ALBANY — New York's 10 Regional Economic Development Councils, created earlier this year by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will spend the first half of next week delivering their presentations to the review committee that will help allocate roughly $200 million in taxpayer funds.
Beginning Monday afternoon, representatives of each council will file into the Capitol's Blue Room to deliver their respective five-year plans for economic growth within a 90-minute block of time to a five-member review committee.
The councils' work — an attempt to bring a new level of organization and a dash of competition to the state's development efforts — has taken on a new urgency in recent weeks as bad fiscal news has prompted the governor to call for a more holistic approach to addressing the state's economic woes.
This round of applications dangles $130 million in development funds and $70 million in tax credits effective over the course of the next 10 years.
The presentations will be webcast and open to the press; public seating will be limited and available on a first-come first-served basis.
The councils from Long Island and the Finger Lakes appear Monday. Tuesday features the Southern Tier, the Capital Region (at 10:30 a.m.), Central New York, New York City and the Mid-Hudson. Wednesday wraps up with the Mohawk Valley, the North Country and Western New York.
The Capital Region's plan, unveiled earlier this month, includes everything from more traditional real estate projects along the Hudson (at an estimated cost of $5 million) to the installation of the region's first "petascale" computer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy — $25 million — plus smaller outlays for upgrades at the Windham Mountain Ski Resort and the expansion of rural broadband Internet service, among other projects.
Each regional blueprint will be scored by the Strategic Plan Review Committee, which includes Department of Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald and Secretary of State Cesar Perales.
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