Cuomo commissions ignore north country

Large chunks of New York's government and economy are being completely overhauled — without any north country participation.

Another of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's commissions announced this week, and again, absolutely no connection to the north country.

That's zero for three for Mr. Cuomo's much-ballyhooed marquee "teams" or "task forces" that he is using to solve some of the state's problems.

My question is, without any north country voices, will they even be able to hear about the north country's problems?

On Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo's office sent out a news release detailing the members of the Spending and Government Efficiency Commission, which was a government agency that he created to get rid of a bunch of government agencies.

The list included some corporate honchos, a few union leaders and a smattering of others, but, like other prominent task forces, no apparent ties to Jefferson, St. Lawrence and Lewis counties. (My method was to eliminate obvious ones, then put the rest through a Google and newspaper archive search. No hits, as far as I could tell.)

The lack of north country ties for the SAGE commission could be especially troubling for people who are trying to keep the Tug Hill Commission afloat.

As you'll recall, there was a pretty serious fight to keep the Tug Hill Commission around after Mr. Cuomo struck it out of his budget proposal earlier this year.

The commission helps governments and organizations in the region plan, write grants, that sort of thing. It receives about $1 million in state money.

The Tug Hill Commission will have to withstand a challenge from SAGE, which is looking to trim unwanted government agencies by a pretty healthy chunk, and which includes no north country voices.

Before the SAGE snub, there was the Medicaid Redesign Team, announced on Jan. 7, that likewise had no apparent north country ties. This is the same group that ushered in billions in Medicaid cuts.

And it's not like all of these members represent statewide interests — though those exist, like Stephen Acquario, the executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, who, you could argue, has a tangential connection to the north country because he represents a statewide interest.

There's a deputy mayor for New York City. The head of a Long Island hospital. The president of the Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York.

NNY? Nada.

The third example we come across is the Mandate Relief Redesign Team, tasked with finding burdensome state requirements that are weighing down the budgets of municipalities all over the state — I first learned the dirty word "unfunded mandate" when I worked in Ogdensburg.

Alas, no Ogdensburg representation, or any other representation from St. Lawrence, Jefferson or Lewis counties.

Westchester County, New York City, the city of Jamestown, Long Island, Monroe County. All of them got a Cuomo nod, but nothing in our slice of the north country.

Sen. Betty Little, who is from Queensbury, was selected by the Senate GOP majority leader.

Oh, and don't forget about CSNY, which also stands for the Committee to Save New York, an outside group that strongly supports Mr. Cuomo's initiatives. (Much ink has been spilled to establish a firm connection between the group and the governor, to varied success.)

Again, we see very limited north country representation from its board members.

There's Garry Douglas, the president and CEO of the North Country Chamber of Commerce — but that's based in Plattsburgh, a cool 160 miles and a three-hour drive from Watertown.

There's also Robert Simpson, the CEO of CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity. It's a Syracuse-based group, but it also has ties to Watertown; my boss, John B. Johnson Jr., the publisher of this paper, is affiliated with CenterState.

I came across this story because, for the third time, I expectantly opened an email hoping to put a brief in the paper and a note on my blog about some north country tie to one of the governor's most important task forces. So far, we've found none. It's a pattern, and once the legislators become available again (hard to bug people on a holiday) I'll ask them if it's a troubling one.