http://www.fox23news.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=e904e2ee-13f3-4d7c-94b3-73fb57bb36be
Bruno Calls on Governor, Speaker for More Racing Negotiations
by: Walt McClure
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Now that the holiday is over, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno wants Governor Spitzer and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to come back to the table to reach a permanent deal on the state racing franchise.
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Actual developments on a permanent deal were hard to come by Wednesday, but the governor's staff and the legislative staffs were set to meet to see if they could iron things out.
Surprisingly, Senator Bruno says he and the governor are closer to seeing eye to eye than the Assembly speaker is with either of them.
Sen. Joseph Bruno/R-Majority Leader: We have the opportunity of a lifetime to fix it through the next...permanently.
But Senator Joe Bruno says that cannot happen without face to face meetings -- preferably in public -- to negotiate differences over an agreement to give NYRA the state racing franchise for possibly another 30 years.
Bruno says there is a lot of uncertainty for the people whose livelihoods come from racing -- and he believes that NYRA and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are the most to blame for that.
Sen. Joseph Bruno: They're not as optimistic because they're hanging out over a couple of issues a few issues that we think are important but they're not deal breakers.
Sen. Joseph Bruno: We can fix it now and fixing it now doesn't mean rubber-stamping the status quo that has created the situation that presently exists.
A spokesman for Speaker Silver tells me that the issues Senator Bruno is bringing up now are things the speaker has been pushing for from the beginning -- and that it was Bruno who was holding up progress in negotiations until he backed off on some of his positions.
The spokesman also says there will be no announcement on an agreement until a bill is written and the public can see exactly what has been agreed upon.
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Any speculation as to what Bruno is trying to accomplish in a high-level public meeting? Based on Bruno's recent rhetoric, why should Spitzer and Silver view this as anything other than a way to provide Bruno with a forum to berate them with no guarantee that any progress will actually occur?
