The State of the Upper East Side

East Side pols react to Cuomo"s State of the State address By [Megan Finnegan Bungeroth] Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave his annual State of the State address in Albany, laying out the agenda for his sophomore year in office. While some have said that it will be difficult for the governor to follow his ambitious and productive first year, bringing together the notoriously antagonistic Legislature to achieve marriage equality and delivering an on-time budget, local legislators were impressed with the contents of the address and echoed many of Cuomo"s priorities as their own for the current legislative session. â??The governor hit all the right notes, said Assembly Member Micah Kellner, whose district covers the eastern part of the Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island. â??What stood out to me was his focus on priming the economy and jump-starting job creation, as well as the much-needed focus on replacing New York State"s infrastructure. When you"re talking abut spending $25 billion to replace New York State"s aging infrastructure, it"s long past needed and it"s going to create good jobs's middle-class jobs. That"s what we need right now. One of the more surprising announcements in the address was the plan to build a privately funded mega-convention center in Queens's to be the largest in the country's at the Aqueduct Racetrack site, hopefully bringing a ple thora of jobs and economic stimulation. Conversely, the governor called for a complete redevelopment of the Jacob Javits Center, on the far west side of 34th Street, into a mixed use facility to complement a corresponding redevelopment of the surrounding 18 acres into a Battery Park City-like community. Assembly Member Dan Quart, who represents the western portion of the Upper East Side bordering Central Park and is beginning his first session in the Assembly, praised the governor"s move to extend tenant protections by instating a Tenant Protection Unit as part of the New York State Homes and Community Renewal agency. â??Currently, many tenants are forced to engage in expensive and time-consuming litigation in order to secure their rights, Quart said in an email. â??By actively pursuing landlords who are violating the law, the Tenant Protection Unit will ensure that all tenants are protected, not just those who have the resources to access the court system. Quart also expressed his support for passing the Reproductive Health Act, as did State Sen. Liz Krueger, whose district covers most of the neighborhood, who called it an important piece of legislation for New York women. â??It is controversial, because by definition it seems we live in a world where reproductive health and choice are unfortunately controversial issues, Krueger said. â??The bill is very technical and extensive, but it"s shifting the laws governing reproductive rights from the criminal law. Right now, New York State law simply decriminalizes abortion. Decisions about medical procedures, ending a pregnancy, family planning, should all be in our health code; they shouldn"t have anything to do with our criminal code. Krueger also expressed support for the governor"s call to update the state"s energy delivery system. â??Right now we have an unbelievably antiquated energy grid cutting off our ability to get energy from upstate and Canada, she said. â??We need to be able to move electricity here from lower-cost, less populous areas. While many legislators's Republicans and Democrats alike's have roundly praised the governor"s plan, even his biggest fans point out a few key issues that were left out of his address. â??He did not talk about hydrofracking's that is a critical issue in my district because everyone is opposed, based on the science, said Krueger, referring to the controversial and potentially dangerous process of extracting natural gas from the earth using a highly pressurized chemical mixture known as hydraulic fracturing or hydrofracking. â??It clearly hasn"t been proven to be done in a safe and environmentally conscious way, said Kellner. â??The idea of contaminating water for 19 million New Yorkers is a very scary thing. All of the local politicians said that they"ll be watching the governor closely to see how he implements his grand strategies, but there are high hopes for the state of the state in 2012.