Michael Kink Files a Freedom of Information Request For Cuomo Officials and Bigtime Donors

FOI seeks emails between Cuomo aides and donors

BY KEN LOVETT 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Michael Kink

Monday, April 20, 2015, 5:22 AM

Here is an item from my "Albany Insider" column that was cut for space from Monday's editions:

Michael Kink, the executive director of the Strong Economy For All Coalition filed a formal request last week with the Cuomo administration seeking any emails between Cuomo officials and dozens of bigtime donors who are either hedgefund managers or their spouses.

The freedom of information request came Friday on the heels of the latest WikiLeaks of emails showing how top SONY officials sought help with the state's film tax credit program at around the same time they were getting ready to pony up $50,000 to Cuomo's reelection campaign.

Here is the FOI request involving 27 Cuomo administration officials and about three dozen hedgefunders.

Date: Friday, April 17, 2015

Subject: FOIL request

To: records.access@exec.ny.gov

April 17, 2015

Sherry Hwang
FOIL Counsel
Executive Chamber
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224

Subject: FOIL Request

Dear Ms. Hwang:

Under the New York Freedom of Information Law, N.Y. Pub. Off. Law sec. 84 et seq., I am requesting copies of all email correspondence between any and all members of the Executive Chamber listed below in Column A and any and all individuals listed in Column B.

I am requesting copies of all email correspondence between individuals in Column A and Column B for the period Jan. 1, 2012, up to and including April 17, 2015.

Executive Chamber (Column A)

Governor Andrew Cuomo
Secretary to the Gov. William Mulrow
Director of State Operations Jim Malatras
Executive Deputy Secretary to the Gov. Joseph Percoco
Counselor to the Governor Drew Zambelli
Counsel to the Gov. Linda Lacewell
Special Advisor to the Gov. Susan Del Percio
Deputy Director of State Operations for Policy Andrew Kennedy
Deputy Director of State Operations for Administration Matthew Millea
Deputy Director of State Operation for Programs Joseph Rabito
Director of Policy John Maggiore
Counsel to the Gov Alphonso David
First Deputy Counsel Carey Gabay
Assistant Counsel Ali Chaudhry
Assistant Counsel Maureen Coleman
Assistant Counsel John Czajka
Assistant Counsel Nathaniel Dorfman
Assistant Counsel Nadine Fontaine
Assistant Counsel Niall O'Hegarty
Assistant Counsel Cara Palumbo Schrantz
Assistant Counsel Kendra Rubin
Assistant Counsel Sandi Toll
Communications Melissa DeRosa
Press Secretary John Kelly

* Secretary to the Gov. Larry Schwartz

* Director of State Operations Howard Glaser

* Served in Cuomo’s Executive Chamber during the time covered by this retrospective FOIL

Individuals (Column B)

Gregg Hymowitz
James Dinan
Robert Coburn
James Chanos
William Ackerman
Larry Robbins
Toni Sosnoff
Louis Bacon
James Simons
Elizabeth Miller
Carl Icahn
Philip Falcone
Daniel Nir
Daniel Loeb
Kathe Dyson
Paolo Pellegrini
John Petry
Jill Braufman
Jonathan Sandelman
Marc Lasry
Cathy Lasry
Craig Effron
Marilyn Simons
Martin Sosnoff
David Einhorn
John Dyson
Mario Gambelli
Orin Kramer
Brian Olson
Bruce Kovner
Deborah Hymowitz
Jeffrey Altman
Samuel Cole
David Mandelbaum
Glenn Dubin
Leon Wagner
Henry Laufer
Peter May
Paul Tudor Jones

 

If all of the requested records cannot be emailed to me, please inform me by email of the portions that can be emailed and advise me of the cost for reproducing the remainder of the records requested ($0.25 per page or actual cost of reproduction).

If the requested records cannot be emailed to me due to the volume of records identified in response to my request, please advise me of the actual cost of copying all records onto a CD, hard drive or zip drive.

 If my request is too broad or does not reasonably describe the records, please contact me via email so that I may clarify my request, and when appropriate inform me of the manner in which records are filed, retrieved or generated. 

If it is necessary to modify my request, and an email response is not preferred, please contact me at the following telephone number: 518-xxx-xxxx.

 The New York Freedom of Information Law requires a response time of five business days. If access to the records I am requesting will take longer than this amount of time, please contact me with information about when I might expect copies.

If you deny any or all of this request, please cite each specific exemption you feel justifies the refusal to release the information and notify me of the appeal procedures available to me under the law.

 Thank you for your consideration and prompt attention to this request.

 Sincerely,

MICHAEL KINK, ESQ.
Executive Director
Strong Economy For All Coalition

klovett@nydailynews.com

Gary Stern: The pressure is on NYSUT's Magee

 Harrison's Karen Magee promised to make NYSUT stronger. Now teachers want their new president to stand up to Gov. Cuomo.

LINK



Gary Stern



Harrison's Karen Magee promised to make NYSUT stronger. Now teachers want their new president to stand up to Gov. Cuomo.

"I'm militant."

That's what Harrison's Karen Magee told me a year ago when she was campaigning to be elected president of NYSUT, the state's largest teachers union. She was making a case that NYSUT was perceived as weak, "cowering in the corner," and that she would reassert the union's position with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Education Department.

Magee now gets the chance to show how militant she can be.

As the new legislative session gets rolling this week, many rank-and-file public school teachers feel like they are under attack. Cuomo has promised to break the public school monopoly – which sure sounds like code for "unions." He wants to tighten the screws on New York's much-loathed teacher evaluation system as a way to get rid of "bad teachers." His recent comment that teachers "found guilty of sexually abusing students" are still in classrooms has drawn a furious response from teachers on social media.

Magee told me this week that NYSUT is prepared to fight back.

"My membership has been galvanized over the governor's comments," she said. "Nothing is off the table."

She was short on details but implied that big things are coming. I think New York State United Teachers wanted to give the governor a chance to bury his dad. But make no mistake: Teachers want to know NYSUT's battle plans.

Karen Magee of Harrison, president of New York State United Teachers, speaking in June.(Photo: Mike Groll/AP)

On the defensive

Magee was elected president in April, unseating incumbent Richard Iannuzzi. She had served as head of the Harrison Association of Teachers for 11 years and was one of the most visible labor leaders in the Lower Hudson Valley. After a falling out between Iannuzzi and his second-in-command, Andy Pallotta, Magee wound up atop Pallotta's breakaway ticket.

If you talk to 10 teachers, you'll get at least seven or eight different views on NYSUT's leadership. Some want traditional, tough labor leadership while others might prefer a more flexible, white-collarish approach. NYSUT has 600,000 highly educated people to keep happy.

Today, though, there is a real concern among not only teachers but many school leaders and parents that Cuomo is pushing the vision of anti-union, hedge fund guys who see charter schools as the answer to "fixing" schools.

"The real audience is those who want to privatize public education and will gain profits from doing so," Magee said.

Magee took office hoping to work with Cuomo to rewrite New York's teacher evaluation system. NYSUT's main complaint was that some teachers are graded, in part, on student test scores. It looked like Magee scored an early victory when Cuomo proposed a two-year "safety net" that would prevent teachers from being fired directly as a result of test scores.

Then Cuomo vetoed his own bill. Many predicted he would do so when NYSUT did not endorse his re-election.

Losing ground

Now Cuomo wants to toughen the evaluation system so that poor teachers can be more easily identified and dismissed. Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch has volunteered how he can do so – in part by doubling the weight of student test scores in some teachers' evaluations. This is the exact opposite of what NYSUT and many teachers want.

NYSUT supporters protest outside Gov. Cuomo's New Year's Eve Open House at the Executive Mansion in Albany. The teachers union was upset with Cuomo's decision to veto legislation that would delay teacher evaluations based on Common Core tests for two years.(Photo: CONTRIBUTED/Mike Deely)

Such a move would have a gloomy effect on the morale of many quality suburban teachers who already think the evaluation system is a time-killing sham.

When it comes to getting rid of abusive teachers, New York has gotten much better results since reforming its previously infamous hearing process in 2012. New York City's "rubber room" cases, always the focus of the problem, have declined sharply.

"Either the governor doesn't understand that he was part of (reforming) the process or he made a sensational comment just to be sensational," Magee said. "No one has an interest in protecting someone who wants to harm a student."

Though Cuomo is fired up about teacher evaluations, he hasn't proposed one potentially responsible way to remove ineffective teachers: a system of renewable tenure. Many school district officials would like to hear it discussed.

Magee led a demonstration on New Year's Day outside the Executive Mansion in Albany, using a megaphone to yell at Cuomo inside. She may need to tap a bit more militancy if she's going to give teachers a voice on New York's rapidly changing educational landscape.

Twitter: @garysternNY