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Yogurt makers in State of New York: SAVED! Livery cab drivers in the City of New York: Still Waiting to Hear.
I like yogurt.
So news that our Gov. Cuomo, or Conan, or the Governator, or whatever GQ Magazine or others are calling him these days, had single-handedly stepped in to broker peace among warring upstate mayors about a sewage line dispute that might have put the expansion of a Greek yogurt factory at peril was welcome news.
“The whole year, I’ve said we’re trying to change the perception of the State of New York from an anti-business state to a state that’s open for business,” Mr. Cuomo said in a telephone interview Friday reported The New York Times. “The last thing we should be doing is frustrating businesses.”
Hmmm…get the hashtags ready.
Yogurt is #winning.
Yes, why “frustrate” businesses – and all those hungry yogurt-lovers?
Good stuff for the upstate Fulton County, where Fage USA, the yogurt company, will now be able to proceed with its planned $120 million dollar expansion where the unemployment rate registered at 9% in October 2011.
Meanwhile, back downstate, the county with the highest unemployment rate was Bronx County at 12.4%, again in October 2011.
Such a shame that more of the taxistas – the livery cabdrivers struggling to make a living in the Bronx and in neighboring northern Manhattan, in dense urban communities, where un- and under-employment are chronic conditions – don’t register as so precious a commodity for Gov. Cuomo as Greek yogurt.
Instead, Gov. Cuomo has parried, stalled and delayed signing a bill that lingers on his desk that would legalize street hails and legitimize the near half-century work of thousands of men and women who have struggled to make ends meet by establishing accessible transportation in “outer borough” areas that the yellow cab industry wrote off ages ago.
That Gov. Cuomo should, after the legislation had passed both the State Assembly and Senate, after eight months of anxious debate, protesting and rallies, wherein thousands of taxistas amassed on City Hall, in Albany, at the Governor’s midtown offices, now claim, in these last throes, that the bill would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, is appalling.
Handicapped accessibility, and subscription to federal mandates for our fellow citizens who need additional assistance in transportation, is an imperative collective need.
But, in fact, the bill as negotiated – one which would generate as much as $1 billion dollars in revenue for the city – allows for set-asides for handicapped-accessible vehicles. And more can, and should, be done to expand the fleet of cars, both yellow and livery, that would offer service to handicapped residents. There is a talk of a Task Force that would work precisely on issues such as these, directly after the bill is signed.
The notion that Gov. Cuomo, who saw fit to refashion the state’s tax code in less than five days, to shepherd in the legalization of same-sex marriage, and could personally intervene to save Greek yogurt from extinction, can not see his way clear to signing a bill that would legalize the transportation of thousands who are, in their own right, constrained, limited and unable to legally hail a cab because they live in the wrong zip code is intellectually dishonest – and is a myth none of us, particularly any in the “Democratic” camp, should fall prey to.
It is particularly galling to hear tell, as reported in the dailies, weeklies, and the blogs, that the real dispute amounts to little more than a clash of egos between Mayor Bloomberg, who has championed the taxistas’ cause, and the governor, who does not take kindly to not being, well, anything but the “Governator”.
“I am the government,” blustered Gov. Cuomo to New York Post columnist and radio show host Fred Dicker on Nov. 9th. The yogurt deal proved it for me: yes, sir, you are.
So sure, I like the stuff.
Yogurt is a great snack, and healthy to boot.
But I, like many of my fellow residents of the Bronx and northern Manhattan, rely, depend and need taxistas who are willing and able to help me navigate myself, my children, and my family, safely through my days and nights.
Then, to paraphrase the governor, “pardon the inconvenience, but we could work it out one way or the other,” no?
I’ll start.
I’ll give up the creamy stuff – then can I have the legal right to move my children through this city I call home?
Sign the bill, Gov. Cuomo.
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