Andrew Cuomo Has Secret Meeting With Shelly Silver

THE HUFFINGTON POST

HOW CAN THIS MEETING BE SECRET IF EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT??????

First Posted: 11-29-10 03:11 PM   |   Updated: 11-29-10 03:11 PM

Andrew Cuomo's gubernatorial campaign was all about cleaning up Albany. Therefore, the governor-elect is apparently trying to make nice with a man who could be his most powerful ally in the fight for cleanliness in the state capital: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
The New York Post's Fred Dicker reports that Cuomo had an "unannounced 2½-hour-long powwow in Cuomo's office late last week" with Silver in hopes the two political powerhouses could work together instead of butt heads.
Dicker quotes an unnamed source close to Silver who says, "Shelly wants to have good relations with the new governor. He's into peacemaking. He's not happy about what's gone on in the past and wants a new model for how things can get done."
Dicker notes that Silver has "stymied governors' agendas for the past 15 years." The meeting between the two political heavyweights was designed to help avoid confrontations in the future.
In August, Silver warned that he was tired of "dictator governors," including George Pataki, Eliot Spitzer, and current governor David Paterson.
In response, Paterson's spokesperson Morgan Hook said, "the governor is frustrated too, frustrated that the speaker would not work with him to get real ethics reform, a property tax cap, giving New York's higher education system independence and fixing a broken economic development program that uses the state's hydro-electric power."

j