Whoa! Cuomo: Down the Stretch

SARATOGA SPRINGS — With only hours to go before racing fans stream through the gates at historic Saratoga Racetrack, Governor Cuomo has not RSVP’d to his invitation to attend the 147th running of the Travers Stakes Saturday [as of print time of this paper]. According to an assistant in the Governor’s Invitations office, the invitation was received but is “still under review and a response is still forthcoming.” In July, Concerned Citizens for Saratoga Racing, a committee formed through the Saratoga County Regional Chamber of Commerce, sent the governor an invitation to visit the Saratoga racetrack and see firsthand why it is such a special place. The goal of the invitation was to change the governor’s mind about delaying re-privatization of NYRA for yet another year. In 2012, after several years of declining revenues, a bankruptcy filing and scandals related to excessive withholding of monies on “exotic” wagers, the NYRA board was put under public control by the Legislature and the Governor. According to the legislative findings of the Reorganization board act, “In no later than three years, the state racing franchise shall be returned to private control…” However, at the time these findings were stated, there was no plan set forth to guide how the Reorganization board would be replaced. Fast forward four years. The re-privatization that was supposed to occur in 2015 was delayed for another year as part of the state’s budget legislation, which included the one-year extension of the Reorganization board. In April 2016, a bill for NYRA re-privatization passed in the legislature with bi-partisan support, only to have Governor Cuomo threaten a veto if it was put on his desk. Rather than risk putting NY Thoroughbred racing in limbo, the legislature returned, two days after voting in favor of re-privatization, and quickly passed another bill to keep the existing Reorganization board operational until 2017. Shortly thereafter, the Concerned Citizens for Saratoga Racing was formed by Todd Shimkus, President of the Saratoga County Regional Chamber of Commerce and Maureen Lewi, Chair of the committee. Their movement, #Whoa Cuomo, has garnered a great deal of media attention and captured the interest of local citizens and racing fans from across the region. On Wednesday, August 17, following an appearance at an unrelated event in the Bronx, Governor Cuomo stated that his goal has always been to re-privatize NYRA, “once it got back on solid footing.” However, he added that he feels it is important for the State to continue to have oversight because of the State’s “significant investment” in NYRA. One of the biggest concerns of the Concerned Citizens group is what they call the Reorganization boards’ lack of flexibility and inability to make nimble decisions. Shimkus said that, “While the government may have been able to fix the betting scandal of a few years ago, it is not good at growing the fan base, attracting more people to the track or securing innovative breeding practices.” He added that, “it [the Reorganization board] is not the dynamic, innovative organization that we need to make it [NYRA] more profitable and more sustainable moving forward…. the future of horse racing is in jeopardy as long as it remains under government control.” Maureen Lewi, Chair of Concerned Citizens, agreed with Shimkus’ statements and added that, “While we think the current administration is doing a great job, we feel that, from a competitive standpoint, we must go forward with track improvements and other long- range plans. But, this board can’t do that. We also feel that, if you make an agreement, you should stick to it. The Governor wants to change the agreement!” Bennett Liebman, Interim Director of the Government Law Center at Albany Law School, founder of the Saratoga Institute on Equine Racing and Gaming Law, the foremost authority on racing law and racing history in New York and, until recently, an advisor to Governor Cuomo, is basically disgusted with the entire goings on, both at the Governor’s office and in the offices of the Concerned Citizens group. As a panel member at the Equine Racing’s August 9 conference, he questioned why the Concerned Citizens group is in such a hurry to dismantle the reorganization board if business is so good in Saratoga as a result of the board’s work. He also disagreed with the Concerned Citizen’s assertion that the current board is incapable of long-term strategic planning and noted that the current board, “Has done as much, if not more long-term planning than any previous NYRA board.” He called the argument a red-herring or, in this case, “An equine wild goose chase.” Liebman also criticized Governor Cuomo for not re-privatizing the board in 2016, when it had, in fact, achieved its goals of returning NYRA to profitability and improving horse racing conditions and safety at the track. He also chastised Cuomo for trying to change another part of the agreement, which allocates a pre-designated percentage of VLT revenues to NYRA for use in capital improvements, purses, and breeding. Cuomo wants to cap the amount of VLT revenues going to NYRA and funnel the amounts in excess of the cap to the state education fund. This is another major bone of contention for the Concerned Citizens, and Liebman stated that, while the funds for education may be necessary and important, that doesn’t justify changing the terms of the agreement. So, the horse-wrangling continues and probably will right up until the horses are in the starting gate. Even if the Governor agrees at the last minute to accept the Concerned Citizens’ gracious invitation, it remains to be seen whether his presence here will precipitate any game-changing epiphany on his part that would cause him to change his strategy down the home stretch.