Gov. Kathy Hochul insisted Thursday that she won’t aid Mets owner Steve Cohen’s bid for a coveted New York City casino license — after sources told The Post she intended to introduce legislation that would benefit the billionaire.
“There are people, shady people, who will try to manipulate the [casino bidding] process to their benefit and be willing to put out lies. I have had no intention of putting this in my executive budget,” the governor told reporters when asked if was going to bat for Cohen, one of her biggest donors.
Hochul’s denial came after The Post reported Wednesday that she planned to introduce legislation in the 2025 state budget that would broaden the permitted uses of city parkland for a gambling complex allowing Cohen to bid for a casino license.
The Post reminds us that “Cohen and his wife, Alexandra, donated a combined $136,700 to the Hochul campaign in 2021, according to state records.”
Long time readers of Mets Police understand that the Citi Field site, including the parking lot is PARKLAND. Mets Police encourages anyone who wants to improve the area to look into local development across the street, such as the nice soccer people are doing.
If the intention truly is to improve the park, why not work with the soccer people to figure out parking, and then we can replace the Citi Field lot with things that resemble a park, like grass and trees, and not casinos that often prey on the poor and tend to make rich guys richer.
We’ll keep an eye out for how many local politicians ask for playoff tickets.
