The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Today's Reed press conference had two topics. First, Larry Sabato has moved the 29th race to a "toss up". Reed believes this move is an indicator of the strength of his campaign.

The second topic, raised by me and followed up by Joe Dunning of the Corning Leader, was Tom Reed's receipt of a $1.18 million grant for renovations of the Bath Masonic Temple.

There's a lot to digest here, and I'm going to try something new and post the audio of the whole back-and-forth at the end of this post. In summary:

• Reed has a business of buying "distressed" properties and rehabbing them. He's done it in Corning, Elmira and Bath, and the Bath project is the only one done with public funds.
• The grant Reed got was via Restore New York, which has been around for 3 years and has distributed money all over the state.
• Reed says that the Restore New York program, which issued the grant, was not stimulus money. I asked him whether the use of stimulus to cover a budget shortfall in New York is relevant, and he said no, because he believes that stimulus money was supposed to be tagged for infrastructure projects.
• Reed says that the stimulus has become a "slush fund", and claimed that Massa has been representing that he can bring home money from that fund.

Here's 20 minutes of press conference for the real political junkies. The other person asking questions is Joe Dunning of the Corning Leader.

Download reed_call_bath_portion.mp3 (3Meg)