(p. A19) In Utica, a former industrial hub in upstate New York where the near collapse of manufacturing has made for a scarcity of jobs and a rarity of good news, the announcement in August 2015 that an Austrian chip maker had decided to put down roots in a fabrication plant built by the state was cause for jubilation.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo celebrated with an appearance in Utica, promising $585 million in state funds to cement the public-private partnership, which was to create 1,000 jobs. Some in the crowd wept with emotion.
But last week, after months of delays and mismanagement that culminated in September with federal prosecutors revealing a far-reaching bribery and bid-rigging scheme, state and local officials said that the Austrian chip maker, AMS, had abandoned the project.
The Utica project was merely one chunk of the multibillion-dollar investment with which the Cuomo administration has pledged to seed nanotechnology and high-tech industries in upstate cities starved for economic growth.
. . .
For the state, it seems, the strategy developed by Mr. Kaloyeros and trumpeted by Mr. Cuomo — to lavish hundreds of millions of dollars in state subsidies on corporate partners to create high-tech jobs — is unblemished. Yet the model has come in for repeated criticism from government watchdogs, who say an economic policy that tries to create risky new industries virtually from scratch, and that spends millions in taxpayer dollars to create every new job, is folly.
“We’re incredibly skeptical of the economic logic behind these projects because they’re too expensive,” said John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany, a good-government group. “There is no economic logic to (p. A21) this, really. But there’s a huge political logic to it. The governor desperately needs for this to be a success for his political legacy in New York.”
For the full story, see:
VIVIAN YEE. “How Missteps Doomed Plan for Growth, Foiling Cuomo.” The New York Times (Weds., DEC. 28, 2016): A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 27, 2016, and has the title “How Cuomo’s Signature Economic Growth Project Fell Apart in Utica.”)