Paterson, Tired of Waiting for the Senate, Prepares for a Leaders Meeting

GLENS FALLS—After a conference call with staffers to the state's three top elected leaders broke down Friday, David Paterson dismissed the State Senate's latest plan to rescue the M.T.A. and said he will call a leaders meeting Monday to reach a three-way agreement.

"Apparently there was some—you know—both sides are frustrated and they both want to get it done, and it's been hanging around—we got a whole budget done in the interim," Paterson told me at a rally for newly elected Representative Scott Murphy outside the Crandall Library here.

The Post reported today that it was Paterson's emissaries who broke up the conference call when they learned a bill had been formally introduced; the News reported that it was Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's staffers.

I asked Paterson if Smith's plan, which was formally introduced late Thursday, would serve as the framework for negotiations.

"Well, I still like the Ravitch Plan," Paterson said. "I think that the taxi drivers were hit too hard in that plan, but there were a couple of things in the plan that we might use, and just part of the compromise we are hoping to strike in the next few days."

I asked Paterson if, in light of that, he hoped the plan wouldn't pass.

(People close to Paterson have said the governor was hoping to make the M.T.A. part of his overall rehabilitation. Malcolm Smith has not exactly helped.)

"Well, I am never going to object to a leader of the legislature putting anything for a vote," he said. "That's what I was trying to say—and I did not say anything differently—about marriage equality this week than I said last week. I said at the original press conference, ‘These are the choices of the leaders.' But if he wants to put it out there to see how many votes are for it, that's his prerogative. He's the majority leader. But I do think that we're not going anywhere until we have a bill that both houses pass, and that's what I want to get done this week."

So it won't pass?

"I don't know," Paterson replied. "I honestly don't know."