...we're the ones subsidizing you, the way the "Blue States" subsidize the "Red" ones.
May 2, 2003
Notion of a 51st State Comes Around Again
By NICHOLE M. CHRISTIAN
Message to Albany: Get your act together or you may be looking at the 51st state.
That would be the city formerly known as New York, N.Y.
City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. has introduced a bill to explore the city's secession from the state. He says it offers the city a way to become less dependent on a state that takes $3.5 billion more each year from taxpayers than it returns.
The quixotic notion got a hearing before a City Council committee yesterday. Several speakers addressed Mr. Vallone's bill, which would create a commission that would examine secession and decide whether to hold a referendum on the matter.
"Every day Albany gives us another reason to just go our way," Mr. Vallone said. The latest example, he said, is the budget being drafted in Albany, which he called "another sham."
"They're giving us the ability to increase taxes on New York City residents at a time when we already pay too much in taxes."
The bill calls for the commission to study the idea for two years, then pass it on to voters. From there, state legislators would have to vote on passing it on to Washington.
Not that it has much of a shot at even getting through the City Council. "I don't think anyone takes it as a serious effort or solution," said Councilman Bill Perkins of Manhattan, chairman of the Governmental Operations Committee, where the bill was introduced.
Still, for years there has been a certain allure to the idea of going it alone. The writers Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin based a campaign for mayor around it 34 years ago. And a threat of secession by Staten Island residents in 1993 caused such a political stir that it played a key role in the election of Rudolph W. Giuliani as mayor, the closure of the Fresh Kills landfill, the elimination of fares on the Staten Island Ferry and the construction of a minor-league stadium in the borough.
"It's not surprising that the notion of secession from the state has surfaced again," said Ronnie Lowenstein of the Independent Budget Office. "There is a fundamental mismatch between the city's fiscal structure and our level of fiscal autonomy."
MariSol Rodriguez, director of New York City affairs for the Partnership for New York City, said the city subsidizes the state on transit financing alone by $325 million.
Joseph Conway, a spokesman for Gov. George E. Pataki, stopped short of calling Mr. Vallone's effort a waste of time. "We should be serious about our response to this crisis," Mr. Conway said, "and we ought to be working as partners."
Mr. Vallone insists that he is quite serious. "It's a long, difficult road and it's not the safest political idea," he said, "but there are a lot who are frustrated enough to make this happen." And what would this new state be called? Gotham surfaced as one idea. "I kind of like keeping the old name New York State and making the other state change its name," Mr. Vallone said. "We have a bigger police force."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-2945.html
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