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Gov. Cuomo plans a top-to-bottom shake-up of the state’s leading economic-development and job-creation agency early in the new year after concluding it is outdated, ineffective and poorly organized, The Post has learned.
The Empire State Development Corp., which hands out billions of dollars in economic-development grants and tax benefits, is “disjointed, dysfunctional — and nobody really is sure on the inside who is responsible for what,’’ said a senior Cuomo administration official.
“ESDC has not even branded itself properly. For many people, ESDC means nothing,’’ the official continued.
A second administration official added, “What the governor wants to do with ESDC is gut the place.’’
Cuomo, in the budget to be presented to the Legislature on Jan. 22, will reorganize the agency into five specialized units, each overseen by an executive vice president.
The new units will be: business attraction; public policy and strategic planning; tourism; overseas exports and international trade; and small business.
James “Jamie’’ Rubin, a former Clinton administration State Department official and husband of journalist Christiane Amanpour whom Cuomo last year named a director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will be executive vice president for exports and international trade.
“The idea is to get ESDC to function like a business, to look like a business and to think like a business with its general purpose being to bring companies to the state of New York and retain the companies we have now,’’ the official said.
ESDC, once known as the Urban Development Corp., will remain under the direction of its current president and CEO, Kenneth Adams, the former head of the state Business Council, who helped develop the reorganization plan.
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Despite Cuomo’s announcement that he’ll make specific proposals to tighten the state’s already tough gun-control laws in his State of the State Address Jan. 9, he may not actually do so.
“It all depends on how negotiations go with the Legislature,’’ said an administration insider.
No agreements on new legislation have yet been reached in negotiations with Senate Republicans, who are demanding tougher sentences for gun crimes and tighter controls over mentally ill people who are dangerous, in exchange for any further restrictions on ownership of firearms. Assembly Democrats are resisting the tougher sentences.
Meanwhile, it was learned that Cuomo didn’t push aggressively for a special legislative session to consider tougher gun-control legislation in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school-shooting massacre because so many lawmakers were away on vacation.
At least two dozen members of the Senate were believed to be outside the state, including more than a dozen Republicans, many of whom own second-home condominiums in Florida.
“None of the members were around to be part of any negotiations,’’ said one insider.
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Newly selected Senate Democratic Conference leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers is being widely described in Democratic circles as an amiable but politically unsophisticated “figurehead’’ who will lack the power to make independent decisions.
“She’s the nice front face for the collective behind her who will actually be running the show, [Senators] Eric Adams, Mike Gianaris, Kevin Parker and a couple of others,’’ said a prominent Democratic official.