U.S. Department of Homeland Security

The state economic development agency and the private developers behind Moynihan Station have targeted an unlikely pot of money to help build the proposed $3 billion transit center in midtown west: homeland security dollars.

“This is a logical place for people to invest homeland dollars,” said James Dyer, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist who is representing Vornado Realty Trust and the Related Companies, the two firms that formed a joint venture to redevelop the Farley Post Office into Moynihan Station. “Anytime you have a station carrying more people through it that go through the airports at any one time, you obviously are going to have security concerns.”

The developers paid Mr. Dyer’s firm, Clark & Weinstock, $220,000 in the first half of the year to lobby the Department of Homeland Security as well as other more obvious targets, such as Amtrak and the Department of Transportation, according to federal lobbying records.  read more »

Here's another House race that has turned out to be sneaky-competitive: Republican Rep. Peter King versus Nassau legislator Dave Mejias.

They're debating tonight on Long Island and Mejias's campaign is planning to post a video of the debate on their website tomorrow (barring any tech issues). King and Mejias already debated this morning, to air on Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. on News 12.

What's interesting about this race is that King is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, a posting that was a source of great strength when he first got it, but that has become an asset of more dubious local value since the Dubai-port security deal and the Republican-led cutbacks in anti-terror funding to New York.

But part of the reason New York Democrats haven't made more noise about this race may be that Mejias was an early supporter of Tom Suozzi -- not something that has ingratiated him with the Spitzer-worshiping establishment.

I asked Mejias on the phone earlier he felt that any state Democrats might have continued to hold that against him.

"Like the Democrats inner circle?" he asked. "They may have, but I can't answer for them."

-- Azi Paybarah

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Whenever The Politicker notes all the security-related pork Hillary is bringing home to low-risk Upstate communities, the Senator's defenders argue that the allocations in question are set by federal agencies, not legislative whims, and that all she's doing is announcing them.

Anyway, in her latest announcement of $1.8 million in federal grants -- $82,162 for the Kerhonkson-Accord First Aid Squad, inter alia -- Clinton makes clear the obvious: that she also thinks this is the right way to allocate money from the Department of Homeland Security's budget:  read more »

"This is just the kind of help that our fire departments need as they deal with the challenge of keeping our communities safe, and right now, it is more important than ever that we give them the right resources to do the job," Senator Clinton said, according to the press release.

The Observer has, at the greatest length here, followed Hillary's fight to steer resources from the Department of Homeland Security to rural fire departments and other agencies across New York State, which use them for things like buying pickup trucks and "hardening" the arena that is home to minor-league hockey's Albany River Rats.

The latest round were announced yesterday and, yes, Mumford is a big winner.

Post-Katrina, homeland security is obviously getting a lot of re-thinking. And grants to first responders sound all the more virtuous.

When you think about it, though, the thin, even layer of security spending spread across America looks even worse now. New Orleans, remember, was seen as being among the handful of places at the very highest risk of a catastrophe, because of its levee system. But Louisiana, like upstate New York, like Wyoming, only got its fair share of security money, and the upgrades of the levees proceeded, as has been painfully detailed, at a lesiurely pace.  read more »

So it still seems fair to wonder whether the $176,576 that Hillary has proudly dispatched to Stillwater reflects the best possible use of federal security money.

We weren't sure whether Hillary had abandoned her quest to turn the Department of Homeland Security into an arm of the Hubbardsville Fire Department.

Well, she's still going strong.

In a letter to congressional leaders she sent out today, she cited 9/11 in her fight to preserve the Homeland Security program that issues grants to local fire companies, which, as we reported in December, kind of undermines her, and New York City's, argument that Homeland Security money should be distributed based on risk. (Not to mention that the local agencies use the money to buy pickup trucks and anti-drug gear.)

Her press release helpfully links to a website that tallies hundreds of recent grants. Here's a random sampling:

-$28,350 to Scoresby Hose Hook & Ladder Company No.1 in Ellenville, for "Wellness and Fitness Programs," inter alia.

-$73,267.00 to the East Randolph Fire Company for equipment.  read more »

-$132,864.00 to the Aurelius Fire District in Auburn for equipment and to "modify facilities."

"These resources have enabled fire departments to obtain updated firefighting equipment and improve firefighter training - two activities that are crucial towards ensuring that firefighters carry out their expanded responsibilities in this post-9/11 world," she wrote in the letter to Senate leaders.

In December, we reported on how local politicians spend half their time denouncing the Bush Administration for sending Homeland Security grants to Wyoming, and the other half fighting for equally ridiculous grants for Upstate New York. The money winds up getting spent on things like anti-drug programs and pickup trucks for cash-strapped rural communites very, very low on Al Qaeda's target list.

Ontario County emergency management chief Jeffrey Harloff told us at the time: "If it's the federal government asking me, it is for the intended purpose of W.M.D. incidents and HazMat incidents. In reality, we're going to use it for everyday stuff in our office."

Now, Hillary has always been the master of the rich new field we called "security pork," and her press release yesterday couldn't have demonstrated the contradiction more clearly:

"SENATOR CLINTON ANNOUNCES OVER $2.6 MILLION IN FEDERAL FIREFIGHTER GRANTS FOR NEW YORK AND EXPRESSES SERIOUS CONCERN ABOUT DEVASTATING CUTS TO FIRE ACT IN BUSH'S BUDGET PROPOSAL"

Where are these grants going?

Albany (of course), Cayuga, Chenango, Clinton, Columbia, Erie, Jefferson, Kings, Montgomery, Nassau, Niagara, Onondaga, Oswego, Otsego, Suffolk and Wayne Counties.

We realize Senators see it as their job to fight for pork, but when it comes to the Department of Homeland Security, perhaps New York's representatives would be able to press the case for the city more convincingly if they weren't so busy handing out checks in Otsego County, where the top terror target -- we're not kidding, this is what they told us -- is the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hillary couldn't quite bring herself to say that this is actually anti-terror spending. The best she could do in the press release was, "Every dollar that our local communities receive means extra resources not only to help them fight fires but to help them respond to other emergencies and ensure public safety."  read more »

But perhaps this money could be found somewhere other than the Department of Homeland Security, which we'd (we know, vainly) hoped was busy guarding actual terror targets. Like our city.

So if this is a program that directs federal security money to places like Chenango County (pop. 51,401), we say: Cut away!

Two years ago this week, our country suffered a momentous disaster that ought to have prompted a sha  read more »

After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era, by Steven Brill.  read more »