Anthony Brindisi on WIBX First News With Keeler In The Morning

Bill Keeler opened up the interview with Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi by seguing from a story about a child custody case in New Jersey where a man, who has named his son Adolf Hitler Campbell, showed up to a custody hearing dressed in Hitler-esque garb.

Keeler asked Brindisi what he thought about the case from the perspective of an attorney, although Brindisi was not familiar with the specifics of the case.

Brindisi said he has not spent much time in Family Court, but it is much like the environment in Albany, where things tend to get a little crazy. He said with only a few weeks left in the session everyone is trying to get their bills passed.

Brindisi Discusses the Oneida Indian Nation agreement and Tax Free New York

Brindisi says that he is willing to put up the Oneida Indian Nation agreement up for a vote in the Assembly, and sponsor the bill, but has not yet received any bill language from the Governor yet.  He said he does not yet know if it will be part of a gaming package or a separate bill.  He says either way he supports the agreement and will support it when it comes up for a vote.

When Keeler asks him about "Tax Free New York," and whether it is a reaction by Governor Andrew Cuomo to divert attention from Second Amendment issues that have forced the Governor's poll numbers to go down, Brindisi says the Governor recognizes that the economy of upstate New York has been hurting for some time and a bold initiative is needed to spur the economy.  He says "Tax Free New York" has been talked about for some time, maybe not publicly but definitely behind the scenes.

He says it was designed with places like SUNY-IT in mind, marketing the campuses to nanotechnology companies outside the state.  He cites the example of GlobalFoundries in Malta.  He said the state put about a billion dollars into that venture and there was a lot of controversy about that.  He says the state has to creatively lure large manufacturers to the area.

Downstate may feel like the scales are being tipped one way.  Brindisi says that some of his colleagues downstate are not happy with the initiative, which is really targeted toward upsate, although CUNY campuses can apply just as well as SUNY campuses.  He said that the unemployment numbers upstate show that the area is "far behind the rest of the state" in job growth.  The manufacturing jobs that were lost have never really been replaced, he says, and having more people pumping money into the economy upstate is a good thing.

Brindisi talks about the Utica Police Department's Facebook page

Anthony Brindisi says he believes that the city of Utica should have a Facebook page.  The comments can get out of hand.  He said the comments need to be prevented or monitored.

He says that "we need some social media platform for the Utica Police Department."  As an attorney he says the mugshots may be damaging but it is public information.  He says some people are small-minded.  The nature of the page invites some charged comments.  It should be used for information sharing; instead there are some "knuckleheads" who are using it for bad.

Regarding the Oneida Indian agreement he expects that the Governor will come up with something before the end of the session.  "It's really on his timetables at this point in time."  The only thing left ow on the state level is to have the legislature approve it.  Then it has to go to the Department of the Interior.