Gargano's Bad Week Finally Ends

Gargano: a popular target Charles Gargano must be thankful that this week is finally ending: The Atlantic Yards blunder, Shelly Silver's barbs, and, now, from the other end of the state, The Syracuse Post-Standard uncovering a scheme whereby poor upstate towns sold tax breaks to developers for a fee. State Senator Liz Krueger says Gargano and other appointees to the Empire State Development Corporation, which is in charge of the Empire Zone tax break program, "either lack the most basic understanding of the very laws they are charged with implementing, or worse, they simply do not care." Over the past several weeks, The Post-Standard has painted a bleak picture of the Empire Zone program: "None of the 10 businesses that claimed the biggest property tax refunds for 2003 created more than 20 jobs," the paper reports. The whole investigative series can be found here. - Matthew Schuerman