ALBANY
Talk about false advertising. The Public Authorities Control Board - the group that could give the final word on a proposal for a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan - is grossly misnamed. It's barely public. It barely controls the authorities, those secretive entities that borrow billions of dollars each year to do all kinds of things around the state.
And, it's not a board, not really. It's a surrogate board, a kind of phantom whose board members name representatives, who then mostly send aides to do publicly what has already been done secretly. So instead of being called the Public Authorities Control Board, it should probably be called the Public Authorities Control Cardboard.
Take last Wednesday's regular monthly meeting, when the stadium was supposed to be considered but was not. One of the real powers on the board - Joseph Bruno, the Senate majority leader - had decided the stadium issue wasn't ripe, so the matter was jerked from the agenda.
That was the same agenda that became public exactly 11 minutes before the meeting started. That is normal, as any regular observer can attest, even early.
But Wednesday's session was unusual in one aspect. It drew a crowd, in part because a lot of people are now curious about this important little cog in Albany's mysterious government apparatus. So, the board - or, really, the pretend board that represents Mr. Bruno, Gov. George Pataki and the House speaker, Sheldon Silver - took a little longer than the usual 10 minutes to approve more than $1 billion worth of borrowing backed by the state.
Even without the stadium, the meeting did not disappoint. There were two noticeably huge items, one for $209.5 million in loans for "various economic development projects" and another for $235 million for "various projects."
Various?
That query came from State Senator Thomas Duane, a board member who is not allowed to vote because he represents the Senate Democrats in the minority but is still allowed to ask questions. In this case, however, he was not allowed any answers. A staff member, looking understandably embarrassed, explained that details about these items were not subject to the board's scrutiny.
It later became apparent that these are a couple more of Albany's famous slush buckets - the $209.5 million available for the governor's pet projects, the $235 million divided between Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver for passing out to members' districts like political candy. The control of these secret funds gives these leaders the one thing they do not need: more political clout, more control over the Legislature.
These leaders who are so busy hiding their huge goodie bags owe the state's taxpayers a better forum on this stadium. A real public hearing would be good. A real public debate about whether all of New York's taxpayers should be backing a large part of this $2.2 billion project would be worth the time.
Then, as the real controlling authorities of the Public Authorities Control Board, Mr. Pataki, Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver should be ready to debate and explain their votes or their surrogates' votes. And this time, it should be in public.