Casino license fee could cost $1 billion

From: POLITICO New York Playbook PM - Monday Mar 14,2022 08:05 pm

Mar 14, 2022

Presented by CWA District 1

The going rate for a downstate casino license was expected to be $500 million.

But with gambling giants eager to enter the largest untapped market in the nation, the state Senate is proposing to make it a cool $1 billion for a license fee.

The Senate’s one-house budget released on Sunday says that the state Gaming Commission’s siting board “shall determine a licensing fee to be paid by a licensee within thirty days after the award of the license which shall be deposited into the commercial gaming revenue fund; provided however that such licensing fee shall be no less than one billion dollars per license.”

The Assembly’s one-house plan doesn’t include a figure for the coveted licenses, which Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing to make available this year rather than wait until 2023.

All of this will be negotiated as part of the budget for the fiscal year that starts April 1.

Another key change in the Senate proposal could help Resorts World New York in Queens and Empire City in Yonkers win two of the three licenses up for grabs. It includes language that would encourage state regulators to “consider private capital investment made previous to the effective date” of the license.

That means upgrades already made by the two racetracks with video-lottery terminals might be considered as part of the minimum investment required for any license.

Another gaming measure worth noting: mobile sports betting.

With the success of the program — more than $3.5 billion has been bet since it started in New York on Jan. 8 — the Senate plan would increase the eligible vendors to 16, which is about double the number of current operators. The Assembly would go to 14 operators and require 30 percent of them to go to minority-owned businesses.

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HAPPY MONDAY: We hope you had a great weekend, and welcome back to our daily look at the latest news across New York. With the state budget deadline quickly approaching and the Adams administration still in its first months, there’s a lot to discuss.

QUOTE: “She has better cookies.” — Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie on new aspects of budget negotiations with the executive branch under Hochul

From the Capitol

SAVING FOR LATER: Heastie said that no one should “get nervous” that an extension of mayoral control over New York City schools wasn’t included in the chamber’s one-house budget resolution released over the weekend. That and other non-fiscal issues included in Hochul’s January budget proposal — such as permanent cocktails to-go or a ban on fossil fuels in new construction — could be taken up after a budget is passed in March and before session ends in June, he told reporters in the Capitol this afternoon. Heastie said that his conference “just want to put forward a fiscal document.”

“If it was a policy item we pretty much across the board took it off,” he said. — Anna Gronewold

WHERE’S THE GOOD CAUSE? More than a dozen unions wrote a letter to Hochul and legislative leaders today urging them to adopt the so-called Good Cause eviction protections in the state budget after it wasn’t included in the leaders’ budget proposals.

The Good Cause eviction bill, advocates said, would be another way to help renters struggling amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The measure would set standards in law for when

evictions are appropriate, and renters will be protected from unfair practices that seek to evict them through no fault of their own, such as drastic rent increases “that are done for no other reason than forcing these tenants out.”

HEY THERE, FELLOWS: If you aspire to work in government or state government in particular, Hochul announced today that her administration is accepting applications for the 2022 class of Empire State Fellows. Since its inception a decade ago, the program has produced staff who have gone to serve in senior roles in state government.

"As the Empire State, we are proud to welcome the best and the brightest New Yorkers interested in pursuing a career in public service," Hochul said in a statement.

The Empire State Fellows program is a full-time, mid-career fellowship program “that prepares the next generation of New York State policymakers,” and the workers are paired up with high-level officials in a state agency or the Executive Chamber.

The selected candidates serve from September 2022 to September 2024 and earn $76,500 a year. To apply, visit here.

CUOMO UP WITH NEW AD: He’s not going away, or leaving your airwaves. With $16 million in his campaign coffers, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo released his second TV ad today — this one in his own words and highlighting his record. And it sounded like a campaign ad, for sure, even though Cuomo’s spokesperson insists he’s not running for anything this year.

Either way, he’s trying to clear his name in the eyes of the public, and maybe, just maybe, give himself an opening at some point to return to public life. He’s also set to speak Thursday in the Bronx as the guest of former state Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr.

"I've never stopped fighting for New Yorkers, and I never will,” Cuomo says at the end of the ad, which shows a memorable photo of him in the Senate chambers after same-sex marriage passed in June, 2011.

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From City Hall

TIKTOK, YOU DON’T STOP: The Big Apple has a new celebrity TikToker – of sorts. Mayor Eric Adams posted his first TikTok this morning. The video opens with a shot of traffic over the Brooklyn Bridge segueing to NYC’s official flag flying over City Hall.

Inside, Adams is blending his morning smoothie in his nutribullet as Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” plays in the background. “Bing bong New York City! Your mayor’s on TikTok. Let’s get stuff done,” Adams says, mixing the Knicks’ rallying cry with his go-to mayoral mantra. A City Hall aide told POLITICO it was Adams’ idea to join the social media platform and had staff set it up. “He’s been interested in getting on there for a little while so it was self-initiated,” the aide said.

REMEMBERING COVID’S FIRST DEATH: Today marked the second anniversary of the first confirmed Covid-19 fatality in New York City, and Adams said City Hall and borough halls would be lit amber this evening in honor of those who died.

“Today, we mourn the nearly 40,000 New Yorkers who lost their lives because of COVID-19. This pandemic has caused incalculable suffering and pain for our families, friends, and neighbors,” he said in a statement. “As we work to recover and rebuild New York City, we must remember those that we have lost, and carry on their stories.”

LET THE SUNSHINE IN: City Comptroller Brad Lander, who has been choosing his points of disagreement with Adams carefully, took aim at City Hall over what he deems an inadequate approach to transparency. Following POLITICO’s exclusive report this morning that Adams is undoing a voluntary lobbying disclosure, Lander issued a statement criticizing the policy change.

“New Yorkers deserve to know when their elected officials meet with people who seek to influence public policy because transparency is essential to maintaining public trust,” Lander said. “The administration’s decision to forgo regular reporting of high-level meetings with lobbyists is a mistake that may undermine that trust. My office will regularly disclose any meetings that I or my senior staff have with registered lobbyists, as part of our commitment to transparency and accountability.”

Team Adams has argued that the information is available anyway since the City Clerk requires lobbyists to disclose their government meetings — though that database is reliant upon the self-reported meetings of lobbyists rather than public employees. The mayor’s staff also said the de Blasio mandate was duplicative and inconsistent and needed an overhaul. — Sally Goldenberg

On the Beats

LABOR: The Legislature did not include provisions to expand unemployment assistance to workers excluded from state and federal unemployment benefits or measures to replenish the fund the state created to support those workers in the one-house budgets released over the weekend.

The $2.1 billion allocated to the Excluded Workers Fund, created by statute last year to address disparities in access to Covid-19 unemployment insurance, will not be funded in this year’s state budget.

Workers covered by the fund included immigrants, low-wage self-employed workers, domestic workers and day laborers paid off the books. It also covered workers who did not qualify for state unemployment compensation.

According to the Department of Labor, 75,000 workers who were once covered by the fund have been denied due to a lack of funding. Advocates have long called for a change to the state unemployment law to include these workers.

“Excluded workers have called for more than applause. They have demanded that their contributions of billions of dollars to the state of New York, in state and local taxes, be fully recognized. We are devastated that the Senate and Assembly failed to respond to their calls,” said Jirandy Martinez, executive director of the Fund Excluded Workers Coalition.

In a press conference today, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said that providing funding for coverage of excluded workers was not possible. “Some of these things were just beyond us to kind of handle in the budget, so we just left the issue of unemployment unsettled,” said Heastie. — Meghan Brink

EDUCATION: The Board of Regents unanimously re-elected Chancellor Lester Young Jr. to a full three-year term today, a little more than a year after he was elected to finish the term of now-State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa.

Young has been serving as the board’s chancellor since January 2021. He has served as a member of the board since 2008 after more than 50 years working in public education, including in New York City schools.

“I did not come with aspirations for leadership,” Young said during the Regents meeting today. “I came to the board because I wanted to serve and because I believe that the vision of public education had not reached all communities and all children in New York State. And I wanted to do my part to impact that. And I believe that in this short period of time, we've done some of that and we have much more to do.”

Regents also unanimously voted to give Josephine Victoria Finn, the board’s vice chancellor, a full three-year term. Finn was named to the position last year after the departure of T. Andrew Brown, who left the board for the New York State Bar Association. — Michelle Bocanegra

AROUND NEW YORK

— Roughly 168 cops from the NYPD’s Neighborhood Safety Teams were deployed in 28 areas in the city today as part of the anti-gun unit’s phase one.

— A new poll discovered 58 percent of New Yorkers support ending qualified immunity.

— New York City street vendors are hosting a 24-hour sleep-out protest in front of Hochul’s Midtown office to urge the governor to support street vending in the state budget.

— New York lawmakers are pushing back on Hochul’s to-go cocktail plan.

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We're facing crisis level staffing in our healthcare centers. Albany must take action NOW to help our upstate hospitals hit hardest by the pandemic. Learn more.