Speaker Dislikes Pataki-Era Plan On Horse Racing

The Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said he favors tossing aside recommendations made by a Pataki-era committee on who should have exclusive rights to operate the Saratoga Race Course, Belmont Park, and Aqueduct.“I think, fortunately, this governor will have to create a new process to vet people,” Mr. Silver told The New York Sun. “There has to be a new vetting process to determine what to do with the franchise.”Mr. Silver’s position is similar to that of the state Senate’s Republican majority leader, Joseph Bruno, who has suggested combining the best ideas in the proposals that were submitted. Mr. Silver goes a step further by proposing to start the search from scratch. Governor Spitzer has said he is not bound to the committee’s recommendation. In early 2005, Governor Pataki formed the nine-member Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of Racing, which was directed to solicit bids from corporations and associations to run thoroughbred racing in the state for the next two decades. The franchise, which has belonged to the New York Racing Association since 1955, expires at the end of the year.Late last year, the committee recommended by a narrow margin that the state award the franchise to a group called Excelsior Racing Associates, whose partners include the son-in-law of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Stephen Swindal; a casino developer and lobbyist with ties to Mr. Spitzer, Richard Fields; a financier close to Mr. Spitzer who is one of 18 candidates vying to be comptroller, William Mulrow, and a real estate firm, Tishman Speyer.Finishing in a close second place was Empire Racing Associates, a for-profit venture backed by titans in the horse-racing industry: Churchill Downs Inc., Delaware North Companies, Magna Entertainment Corp., the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, and Woodbine Entertainment Group.The New York Racing Association, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November and is suing the state on the claim that it owns the racetrack land, finished a distant third.Mr. Silver mocked the ad hoc committee’s grading system under which the category of “integrity” counted for about a fifth of the evaluation and was assigned a larger weight than “financial viability.”“The other process gave weight to ethics, which was ridiculous,” Mr. Silver said. “If you’re unethical but you bid an extra $1 million, we may take you. But if you’re ethical and bid $1 million less, it doesn’t help you.”Mr. Silver said the New York Racing Association’s bankruptcy filing also complicated the search process.A spokesman for the New York Racing Association, William Nader, said the management group will “need to know its fate regarding the future no later than the middle of the year. If there is going to be a new process, then we have to move quickly.”Setting up a new search process could extricate Albany leaders from an awkward position of having to award the franchise to a bidder with unflattering connections to Messrs. Spitzer and Bruno.Mr. Fields, a principal in Excelsior, is being investigated by the state lobby commission for undercharging Mr. Spitzer for flights on his private jet during last year’s gubernatorial campaign.In January, after taking office, Mr. Spitzer reimbursed Mr. Fields for one of the flights, a July trip to a fund-raiser in Wyoming, because the cost of the trip exceeded the legal contribution limit.There was no record of the flight until the reimbursement appeared in the July 15 filing. A spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer, Christine Anderson, said Mr. Spitzer waited months to reimburse Mr. Fields because the governor hadn’t received an invoice. Mr. Bruno is friendly with Jared Abbruzzese, who recently resigned as partner of Empire Racing Associates. Federal investigators are looking into Mr. Abbruzzese’s business ties to Mr. Bruno, who has steered $500,000 in grants to a technology company in which his friend is a principal.

Speaker Dislikes Pataki-Era Plan On Horse Racing

Speaker Dislikes Pataki-Era Plan On Horse Racing

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