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By George Pataki |
January 2002: The Year 2001 was marked by both tragedy and triumph for New York State.
On September 11th, New York was the victim of an attack of epic proportions. The human toll was devastating - so devastating that words cannot convey the sense of loss we all feel. But amidst the pain and sorrow that followed that tragic day, we've also seen our State pull together in an unprecedented display of unity.
Our sense of pride - and our resolve to overcome the challenges we face - are both stronger than ever before. If we are to overcome these great challenges, we will all have to do our part and make sacrifices. Most importantly, we must continue to stand together in the same spirit of unity that lifted us through the past few months.
Although we've faced heartbreaking tragedy in recent days, the Year 2001 also brought substantial progress and accomplishments in a number of areas - progress that I'm committed to building upon in the New Year.
In economic development, we expanded our highly successful Empire Zone program - adding 8 new zones and bringing the total number of "tax-free" zones to 66. I also signed legislation authorizing the creation of six new casinos in Western New York and the Catskills and establishing a new Upstate Tourism Council - historic steps that will help create new jobs and enhanced tourism opportunities in these regions.
In addition, our new high-tech biotechnology Centers of Excellence initiative took a major step forward this year, as we announced major new private sector investments from some of the world's leading companies like IBM, Compaq and Xerox. To date, we have more than $300 million of private sector funds committed to these important new centers in Albany, Rochester, Long Island and Buffalo.
We also made important gains in health care. We gained approval from the Bush administration for the launch of our new Family Health Plus program and we continued to aggressively increase participation in Child Health Plus - bringing total enrollment up to 530,000 children.
In environmental protection, we won an historic victory in our ongoing efforts to clean up and protect the Hudson River for the benefit of future generations by winning federal approval of the targeted PCB remediation plan.
Our criminal justice reforms continued to produce dramatic results in 2001 and violent crime across the State has now been decreased more than 40 percent since I took office. Burglary is down 48 percent, robbery is down 52 percent and murder is down 51 percent.
The list of accomplishments goes on and on: Our sound fiscal policies produced another credit rating upgrade and we now have our strongest credit rating in nearly 23 years; We enacted the nation's first-ever ban on the use of hand-held cell phones while driving - a step that will help save lives and prevent tragedies; To bring State government closer to the people it serves, we unveiled our new "Capital for a Day" initiative; and, we launched a successful Citizenship Unit to help undocumented immigrants take advantage of a window in the federal law to gain Green Cards. This unit also helped thousands of immigrants and their families deal with the INS bureaucracy.
Although we had a great many successes this year, there are still a number of areas where more progress needs to be made. In particular, I believe the Legislature missed an historic opportunity when it failed to enact the comprehensive school aid reforms I proposed to help target additional aid to high needs school districts. The legislature also failed to take action on the sensible Rockefeller Drug Law Reforms I proposed.
I'm confident we'll be successful in making real progress on these and many other issues in the days ahead. I'm also confident that we will be able to successfully overcome the tremendous economic and fiscal difficulties we face in the aftermath of September 11th.
As I previously mentioned, the challenges we face are immense, and as New Yorkers, we will all have to do our part and make sacrifices. Most importantly, as we enter the New Year, we must maintain that same sense of unity and common resolve that helped get us through the past few months.
If we do that - if we continue to work together in spite of our occasional differences of opinion - I am optimistic we can overcome all of the tremendous challenges we face in the 2002 and beyond.
George Pataki is the governor of New York State.