For the second time in four days, New York State Senators sat at a table in Western New York to listen to locals beg for money. On Friday, Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Martin Malave Dilan held a hearing at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society to hear idea on how the state should spend $25 billion in capital project funds over the next five years. (Joining Dilan were local senators Thompson, Stachowski, Ranzenhofer and Maziarz, and a well-heeled delegation from NYSDOT.)

The day’s headlines, forecasting a $10 billion deficit in the state budget over the next two years, were largely ignored until the last speaker, former State Senator and Buffalo Common Councilman Al Coppola, spoke his piece. He’d been waiting three hours to get to the microphone. He and Dilan exchanged senatorial pleasantries (Dilan politely pretended to have heard of Coppola, whose stint in Albany was brief), and then Coppola held up a copy of the day’s paper, and mentioned the climbing deficit. “Kind of changes everything we’ve been talking about here today, doesn’t it?” he said.

Dilan shrugged and nodded. “It changes everything.”

Not that transportation spending has been well managed in recent years anyway. From today’s Rochester Democrat & Chronicle:

Highway and motor vehicle taxes dedicated to road and bridge repairs continue to be raided to pay the state’s operating expenses, leading to a deterioration of New York’s infrastructure, according to a report from the Comptroller’s Office.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said that since 1991, only 35 percent, or $11.6 billion, of the money in the state’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund went to repair roads and bridges.

The majority of the money went to cover debt payments and expenses at the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Transportation, DiNapoli said.

He warned that the percentage of capital spending on roads will decline to 21 percent by 2014 and the state will need to pay $4 billion from the general fund just to pay current bills over the next five years.

“This is not acceptable,” DiNapoli said. “This money should be used to keep our roads and bridges safe.”

Using most of the $33 billion fund for other expenses has left the state unable to pay for a proposed $25.8 billion five-year capital plan for roads and bridges.

Gov. David Paterson recently rejected the new capital plan presented by the DOT, saying the state simply can’t afford it.

The state Association of Counties said nearly 40 percent of the state’s 17,000 bridges are in disrepair and urged state leaders to invest in the capital plan.

Which brings us to today’s hearing, already underway at the UAW office on George Karl Boulevard in Williamsville. Senate Finance Chair Carl Kruger and State Senator Bill Stachowski (the man Kruger muscled out of the powerful committee’s chairmanship) are taking testimony on Governor David Paterson’s deficit reduction plan, which aims to cut a projected $3 billion deficit in the 2009-2010 budget by whacking 10 percent off of basically everything.

Here’s the Senate’s description of Paterson’s plan.

And after the jump is the list of groups planning to testify.

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Malcolm Smith, who may or not be the State Senate Majority Leader,just issued this statement, via his spokeperson, Austin Shafran:

“The Temporary President and Majority Leader, Senator Malcolm A. Smith, was elected to a two year term pursuant to a resolution passed by a majority of Senators in January 2009. The purported coup was an unlawful violation of New York State law and the Senate rules and we do not accept it. The Senate Majority is fully prepared to go back to the people’s work, but will not enter the chamber to be governed by unlawful rules. We plan to file an action for a temporary injunction to enjoin the Republicans from illegitimately usurping authority from the people of New York,” said Austin Shafran, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith.

And so the people’s business is accomplished.

A power shift has taken place in Albany today, according to this story from the Albany Times Union. Dean Skelos is the new majority leader after Senators Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens, and Pedro Espada, D-Bronx switched their allegiance. Thus ends Malcolm Smith’s tenure as majority leader.

Meanwhile, the Web site for biweekly political paper City Hall says Sabres owner Tom Golisano “entered the chamber on the Republican side as the coup was taking place. Top Golisano aide Steve Pigeon has a longstanding relationship with Espada, who was voted president pro temp.”

State Senator Antoine Thompson

Last week we met with State Senator Antoine Thompson, a second-term legislator who seems to have positioned himself well to direct a great deal of public investment into Western New York in the next couple years.

Thompson was co-chair of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee (the first African-American senator to hold that post), and so played a key role in winning the Democrats their first majority in both houses of the state legislature in decades. In reward, Thompson was made deputy majority whip and chairman of the Senate’s Environmental Conservation Committee. That committee steers a lot of capital, and even more money will likely flow through it in the next two years thanks to the federal stimulus package.

So we thought we’d better talk to the chairman to hear his plans. The full interview will appear in next week’s print edition, but I thought I’d share just a little bit of it today:

Antoine Thompson: The Youth Conservation Corps is a program that was started in the 1980s. It was generally funded by the feds, but the state never put a dollar in the program. Now, with the federal stimulus, the Department of Labor is going to put more money into the Youth Conservation Corps, which is going to hire thousands of kids and young adults in the state. But the state still wasn’t going to put any money into it to promote working in parks, dealing with everything from weatherization to recycling in communities, a whole host of things that can promote conservation,—in addition to working with youth bureaus across the state. AmeriCorps is a great program. Wouldn’t it be logical to expand that effort with an environmental focus, where young people who go through a successful program like AmeriCorps can then apply for Youth Conservation Corps money, and those young people would then be trained in conservation, doing conservation projects in cities towns and  villages all over the state?

That program’s my baby, so I’m really pushing to get $30 million in the budget  to go with whatever federal money comes in.

AV: You mention federal stimulus money, some of which will be directed toward developing renewable energy, creating so-called “green collar” jobs, and other environmental projects. How specifically will your chairing the committee that will consider these projects benefit Western New York?

Antoine Thompson: First of all, I never try to promise more than I can deliver, but I always try to deliver more than I promise.

Most of this money is going to come in chunks to various parts of state government. When we talk about waterfront revitalization money, my committee is the committee that allocates $27 million a year in waterfront revitalization money. EPF. So when we talk about getting money out of the state for waterfront revitalization, yours truly will be the one who’s working those meetings and deciding how much of that money can come to Western New York.

Read more next week.