{"id":8212,"date":"2013-05-29T07:39:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T11:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=8212"},"modified":"2013-05-29T09:27:28","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T13:27:28","slug":"cuomo-administration-gets-tough-with-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/05\/29\/cuomo-administration-gets-tough-with-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuomo administration gets tough with… Canada?!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gov.<\/a>

Cartoonist Marquil<\/a> depicts NY Gov. Cuomo as a War of 1812 re-enactor.<\/p><\/div>\n

Some quarrels are real, some are manufactured by press accounts.<\/p>\n

What, then, are observers to make of a reported dust-up between New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Canada?<\/p>\n

To be specific, this reported quarrel is taking place between representatives of the Cuomo administration and Canadian members of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, a 10-person board<\/a> that runs the Peace Bridge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According the no less than the New York Times, \u00a0“… the administration has all but declared war on a new enemy”. The May 27th article by Danny Hakim<\/a> goes on to say:<\/p>\n

\n

In recent months, Mr. Cuomo\u2019s chief representative to the\u00a0binational agency<\/a>\u00a0that manages the bridge has described his Canadian counterparts, in e-mails he sent to them, as \u201cduplicitous,\u201d criticizing their \u201cdeceitful, disrespectful and arrogant behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that you ask for \u2018mutual respect\u2019 is nothing short of laughable,\u201d the Cuomo representative, William B. Hoyt III, told the Canadians.<\/p>\n

The dispute began over efforts to expand the plaza on the New York side of the bridge, with Canadian members of the authority\u2019s board expressing concern about spending far more for land than its appraised value. Things quickly turned personal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps in response to the NTY coverage, this is starting to pop up in Canadian media accounts too, as in this 5\/28 item from the Vancouver Observer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s an open secret that Andrew Cuomo is being groomed for national office by the Democratic Party, and thus must show off some international-relations chops. He certainly chose a weird way of doing so, and it’ll be difficult for him to come out of this looking good, even if he gets what he wants. “Fighting on the Peace Bridge” is a ready-made attack ad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Epoch Times says a 5-5 deadlock<\/a>\u00a0occurred\u00a0at a meeting last Friday and<\/p>\n

Cuomo\u00a0allies last week proposed legislation in Albany to dissolve the\u00a0Peace\u00a0Bridge\u00a0Authority, saying it is no longer a functioning body.<\/p>\n

The board is scheduled to meet again June 28.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile the NYT reported that last Friday’s meeting \u00a0(presumably the same meeting in question?)<\/p>\n

…the Americans decided to attend an authority board meeting. But when it came time to take the routine step of approving the minutes from an earlier meeting, they refused.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly, all is not\u00a0peaceable\u00a0in that boardroom at present. At least one observer (Matthew Coutts, blogging for the Daily Brew<\/a>)\u00a0opined\u00a0that “…this power struggle could get worse before it gets better.”<\/p>\n

Here’s the take from Buffalo, as expressed in a May 26th column<\/a> by Buffalo News senior Metro columnist Donn Esmonde:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 ideally, what both Cuomo and the bridge authority want would be done yesterday. Talk of a bridge\/plaza redo predates the Internet. We desperately need a consensus-reached, community-vetted plan for a sensible U.S. plaza. But I think Cuomo\u2019s grab-the-reins move is a major miscalculation. It is borne of equal parts arrogance, Cuomo\u2019s unfamiliarity with Canada\u2019s process-devoted culture and an understandable reluctance by Canadian authority members to let an outsider into the engine room. Reaching across the Niagara River is a serious Cuomo overreach. I don\u2019t see where Cuomo has much leverage. In New York, he can rally allies and coerce enemies with threats or rewards. But his juice stops at the Canadian border.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, is this a clash of\u00a0bureaucratic\u00a0cultures? Personalities? Or both?<\/p>\n

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