NJ Rep. Scott Garrett is mainstream. [Raymond Hernandez]

2012: "Maybe I'm going to do the tax returns when Obama does his birth certificate...I'd love to give my tax returns.  I may tie my tax returns into Obama's birth certificate." [George Stephanopoulos]

2012: Trump is odd, eccentric, relenting, possibly untruthy. "Such a man cannot become President." [Richard Cohen]

2012: Trump raising money for Manhattan GOP on June 14. [Laura Nahmias]

2012: Trump personifies good things about capitalism. Is "no joke" [David Brooks]

2012: Republicans brace for a Trump candidacy. [AP]

Schumer: He's in China. [Brian Tumulty]

Probing Police: NYPD patrol unit comes under scrutiny. [Kirstan Conley and Chuck Bennett]

State Budget: No bacon; local groups unhappy. [Teri Weaver]

Paying Taxes: Cuomo earned $200,472. Paid full rate of NYC income taxes. [Jimmy Vielkind]

Paying Taxes: Former unpaid Lt. Governor Ravitch has to pay up. [Sam Roberts]

NYC Taxes: "[O]ur property tax is not that high," says Bloomberg. [David Seifman]

Monitoring WFP: Electioneering arm of the party doesn't abide court orders. [Sally Goldenberg]

School Reform: Editors punch back against NYT columnist who noted public school reformers attended private schools. [New York Post]

Prison Closures: All in Cumo's hands.  [Simon Garron-Caine]

Hydrofracking: Schneiderman threatens lawsuit against federal government if study isn't conducted. [Brian Nearing]

Campaign Signs: "[A]n outrage when [politicians] beat the law on technicalities," says Bloomberg. [Adam Lisberg]

Campaign Signs: John Liu gets out of major fine, due to a technicality. [David Seifman]

Bars NYC: A moratorium considered in parts of Brooklyn. [Sumathi Reddy]

Bars NYC: Early reporting on this from Capital New York. [Greg Hanlon]

Threats: Park Slope, a parody of itself. [Hilary Keller]

So why is it so hard to get the public's attention?

"I think the problem is, it's a boring subject," Ravitch said Friday morning at a New York Building Congress breakfast, earning some chuckles from the crowd.

He recalled his time as Citizens Budget Commission chairman.

"When I got to talking about what I was doing at dinner parties," he said of conversations with friends, "they were so bored, they didn't invite me again."

The breakfast speech was part of his effort to round up support for his five-year budgetary reform plan (the Building Congress endorsed it), which allows some borrowing in exchange for new limits on spending and installs a longer-term view in the budget process.

The Assembly incorporated many of his ideas in its budget resolution this week—Ravitch said he was "very pleased" that the chamber supported the reforms—while the Senate rejected them.

Ravitch responded to the criticisms that his plan relies on borrowing, saying that borrowing is always in the budget in one form or another—a key problem that led to the current situation—be it bonding out revenues from tobacco settlements or through other mechanisms. His plan, he argued, would allow a limited amount of borrowing while adding new discipline. 

He also predicted a budget might force itself no later than the start of June, given dwindling cash reserves.

"The state runs out of cash finally and unalterably on June 1," he said. "So I can say with some confidence that there will be a budget by then."

ebrown@observer.com

He was asked about the report, which is set to to call for short-term borrowing in exchange for limits on spending, after speaking at the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association breakfast at Bayard's this morning.

Mr. Ravitch's "discussion of borrowing was taken completely out of context," Paterson told reporters. "What there is, is basically a structure moving forward for borrowing. Because short-term borrowing does take place in government all the time. But there is a limit to how much you can borrow.

"This whole discussion of borrowing is a leak. And it's a leak that is inaccurate. You get what I'm saying? It never said that in the report. Lt. Governor Ravitch never said anything about it, and I never said anything about it. And I'm not going to take any more questions about a leak that is inaccurate."

The governor did acknowledge there would be borrowing in the report.

Mr. Ravitch, who was working on a plan to reform the state’s dismal system of budgeting, needed support—and fast. He wanted Ms. Wylde, a power broker among the Manhattan business set, to corral some of her members for a meeting with Mr. Ravitch. She obliged. “He’s going to try and bring together leadership from around the state, from business, from labor,” Ms. Wylde said, “because there’s no other way to accomplish this.”

In New York, the odds are never great for anyone attempting to easily pass a budget. But they’re particularly daunting now, with Governor David Paterson on the brink and the state $9 billion in the hole. So the pressure is on for Mr. Ravitch, the 76-year-old longtime fiscal lifeguard, who is charged with cleaning up the Capitol. As the state’s political classes consider his ascension in the event of Mr. Paterson’s resignation—the state’s current political obsession—Mr. Ravitch no longer has the luxury of operating behind the scenes. And the key question, which may soon be answered in very public fashion, is whether his idealistic and non-confrontational style can work in the Albany of 2010, where most any attempt at rational policy becomes quickly tangled in a thick web of dysfunction.

Mr. Ravitch’s reputation as a civic rescuer has a long history. Governor Hugh Carey tapped him from the private sector in the 1970s to save the fiscally struggling Urban Development Corporation. During the city’s fiscal crisis in 1975, he worked behind the scenes to avert municipal bankruptcy. He ran the M.T.A. from 1979 to 1983, bringing the beleaguered agency a new flow of revenues and turning it around from an era marked by derailments and track fires. After the stint in government, he helped turn around the Bowery Saving Bank, and occasionally popped up as a reasonable voice in various public fights, be it the battle over a West Side stadium (he opposed it) or the rescue of the M.T.A. in 2008 and 2009.

And until about eight months ago, he seemed content to stick to his life as an occasional adviser in the public sector, spending much of his time serving on the boards of a long list of charities and nonprofits. But Mr. Paterson, seeking to break a deadlock that had gripped the State Senate, pulled Mr. Ravitch back into the limelight, appointing him as lieutenant governor through an untested legal route that was ultimately upheld by the courts.

Spending his time at the top of a particularly troubled Albany administration is most certainly not how Mr. Ravitch imagined the capstone to his career in public service. (“I didn’t sign up for this,” he told Ms. Wylde bluntly, speaking of the complex political context that surrounds him.)
He clearly is no natural politician, nor does he have the appearance or manner typical of the state’s second-highest-ranking official. He speaks with a hoarse voice and takes deep, almost gasplike breaths as he talks. He dives quickly into budget-speak, and often appears tired, closing his eyes for seconds at a time. (His devotees point out he has had these traits for decades, and they proved something of an image problem when he ran, very unsuccessfully, for mayor in 1989.) He is blunt, he swears and he speaks with a candor rarely seen in a politician, espousing sometimes unpopular views without hesitation. At a lengthy talk at N.Y.U. in October, for instance, he advocated for taxing gasoline “much more heavily,” took a swipe at Mayor Bloomberg’s transportation policy and pledged that plans for East River bridge tolls would come back again.

He looks at politics as an idealist, a good-government type who believes— despite all evidence to the contrary—that rational policy is within reach, and he deeply respects the value of public service.

It is a belief shaped decades ago, when the involvement of business leaders became a hallmark of New York City’s aversion to bankruptcy in the 1970s. Well-known civic giants like landlord Lew Rudin and banker Felix Rohatyn, along with labor leaders, became heavily involved in discussions about the city’s fiscal picture. Ultimately, Mr. Rudin and other big-name landlords volunteered to prepay hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes to help bail out the city.

“Dick believes very much in civic engagement, and he thinks to get any major reform actually accomplished in the New York political framework, you need a broad base of understanding and support from business, labor and the major groups,” said Peter Goldmark, a former state budget director in the fiscal crisis. The challenge for Mr. Ravitch is that his notions of we’re-all-in-this-together New York politics are antiquated—forged in a different era. The New York in which high-profile elites stand up as prominent civic participants is no more. The city’s banks and other industries are far more global in their reach than before, less grounded in New York. Further, the dysfunction of Albany is widely believed to be at an all-time high, as the Legislature goes through excruciating pain to pass anything even remotely controversial.

Perhaps the template for Mr. Ravitch’s vision of civic engagement, and the challenges that come with it today, is the commission he led in 2008 to bring new revenue streams to the M.T.A. Mr. Ravitch brought in a collection of business and other leaders—Denis Hughes of New York’s AFL-CIO, the chairman of Con Edison, Kevin Burke, to name a few—with the hope of agreeing on a workable plan that would go through the Legislature without tremendous opposition.

But the plan, which called for bridge tolls along the East River and a new payroll tax, got stuck in the mud of state politics, and was delayed for months amid wrangling in the State Senate. Ultimately, after months of fighting in the Senate, a pared-back version of the plan was passed, giving the M.T.A. enough money for two of the five years it sought (revenues have since fallen short of projections).
“He ended up not really fixing the operating- or the capital-budget problems that the M.T.A. faces,” said Bob Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association. “But are we much better off than we would have been? Absolutely. It gives us close to $2 billion in new revenues”
His latest task, and the one soon to garner attention once it is released this week, is to convince the Legislature and governor to reshape the way the state plans fiscally—to establish long-term stability and order to its checkbook. The situation is indeed dire: There is a $9 billion gap this year, an election year, and larger gaps are projected for next year.

Mr. Ravitch has spent the past few months trying to prepare everyone he can for this next fight—to educate the state’s leaders and legislators about the need for structural reform. Expenses and benefits payments rise faster than revenues, and in a recession that seems bound to linger, that spells catastrophe, with cuts (or new taxes) likely to be needed every year.

He dines with elected officials, meets with labor and business executives to hammer the point home. This week he is unveiling his solution, a five-year fiscal plan that would put in place new controls on its budgeting (the city did this in the 1970s) to keep costs in control.
The plan, according to people familiar with it, would trade short-term borrowing in exchange for long-term controls. This of course will open the door for criticism about continued borrowing and the larger hole it will inevitably create; still, it is hard to see how the paralyzed Legislature, particularly the State Senate, could find agreement anytime soon on how to fill the $9 billion gap.

Just how much influence Mr. Ravitch will have in the coming months depends in large part on Mr. Paterson, and to what extent he is willing to unleash Mr. Ravitch. Thus far, Mr. Paterson seems to have left him in a policy role akin to the well-respected leader of a think tank—allowing him to work on budget issues, but not giving him the tools to implement changes. In terms of budget discussions, his role is unclear.

For instance, when Mr. Ravitch was looking to meet with an organization affected by the state budget earlier this year, the governor’s office called the organization to give a disclaimer. “They said, ‘If you’re going to meet with Dick Ravitch, he does not speak for us,’” an organization official who discussed the issue with the governor’s office said. (In a statement for this article, Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for the governor, said thatMr. Paterson “appreciates Lieutenant Governor Ravitch’s diligent work preparing a plan to help our state government achieve long-term structural budget balance. His proposals deserve due consideration as we move forward toward the final Enacted Budget.” Mr. Ravitch declined to be interviewed, as his fiscal plan was being finalized.)

While some lawmakers, including Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, have called for Mr. Ravitch to take the lead in budget negotiations, others, including State Senators Eric Adams and Carl Kruger, have balked at the concept.

It is the Senate that poses Mr. Ravitch’s greatest challenge, as the chamber, with a slim and poorly unified Democratic majority, has been a ground zero of deadlock on any difficult vote in the past year. With a few influential senators denying the large size of deficits and pushing a do-it-next-year mentality, the prevailing attitude in the chamber is at odds with Mr. Ravitch.

This, he has said, leaves him conflicted. “I’m actually a great believer in Bill Buckley’s view that I’d rather be governed by the first hundred names in the Boston phone book than all the professors at Harvard,” he told a forum at N.Y.U. in October. “I nonetheless think it could be argued that the Senate has extended that principle a little beyond reasonableness. And I can only say that if you believe in democracy, my job is to work with them and to try to persuade them, and I have not given up yet.”

ebrown@observer.com

More from Eliot Brown: Ravitch Offers Albany a Trade: New Budget Limits for Less Pain this Year >

"Given the fiscal and governmental crisis enveloping our state, we at Common Cause/New York have come to the reluctant conclusion that it would be in the best interest of the people of the State of New York for Governor Paterson to step aside as governor," said Executive Director Susan Lerner, in a statement.

"As events have unfolded over the last several weeks, the allegations of abuse of power and criminal conduct by the governor have become the sole focus in Albany, at a time when the undivided attention and full creativity of the state's leaders must be devoted to addressing the state's very grave fiscal crisis."

Common Cause says he should take the "pragmatic, self-sacrificing action" of handing the reins to Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch.

How right he was!

When Client Number Nine resigned in March of 2008, he ceded the state to Governor Number Two, David Paterson, who immediately admitted his own foibles with drugs and women.

Now, with Mr. Paterson facing an uproar of his own, and with the possibility that a third person might finish out this gubernatorial term, we look back at the scandalous line of succession--the mostly-corruptible men who've been only a heartbeat away, and those who might continue the "august tradition of leadership" (as Mr. Spitzer put it) if Mr. Paterson heeds the calls for his resignation.

View the slideshow >

From a statement sent out by Liu's office just minutes after Paterson finished up the press conference at which he announced he would no longer seek reelection:

"We have a $4.1 billion budget deficit to grapple with in New York City and cannot make real progress until the State budget is resolved on time one month from now.  In order for this to happen, we need Governor Paterson to step down now.  Richard Ravitch has an abundance of integrity, experience and creativity.  As Governor, Richard Ravitch would be the person most able to steer clear of politics, bring people together, and bring about a balanced, on-time state budget.

I have stood by my friend and Governor David Paterson until today. David Paterson is a fighter whose commitment to the overall well-being of New Yorkers is without doubt, and deserves our thanks for his service.  Given New York's precarious fiscal situation and the investigation involving the Governor, even if self-imposed, New York should move forward under Governor Ravitch."

Other electeds have been reticent on the topic, and probably will continue to be at least before Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is through with his report. (Both tabloids called for Paterson to step down today.) 

Liu clearly put his call for resignation in the context of the city's budget, hailing Ravitch as a man with integrity.