New York state editorial roundup: NY’s fiscal future, Buffalo stadium deal, pot licensing | Editorial

Assembly Dems want billions for child care, universal pre-K, tuition assistance and other goodies. The Senate, too, would hemorrhage cash: $250 million for pre-K, millions more for higher ed, $278 million to expand home-care eligibility …

Both chambers aim to boost minimum wages for home-care workers to $22.50 from $13.20, at a cost of as much as $2.5 billion a year. Lawmakers even set aside millions for longer inmate phone calls and to extend the state Earned Income Tax Credit to people who lack Social Security numbers (illegal immigrants, that is). The parties were reportedly still at least $9 billion apart over the weekend.

Meanwhile, despite their newfound cash, they did virtually zilch to ease New Yorkers’ tax burden, the nation’s heaviest. Likewise, despite the struggle of restaurant and bar owners to recover from lockdowns, the Legislature omits provisions to let them sell booze to go (much to the liquor-store lobby’s delight, no doubt).

No, the gov isn’t going to lower her recklessly high opening bid for budget talks, but she shouldn’t approve one dime more demanded by lawmakers. Nor should she agree to any deal that doesn’t fully fix the state’s disastrous criminal-justice laws or renew mayoral control. And if she and lawmakers can’t reach a responsible deal by April 1, let them keep talking: Better no deal than one that destroys the state.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and the owners of the Buffalo Bills are negotiating a deal for a new $1.35 billion open-air stadium to replace Highmark Stadium in suburban Orchard Park.

Last week, the New York Post reported taxpayers could be on the hook for as much as $1 billion. If true, that would be the richest public stadium subsidy in history, eclipsing the $750 million taxpayer subsidy for the NFL Raiders’ $1.9 billion stadium in Las Vegas.

A spokesperson for the governor said reports of any details are premature and stadium negotiations are ongoing.

That gives us an opening to urge Hochul to drive a hard bargain with the billionaire owner of the Bills, Terry Pegula, on behalf of the state’s overburdened taxpayers.

Pegula has threatened to move the team out of Buffalo if he doesn’t get enough public funding for the new stadium. New York should call his bluff. Taxpayers should not be bullied into bailing out the team’s uber-rich owner and the uber-uber-uber-rich National Football League.

A new stadium would make them even richer. Yet study after study shows the public reaps extraordinarily little benefit from stadium construction. This is especially true for a football stadium, which is only used for eight to 10 home games and the occasional concert.

Beyond money, intangibles are at stake. The Bills are a core part of Buffalo’s identity. The city’s pro football history goes back to the first incarnation of the NFL in 1920 and formation of the rival American Football League in 1959. Plus, with the Jets and Giants playing their home games in New Jersey, the Bills are the only NFL team to actually compete within the boundaries of New York state.

Hochul and state legislators will have some explaining to do to voters if they give away the store to the billionaire owner of an NFL team.

— Advance Media New York

New York leaders are well-intentioned in their desire to ensure that the people and communities that have suffered from the racially unbalanced enforcement of marijuana laws are the first to reap the benefits of legalization.

No fair person would deny that people of color have been disproportionately searched, arrested and prosecuted over the years in the war on drugs in general and marijuana in particular. An analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union of data from 2010 to 2018 found Black people were, on average, 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for possession than white people, despite similar usage rates, and more than 2.6 times more likely in New York.

In its effort to right those wrongs, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration has proposed to give first priority for dispensary licenses to people with a record of marijuana offenses, or who have a close family member with such a record, and who also have experience successfully running a small business.

Again, we get the intent here. Who has been more affected by the war on marijuana — a war that, remember, is all but over now that adult recreational use, cultivation and sales have been legalized in New York — than people who have been arrested over the years? And since the state obviously can’t hand out retail licenses to every person who has ever been arrested for a low-level marijuana offense, some kind of proven business experience seems logical.

We’ll put aside the knee-jerk reaction of politicians who portray this as some wild soft-on-crime idea, a simplistic view that fails to see the need to somehow compensate people who were on the receiving end of racially disproportionate enforcement.

But the plan needs work. It requires a close look at the original offenses to ensure that people weren’t involved in violent or other serious crimes. And it should not reward people who weren’t harmed long-term, nor penalizing those who were.