Andrew Cuomo announces details of a deal between New York State and the Saint Regis Mohawk tribe.

Mohawk tribal chiefs are in Albany this afternoon, finalizing a new deal with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on casino exclusivity.

At a press event webcast live from the capitol, the governor and chiefs signed off on settling a long-running dispute over revenues from the Mohawks’ Akwesasne Casino. The tribe had withheld tens of millions of dollars in revenue from the state, claiming the state had allowed infringement on its exclusive rights to casino gambling.

According to a press release from the governor’s office:

Under the agreement, the State will remove the eight-county Saint Regis Mohawk exclusivity zone from the proposed casino-siting legislation, and the Tribe will pay $30 million of payments owed and 25% of future gaming revenues to the State. The agreement also initiates discussions between the State, the Tribe, and local governments to resolve unrelated land claim disputes.

Those eight counties are Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence, and Warren counties. Both St. Lawrence and Essex counties had hoped to win one of three new non-Native casinos proposed by Cuomo.

Officials from St. Lawrence and Franklin counties were on hand for the signing, as was state Sen. Betty Little.

It’s the second such agreement in the last week. The governor inked an agreement with the Oneida Nation, giving the Oneidas a 10-county zone of exclusivity around their Turningstone Casino in Central New York.

The Oneida agreement ended that tribe’s long land claim. But the Mohawk land stands, for now:

The Governor will convene discussions among the State, the Tribe, and St. Lawrence and Franklin Counties to resolve unrelated disputes involving land claims and New York Power Authority issues. The remaining revenue share will be held in escrow pending resolution of these outstanding issues.

Photo: Michael Coghlan, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

This morning, be sure to check out Brian Mann’s conversation with Hudson Headwaters’ Dr. John Rugge about the present and future of the region’s healthcare industry. Change is good, or is it? And how fast? And are we managing that change well enough? With hospitals struggling to adapt to Obamacare, nursing homes being privatized, a chronic shortage of doctors, what does the big picture look like?

New York’s farmers, from apple-growers to milk producers, depend on migrant labor. Lots of those workers are in the country without proper documentation … the so-called “illegals.”  Farmers are hoping immigration reform legislation taking form in Washington will help fix  guest worker programs they say just don’t work.

Is an apology enough for Sheldon Silver? One of his fellow Democrats says no. And will CSX prove the key to a new future at the old General Motors site in Massena?

Ft. Drum Commander Maj. Gen. Stephen Townsend led a contingent from the post to the state Senate yesterday. The Watertown Daily Times reports he delivered a warning that with budget cuts looming for the Department of Defense, the Senators shouldn’t take Ft. Drum’s future in New York for granted. The post’s 19,000 soldiers are still the most-deployed in the Army,  and they and their  20,000 or so family members keep the Jefferson County economy cooking.

From the Glens Falls Post Star: New York Comptroller Tom DiNapoli says Glens Falls isn’t keeping up the pace of job recovery as rest of the state as New York, generally, recovers from the Great Recession. he told a group of business and community leaders: “you’re lagging.” He also had some good news: said municipalities and schools face another year of rising pension costs, but things should level off after that.

And in Albany, The Times Union reports Gov. Cuomo called the state’s sheriffs to the capitol last month and asked them to tone down criticism of the gun control law he pushed through the legislature in January.

Heading for a dead end? Photo: KB35 creative commons, some rights reserved

On Tuesday, we New Yorkers will vote on the future of our education system — the future, that is, measured in a 12-month chunk.

The reality, though, is that we’re in the middle of a cycle that’s much larger than 12 months. For decades, our North Country schools have been shedding kids, with lower and lower enrollment counts. Since the Great Recession, we’ve also been shedding dollars and staff and programs.  Check out my conversation with Martha Foley for a lot of the context.

The question, really, is where this is all leading.

Schools have long been the lifeblood of our region’s communities, shaping much of the local spirit and identity, providing many of the best jobs. They also do the important work of nurturing and preparing our children. So what happens if this enterprise literally goes bankrupt?  What happens if we can’t afford to keep the doors open or the lights on?  Or, more concretely, what happens if we whittle away program after program until the schools are hollow?

These aren’t pure hypotheticals.

More and more mainline educators say the 2% property tax cap, the flatline regional economy, and flat or dropping state aid are pushing schools into a death spiral. Governor Andrew Cuomo has essentially argued that local districts have to live within their means and find creative ways to make this all work. But my sense is that a lot of districts in our region aren’t crying wolf.  They’re out of ideas, out of money, and almost out of time.

So what do you think?  Short of giving schools a blank check, is there a way to make our rural and hyper-rural districts sustainable?

And what are you seeing now in your district?  If you’re a teacher, is the experience you’re providing still a good one?  If you’re a parent, what do you think of the education your child is receiving?

Comments welcome below and don’t forget to vote tomorrow.

Photo: Sander Spolspoel, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

OK – Nora Flaherty’s on vacation, so I make no promises about matching her lively tone here…but there is new this morning, and somebody’s got to do it.

Brian Mann and I sorted through a lot of school budget proposals, and a lot of the challenges North Country schools face, again, this year. There’s flat, or worse, state aid, shrinking school populations and the state cap on property tax increases. Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin is to sign his state’s end-of-life bill. And Matt Richmond reports  on the fine line undocumented farm workers must walk, living “illegally” in New York State. It isn’t a new story, but immigration reform may have some answers.

The Watertown Daily Times has pictures and all from commencement exercises at St. Lawrence University and SUNY Potsdam. Also a report that counties may get the state’s OK to close their old law libraries in favor of offering inmates electronic access to legal materials. It’ll save money, but inmate advocates  worry.

In the Syracuse Post Standard,  Oneida Nation leader Ray Halbritter reflects on the deal he just made with Gov. Cuomo, to share  a quarter of the revenues from the Oniedas’ big Turning Stone Casino with the state. The deal came after Cuomo announced his push for three new non-Native casinos in upstate New York — it also guarantees no one but the Oneidas will be opening a casino in the 10-county region around Turningstone. (Halbritter says he’d never met Andrew Cuomo before, called him “a reasonable man.” But  he recalled the negotiations with Gov. Mario Cuomo that led to the 1988 compact allowing native casinos in New York, “his sleeves were rolled up and he just impressed me as a very hard-working and very respectful person and very much involved in understanding the issues, understanding what was involved.”

President Barack Obama during a meeting in the Oval Office. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Let me say again that I think the trifecta of scandals hovering around the White House warrant serious investigation and a credible probe of the facts.  And it remains unclear where that path will lead.

But as the summer fug settles over Washington DC, I think it’s increasingly clear that — barring new revelations — the political fall-out from the mess will be far less damaging than Republicans and conservatives hope.  Here are six reasons why.

1.  So far, it’s just not playing outside the I Hate Obama community.  Yes, these accusations are serious.  But most Americans don’t seem to be buying the conservative narrative that the jury is in and guilt has already been fixed.  Remember that we’ve been down this road before.  In the 1990s, Republicans thought they had a convincing scandal narrative that would permanently alienate voters from Bill Clinton.  From Whitewater to Lewinsky, they painted a portrait that, in the Rush-Limbaugh-sphere was utterly damning.  Americans didn’t buy it and Clinton had a successful second term.

2.  The Republican narrative is muddled.  There are two completely contradictory stories being told.  The first is that Mr. Obama is a quota candidate, a lazy guy elected for his blackness who has no real qualifications.  He is a bungler, who plays too much golf.   The second narrative is that he is a kind of Machiavellian “Chicago” style manipulator, a tyrannical figure who is using the engines of power to strip Americans of their freedom.  I sometimes hear conservatives make both claims in a single paragraph.  One charge might stick.  Both won’t.

3.  Republicans are letting the crazy show.  Remember back in 2012 when Mitt Romney was being creamed by that horrible video tape that showed him talking down the “47 percent”?  Barack Obama’s team went silent.  They let the story play out, knowing that when the torpedoes are in the water the best thing to do is stay out of the way and hope for a big explosion.  The GOP doesn’t have that kind of discipline.  There’s wild talk of impeachment.  On Fox News people are being compared to Adolph Hitler and Richard Nixon.  Local conservative activist Bob Schulz, from Queensbury, described the IRS as “the largest, most feared terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere,” in an interview with the Glens Falls Post Star.  That kind of stuff makes average Americans think this is just more culture war noise.

4.  Liberals got no place to go.  One reason these last couple of weeks have looked so bad for the White House — and this gets overlooked in a lot of the analysis — is that liberals are furious, too.  The MSNBC and Huffingtonpost chattering class has been frustrated with Obama for years and these scandals, especially the Justice Department’s AP probe, have opened the floodgates.  Which means that people who would normally be defending the president are slapping him around.  But barring ugly new disclosures, that won’t last.

5.  Obama is a tenth-round fighter.  People forget this over and over.  And over.  I hear from my liberal and my conservative friends the same idea, that this president flops or he concedes too early or he won’t get angry or he doesn’t know how to throw a punch.  Yes, this White House is cautious.  Clearly.  But it also has a record of beating down opponents slowly and steadily.  Ask Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Mitt Romney or the opponents of Obamacare or people who didn’t want gays in the military or the people who thought the Solyndra or the Fast and Furious accusations would stick.

6.  The economy is doing pretty well.  This is the biggy.  This is the firewall.  Republicans worked feverishly over the last half decade to convince Americans that this president couldn’t fix the economy and that he would bankrupt us along the way.  America is the next Greece!  But unemployment is down and the stock market is up, and that’s a big contrast with the situation in European countries that embraced austerity.  Meanwhile, the Federal budget deficit is plummeting — shrinking from 10% of GDP at the height of the recession to roughly 2% of GDP by 2015, according to a new Congressional study.  If those numbers keep up, it will be hard for the Republicans to get people excited about Benghazi or about the idea that Obama is a failed president.

So with Obama’s approval rating holding steady at 49%, here’s my prediction.

By mid-summer, barring another big shoe dropping, this round of scandal will be added to the massive pile of resentments that have built up among conservatives.

The right will see this as another “smoking gun” moment that the rest of America — all the “low information” voters — failed to grasp.

But as their 401ks and their home values and their job prospects perk upwards, the rest of the country will have moved on to barbecues and holidays and summer blockbuster movies.

Photo: D Services

So I’m about to go on vacation for two weeks, during which time my In Box shoes will be capably filled by other NCPR newsies. Lots today from our newsroom, including: David Sommerstein puzzles out why low water levels on Lake Ontario mean high water levels on the St. Lawrence; people who live in and around Ogdensburg express major concerns about unemployment if the New York State Office of Mental Health closes the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center there; and an Adirondack company is looking into the possibility of developing a big resort on Loon Lake in Franklin County. And so much more!

Other excitement this morning came out of Canada, as an earthquake that started north of the border was felt by many in our region, including a couple people here in our office in Canton. The Watertown Daily Times reports that the earthquake reached a magnitude of 5.0 after originating northwest of Ottawa (others are saying the magnitude was 5.1 or 5.2.) An aftershock seems to have been felt at least as far down as Syracuse.

WWNY-TV is reporting that the St. Lawrence County jail is overcrowded. NCPR actually reported back in August of last year that the jail, which is just three years old, was already full. Things haven’t improved since then, with 29 inmates having to be housed in jails in Washington and Essex Counties, and some being double-celled. County Sheriff Kevin Wells told WWNY that the conditions are due to several factors, including more drug-related arrests and a backlog of probation department investigations of inmates. The jail’s official capacity is 164 inmates, but the state allows it to house 186 (as it’s currently doing) before it has to move some out.

A planned English school in Ogdensburg for international students is on hold, the Watertown Daily Times is reporting, because owner James Ma hasn’t yet been authorized to do everything he needs to do to get visas for his students. He told the paper there’s not a new opening date yet for the school.

And in the Lewis County village of Lyons Falls, the Valley Brook Drive-In theatre will be open for another season. At the risk of editorializing, I love drive-ins and I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. As the Watertown Daily Times reports today, Valley Brook owner Michael Dekin had been very concerned about whether his theatre would survive the transition to all-digital film distribution that’s been scheduled to take place in September.

This has been a worry for many small theatre owners in the North Country. But Valley Brook and other theatres that haven’t made the (very expensive) transition yet are being given a temporary reprieve, Dekin told the Times, apparently until at least the end of the calendar year. And, Dekin says, the price on the new equipment he’ll have to buy has come down, from about $100,000 to between $51,000 and $64,000.

Assemblyman Vito Lopez, speaking on a bill on the floor of the Assembly. Photo: New York Assembly

Big political news coming down the pike at the moment, as disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez is resigning (soon) and may well be expelled from the legislature. YNN’s Capital Tonight blog reports Lopez says he’ll resign in a month’s time, but Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver says (as do several others) that that’s not enough, and that a resolution to expel him will move forward. Lopez is accused of sexually harassing four legislative aides — the details were made public earlier this week in a report from the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

Political cartoonist Marquil’s comment on the Lopez scandal. More of Marquil’s work

However, just FYI, Lopez hasn’t said he’s resigning because of the icky allegations against him, which have been called “alarming” but seemingly don’t rise to the level of criminal. Rather, it’s because, as he’s already said, he’s running for New York’s City Council, which requires him to resign from the state Assembly. This from the Albany Times-Union, quoting a statement Lopez released just before noon today:

Because the citizens of my district voted me back into office last November by an overwhelming majority, I feel obligated to serve out this session of the Assembly. I therefore announce that as of June 20, 2013, the last day of the session, I resign my position…I expect to run a vigorous campaign on the issues facing the citizens of my community and hope to continue to serve them as a member of the City Council. I believe that the voters of the community should decide who should represent them.

Gov. Cuomo said earlier this week that Lopez should either quit or be expelled, and said that the Assembly’s handling of the situation has been “poor…and terribl[e]” (Silver’s office struck a confidential settlement with two other alleged Lopez staffers for more than $100,000 in taxpayer funds, a deal that some say allowed Lopez to continue his abuse of others.)