Over the past few days, I have received several phone calls from people upset and/or confused about automatic "robo" calls they received asking them to call my District Office. I want to correct what I have been advised is misleading information on a recent vote I took on the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) bailout. The implication is that I voted against jobs in the North Country by voting against this bailout.Let's start with terminology. She calls it the "Democrat Assembly Campaign Committee." It's actually the "Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee." She's using the time-honored Limbaugh trick of using the word "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" in titles because political advisers like this guy think the "rat" sound at the end is ugly to voters' ears. It's so seventh grade. Also, "atrocities" is a word that should be reserved for war crimes, or irony, neither of which apply here.
Let me assure you that I have been and will continue to be a supporter of Bombardier, Nova Bus and their subsidiary companies providing subway cars and buses for New York City. My vote against the atrocities in the bailout bill will not affect the ability of these companies to compete on competitive and non-competitive bids for MTA contracts. For the Democrat Assembly Campaign Committee to suggest otherwise via robo calls is disingenuous.
There's a little logic problem, too. I'm sure she has been and will be a supporter of Bombardier and Nova Bus. But how does crippling the agency that purchases subway cars and buses lead to new purchases of such products? It doesn't. Bottom line is, a broke MTA means one less giant customer for the companies' wares. It's dishonest not to admit that.
The really irksome thing about the article, though, was this:
"..the Assembly voted to implement various fees and taxes on the people living within seven counties surrounding New York City to reduce the projected fare increases on city buses, subways and bridges. I hasten to point out that many of the people living and working in these seven counties seldom, if ever, use the various means of transportation in NYC. For instance, less than 2 percent of the MTA's ridership board trains in Orange County."That last statistic is absolutely ludicrous. There are 11 million MTA riders. Using Duprey's number (which I'm skeptical of), two percent of that ridership would mean 220,000 people take the trains from OC on a daily basis. Orange County has an estimated 380,000 people, total. That sounds like a majority of Orange County residents use the train. In any case, those in Orange County who don't take the train benefit from less auto congestion, and cleaner air, thanks to those who do ride the rails.
And while the MTA definitely needs more financial scrutiny, I never heard Duprey in high dudgeon over this $800,000 "transportation" project, which transports nobody anywhere, and which a majority of Clinton County residents, let alone residents of any other county in the state, never uses at all.
There were plenty of honorable ways of defending her vote. Duprey didn't need to resort to cheap shots and head fakes.
