Monday, February 26, 2018

Power play

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Daily Point

Will Cuomo deliver a new home for the Isles?

After Barclays Center chief executive Brett Yormark cast doubt in a TV interview about whether a New York Islanders arena will ever be built at Belmont Park, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office was quick to push back Monday.

Tina Cervasio of WNYW/5’s “Sports Xtra” asked Yormark on Sunday night what happened to change the Islanders’ arrangement at the Barclays Center.

“Obviously, they’re looking to build their own venue,” he said. “Not sure that ever happens, but if it does, I wish them well.”

In an interview with The Point, Yormark clarified his comments by pointing to his own experience building the Barclays Center, which took eight years.

“It’s very challenging to get something done in this market,” Yormark said. “I lived through it with respect to Barclays Center.”

But state officials assured The Point Monday that Belmont is on track to open after the Islanders spend another three seasons in a combination of Brooklyn and Uniondale.

In perhaps his most controversial comments, which caught the ire of Islanders’ fans on social media, Yormark told Cervasio that the Islanders “were like a rent-a-team.”

“From the get-go, this was a challenging move,” Yormark said Monday. “Embracing the core fan and trying to grow a new fan base at the same time is fundamentally challenging. That being said, I feel had the Islanders truly embraced the move to Brooklyn in every respect, it might have been different.”

That might have included open practices and programs in the community, Yormark said.

An Islanders spokesman wasn’t immediately available for comment. But other factors have made Barclays a difficult fit for the Islanders, including the fact that the arena wasn’t built for hockey.

Meanwhile, the deal between the Islanders, Barclays and the state to have the Islanders play some games at the Coliseum over the next three years came only after the Islanders and their partners won the bid to build at Belmont, and Cuomo agreed to pay for $6 million in upgrades to the Coliseum.

“We asked that the Islanders play some games at Nassau Coliseum while the new site at Belmont is completed, and we are 100 percent committed to getting it done,” Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever told The Point Monday.

An Empire State Development official told The Point that the environmental review of the redevelopment at Belmont will begin “shortly.” Construction is expected to start in 2019.

State officials said they expect the team to play its first regular season game at Belmont in the 2021-2022 season.

Randi F. Marshall

Talking Point

King of the Hill

City & State’s new power rankings of NYC’s 100 most powerful people are out, and they include Long Islander Peter King.

King is up 9 spots this year at No. 56, the only member of the Long Island congressional delegation to make the list. Also not included: a few members of Congress who actually represent the five boroughs, including Rep. Greg Meeks (parts of Queens and Nassau County) and Republican Rep. Dan Donovan (parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn). Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Nydia Velázquez, Joseph Crowley, and Hakeem Jeffries joined King on the list.

King’s work on terrorism issues and on the Zadroga Act have made him influential over the border in NYC. City & State added the rationale that King has smoothed his relationship with President Donald Trump, and administration officials have visited Long Island regarding MS-13.

“Now can King stop Trump from slashing counterterrorism funding to pay for the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border?” the outlet asks.

Mark Chiusano

Pencil Point

See something, say something

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Quick Points

Are you sure those words mean what you think they do?

• The director of the Long Island Rail Road project to install the crash-prevention positive train control system complained about the federal government’s end-of-year deadline, saying the installation is proceeding without the system having been fully designed and that “with the mandatory deadline, we don’t have the luxury of time.” She has a point. The legislation mandating PTC was passed in 2008, and we know the LIRR can’t get anything done in 10 years.
• Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has collected nearly $900,000 in campaign donations from nearly two dozen people he appointed, despite an executive order apparently barring the practice. Imagine how much he could have raked in if he hadn’t campaigned as a reformer.
• Coming off their country’s outstanding performance at the Winter Olympics, typically modest Norwegians are worried that their dominance of certain sports might kill enthusiasm for those sports in other countries. That’s not something that’s ever bothered Americans.
• Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel says he has shown “amazing” leadership in relation to the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. The only amazing thing is his self-evaluation given the multiple red flags about the shooter his department missed, and the armed deputy on the campus who did not enter the school to confront the shooter.
• After Ivanka Trump landed in South Korea to attend the Olympics’ closing ceremonies, President Donald Trump tweeted that the United States could not have a “better, or smarter” representative. So what does that make his opening ceremonies emissary, Vice President Mike Pence?
• Doctors say the flu finally is waning. But some people still are lethargic and listless. Diagnosis: You’ve got curling withdrawal.

Michael Dobie