Food lab for Albany, not Geneva
-
- May
- 6
The state Agriculture Commissioner made it official today: a $40 million state food lab earlier promised to Geneva is going to the Albany region instead.
“By rebuilding the laboratory here in the Capital District, we will be able to provide our existing and talented staff with a state-of-the-art facility that will enable us to better fulfill our responsibility of ensuring a safe food supply for all New Yorkers,’’ Commissioner Patrick Hooker said.
Then-Gov. George Pataki originally promised the structure, which will house about 40 permanent workers, would be built in Geneva next to the Cornell ag lab. But state officials backed down after lab workers complained through their unions that they didn’t want to move.
But Geneva got some serious consolation prizes, the area’s senator, Republican Michael Nozzolio, pointed out today: a total of $25 million in this year’s state budget for a grape-research lab, $4 million for a grape-crushing facility, $6 million for a downtown Geneva campus of Finger Lakes Community College and $5 million for a visitor center.
He said those projects will likely have a bigger economic impact on the region than the state food lab would have had.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 12:28 pm by Jay Gallagher.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
