Earlier today, State University of New York Board Chairman Carl Hayden of Elmira announced the members of the search committee for a new chancellor. Seventeen people have been appointed to the committee, with an 18th member to be announced soon, he said. The panel is seeking a chancellor to replace John Ryan, who resigned this spring.

There is a sense of urgency about filling the $350,000-per-year position, Hayden said, “but at the same time we will take the time to do the job that is expected of us.”

The committee includes several trustees, SUNY college presidents, a professor, president of the Faculty Senate, members of the private sector and others. The high caliber of the committee members shows that SUNY has a “seriousness of purpose” in its search, Hayden said.

SUNY has hired the Boston-based executive search firm Isaacson, Miller to assist the committee.

John Clark has been serving as interim chancellor until a new person is appointed.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s said today that they will fight a motion Monday by a major real-estate appraiser to dismiss Cuomo’s lawsuit that alleges the company colluded with banks to inflate the value of homes.
Last month, Cuomo filed a lawsuit that claims eAppraiseIT, a subsidiary of First American Corp., “caved to pressure” from Washington Mutual Inc. to use appraisers who allegedly inflated home appraisals. Washington Mutual, the nation’s largest savings and loan, has since suspended its relationship with the company.
But First American Corp. is seeking to throw out the lawsuit in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Cuomo said the motion should have been filed in state court, where the lawsuit emanated. He also defended the suit.
A statement from Cuomo’s spokesman Jeffrey Lerner states:
“This is a meritless motion made in the wrong court.
“First American’s vain attempts to raise procedural roadblocks should not distract from the damning facts laid out in great detail in the complaint: First American and its subsidiary eAppraiseIT colluded with Washington Mutual to inflate the appraisal values of tens of thousands of homes.
“We intend to move to remand the matter to New York State court, where the case belongs. Attorney General Cuomo will continue to fight appraisal fraud and mortgage fraud on behalf of New York consumers.”

One of the big fights in next year’s state legislative session may be over whether the state is better or worse off after deregulating the electric industry a decade ago.
Today, a report by the energy retailer-backed group Capitol Hill Research Center said that deregulation has helped New York with a broader selection of electric providers and disputed recent reports that deregulation has fueled a huge jump in costs to consumers.
The group says that between 1996 to 2007 in New York, rates for all customers (residential, commercial and industrial) increased by just 1.3 percent, if adjusted for inflation.
It disputes a report in October by the group Power in the Public Interest that found energy prices have soared 18 percent since 1999. That report found that in states with regulated markets, though, the price of electric has declined.
James Watson, director of Capitol Hill Research Center, based in Albany, said the increases can’t be blamed solely on deregulation and that the Power in the Public Interest report is flawed.
“There’s a lot more to this picture than meets the eye,” Watson said. “It’s a far more complicated equation. ”
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Greenburgh, Westchester County, has introduced legislation to end utility deregulation and move it back to a more regulated industry, saying the experiment with deregulation has failed.
He knocked the latest report as being written by “the people who made the money” off deregulation. “They are the owners of the plant,” he said.

According to the Daily Politics, Gov. Spitzer met this morning in Brooklyn behind closed doors with Assembly Democrats and said afterwards that his tense relationship with them in recent months is like a family disagreeing around the dinner table.
“It’s like a family. We have a common world view, deep affection for one another, sometimes we squabble,” Spitzer says in a video clip.
After the bitter battle over drivers’ licenses for immigrants and in January over the selection of a new state comptroller, Spitzer and the Democratic-controlled Assembly may have used the meeting to make nice as the Legislature may return to session next month to deal with a host of unresolved issues.
One way Spitzer could make the Legislature happy may be through pay raises for legislators and judges—a deal that may be struck next month as part of a comprehensive agreement on campaign finance reform and who will oversee the state’s three thoroughbred tracks.
The Daily News reports that Spitzer endorsed the idea of pay raises for legislators in his meeting today.

William Scheuerman is leaving his job as head of United University Professions, which represents 33,000 academic and professional faculty at the State University of New York. He is headed to Maryland, where he will serve as president of the National Labor College as of Dec. 3.

The National Labor College is the only accredited college in the world that is dedicated exclusively to educating union members, leaders, activists and staff. It was founded by the AFL-CIO in 1969 as the George Meany Center for Labor Studies and became the NLC in 1997, the year it became a degree-granting institution.

During his 14-year tenure with UUP, the union’s ranks have grown from 21,000 to 33,000.

“I leave my colleagues at UUP with mixed emotions because working together, UUP has become an extraordinarily successful higher-education union,” Scheuerman said in a statement. “At the same time, I look forward with great enthusiasm to working with (National Labor College Board of Trustees Chairman) John Sweeney to strengthen and grow organized labor by educating the next generation of unionists.”

Originally from Staten Island, Scheuerman has been involved in union leadership since 1978.

  Members of Congress turned out in force last night for a Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee fund-raiser at the old General Mills headquarters building in Rye, Westchester County.

   Democratic Reps. Nita Lowey, Maurice Hinchey, John Hall  and Eliot Engel were among about 75 people who paid $250 to rub elbows with Speaker Shelly Silver and Hudson Valley Assembly Demcrats, including Richard Brodsky, Sandra Galef, Gary Pretlow, Kevin Cahill, Aileen Gunther, George Latimer, Amy Paulin and Mike Spano.

  And speaking of Spanos, Mike’s older brother, Nick, a former Republican state senator and now a lobbyist, was also there.

    The session was one of a series of regional fund-raisers the Democrats hold, in their effort to have an adequate warchest in hopes if expanding their already overwhelming (108-52) majorit in the Assembly.

  The members of Congress have a particular interest in staying on the good side of the Assembly members, since the state Legislature will hold the knife when two more Congressional districts are cut out of New York after the 2010 census. That will bring the state’s total, once at 45, down to 27.

Senate Democrats announced a plan Tuesday to help close a potential $4 billion budget gap. Republicans wasted no time in blasting it.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer is considering raising income taxes on wealthy New Yorkers to help balance his spending plan, which will be released in January.

Activists from around the state who are concerned about the hazards of toxic vapors seeking into homes are forming a group to put pressure on the state to do more about the problem.

The governor announced yesterday that New York City’s subway fare would remain $2 through 2009. It was supposed to increase next year but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget forecasts improved and have made that unnecessary.

Spitzer was in Binghamton yesterday to announce a $1 million state grant to redevelop an abandoned brownfield site (meaning it is contaminated) into a business park.

The governor was supposed to head to Oneonta following his trip to Binghamton. He couldn’t land and his flight was diverted downstate, according to his office. A single-engine plane headed out of Binghamton to Albany late yesterday afternoon crashed, killing the pilot. At first there were concerns it could be related to the governor’s visit, but it was not.

A Rand Corporation study released yesterday found that whites and minorities have about an equal chance of getting stopped by police in New York City, but minorities are more likely to be frisked, arrested and issued summonses.

State Homeland Security Chief Michael Balboni, a former GOP senator from Nassau County, thanked Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings and city Police Chief James Tuffey for police’s quick response in an accident he got into this morning in the city. He got off I-90 because traffic was backed up and was the victim of a hit-and-run driver on Washington Avenue, he said. Balboni was not injured. Albany police were still seeking the other driver Tuesday afternoon, according to Detective James Miller, a spokesman for the department.

The three men were talking before a press conference to announce that Albany, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties would share a $3.6 million federal grant, plus a $1.2 million local match, to develop a communications network that will give police and fire officials ability to share information in real time, such as video of a suspect being pursued, coordinate better during catastrophic events and better track sex offenders and parolees. The grant was announced at the State University of New York’s University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.

Also at the event was U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who helped secure the money from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). Schumer, who wrote the original COPS legislation in 1990, said the program has poured $908 million into New York to fund 11,000 police officers on the street. COPS passed in 1994 under President Clinton. It is threatened by lawmakers who think that because crime is down, COPS should be cut or eliminated, Schumer said.

When asked about Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s failed plan to give drivers’ licenses to immigrants, Schumer said he believes immigrants should not be able to use licenses for any federal purpose. He has proposed a Social Security card with a biometric picture and chip that people would need in order to work.

Schumer said he expects the Democrat-led Congress to pass an energy bill by Christmas that would raise mileage standards to 35 miles per gallon, require utilities to vastly increase use of renewable energy, and enact a provision that prohibits price-gouging among oil companies. President Bush, a Republican, doesn’t support all the provisions, the senator said.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Monday announced that accountability contracts had been signed with 55 school districts that received large boosts in state funding this year and have at least one under-performing school.

Advocates for the poor are seeking the first hike in welfare benefits since 1990.

The Utica-Rome area’s state senator is complaining that Spitzer isn’t following through on his plan to promote the region’s economy.

A state senator from Brooklyn is calling for change in how police deal with the mentally ill after New York City cops killed two men with psychiatric illnesses in six days.

School districts are preparing for a court fight over whether the Monroe County executive can take sales tax revenue that normally goes to schools away from them so the county can cover its own deficit.