Getting a job at NYRA like hitting a big Pic 6...Retire at 50 with 100% medical????. Well,at least it appears they will get in this year\'s Breeders Cup before going under.
http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=30335
I have a NYRA telephone wagering account. Does anyone know whether those accounts are now in trust (I know the horsemen\'s account was put in trust) or are just treated as obligations of NYRA?
Or perhaps they\'re just crying wolf in an attempt to get all relevant parties to give them a free pass on the sale of the land near AQU?
Which would be a tacit admission NYRA owns that property and Aqueduct and Belmont and....... Saratoga.
Important. The State currently holds that NYRA does not own any of this property yet NYRA holds the deeds for this land and part of the reason they would like to unload this parcel is that it would keep them from having to continue to pay a huge chunk in taxes on this unused land. Sure sounds like they own it to me.
That\'s why (the tacit admission thing) I\'m not betting on the powers that be rolling over on the sale.
If anyone out there knows about this stuff, would love to know how the ownership issue has gotten so muddled. Seems to a legal know-nothing such as myself that if you hold the deed and pay property taxes, you own the land, but that\'s obviously not the way the state is looking at it.
I\'m also obviously too simple to grasp the State\'s claim. Mike Veitch did a five-part story in The Saratogian on this very subject and I have to admit I was more confused when he finished than I was before he started. I\'ll see if I can find it. Bottom line... Charlie\'s playing his cards now instead of holding them until 2007. Notice how he waited to drop this on the State until the new oversight board was seated.
First two installments - think I lost the rest.
07/03/2005
Who owns Saratoga Race Course, anyway?
MICHAEL VEITCH , For The Saratogian
First in a series on the issue of ownership of the New York thoroughbred tracks.
Is Saratoga Race Course a local treasure owned by a private corporation called the New York Racing Association, or is it a public asset owned by the state, as some politicians have described it?
With New York State preparing to entertain bids for future operating rights to Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga, a fierce battle looms over the ownership of the three facilities.
Contending they own the tracks, NYRA leaders maintain that New York cannot simply turn them over to another entity.
The purpose of this and future columns is to present both sides of the issue to readers of The Saratogian.
BEGINNINGS: At the midpoint of the 20th century, thoroughbred racing in New York was conducted at several aging tracks in need of repair.
Aqueduct, operated by the Queens County Jockey Club, was built in 1894, while Belmont Park, operated by the Westchester Racing Association, opened in 1905.
Jamaica, operated by the Metropolitan Jockey Club, opened in 1903, while Saratoga, operated by the Saratoga Association, opened in 1864.
The preeminence of New York racing at the time was being challenged by a revived sport in New Jersey and the strength of California and Illinois tracks.
Racing leaders such as Christopher T. Chenery, John Hanes, Capt. Harry Guggenheim, and New York Racing Commission Chairman Ashley T. Cole proposed the consolidation of the tracks into a new organization called the Greater New York Racing Association.
The idea became known as The Jockey Club Plan, and it required the approval of the State Racing Commission as well as the New York legislature.
The plan called for the GNYRA to purchase Aqueduct, Belmont, Jamaica and Saratoga with the likelihood that at least one track, Jamaica, would be sold and major improvements would be made to Belmont and Saratoga.
The GNYRA asked the state for a 25-year exclusive franchise for the plan, principally to guarantee its ability to repay bank loans necessary for the purchase and rehabilitation of the tracks.
In other words, the GNYRA wanted no competition from other racing organizations for the license to conduct betting at its tracks for the period.
The issue came up during the 1955 legislative session, and it was not without controversy.
State Budget Director Paul Appleby argued against the plan, saying the state was, in effect, being asked to guarantee the GNYRA while waiting for its possible future earnings from betting.
In his memorandum of Feb. 11, 1955, Appleby also worried about whether or not state revenue from betting would decline under the new organization.
The New York State Conference of Mayors, in a memorandum of Apr. 11, 1955, also argued against the plan, saying it had no provision for revenues to cities where the tracks were located.
Saratoga Springs Mayor Addison Mallery was a member of the conference.
Other arguments against the plan for a new organization called GNYRA came from some horsemen, who feared the loss of stall space if Jamaica was torn down.
As discussion on the bill authorizing the creation of the GNYRA proceeded during the legislative session, the New York State Bar committee on legislation on Apr. 14, 1955, said there was no legal objection to it.
New York State Attorney General Jacob K. Javits, in a memorandum to Gov. Averill Harriman on Apr. 22, 1955, also found no legal objection to the GNYRA bill.
A look at NYRA\'s roots
MICHAEL VEITCH , The Saratogian
Proponents of The Jockey Club plan to revitalize New York racing in the 1950s pointed to the non-profit status of the GNYRA as a positive aspect of the idea.
In its statement for public hearings, The Jockey Club argued New York was in danger of losing business to neighboring states with newer facilities.
The Jockey Club said it did not want any state credit nor any return of the state pari-mutuel tax to the GNYRA in order to finance the acquisition of the tracks and their rehabilitation.
The Jockey Club also noted that its plan would not decrease revenues to cities and counties.
The Jockey Club did ask for an exclusive 25-year franchise from the state, to run the tracks, in order for it to pay off the loans for its plans.
Prior to the idea of the franchise for 25 years, betting licenses were granted on an annual basis.
The GNYRA non-profit status meant that its board members, or trustees, would take no profit or dividends from the sale of stock or racing operations.
But the stock investment was small, with the original 20 trustees putting up $50 each for $1,000, according to John Hanes in a speech to the National Association of State Racing Commissioners given in June, 1959, in New York.
The law authorizing the creation of the GNYRA went into effect on April 29, 1955.
The GNYRA went into business in September of that year, when the State Racing Commission approved the association franchise and its purchase of the Aqueduct, Belmont, Jamaica and Saratoga tracks.
In early October, the tracks were purchased and their deeds executed.
The GNYRA, now known as NYRA, has possession of those deeds and has paid more than $400 million in taxes since receiving them.
According to NYRA records, the association borrowed $20 million for the acquisition of the <>tracks and another $30 million to begin the rehabilitation of the properties.
It did so without state aid, and took out mortgages from several banks in New York State including Morgan Guaranty Trust and Chase Manhattan.
However, the law authorizing the creation of NYRA contained protection for the state, which was being asked to help guarantee the association debt through the 25-year non-competitive franchise.
The law provided the state with the right to remove NYRA trustees and to revoke its franchise if the association failed in its obligations.
The New York governor could then seize the properties and dispose of the assets with proceeds going to charity.
It is this relationship of state government with NYRA that legal analysts debate today.
It is a relationship unlike any other in American racing.
NYRA sees itself as a private corporation, and some students of this period say that it was so viewed and treated by the legislature.
But other observers point to lawyers and lawmakers in the 1950\'s who viewed NYRA as an instrumentality of the state, which can be dissolved by the state.
To put this debate another way, can NYRA lose its license to conduct racing and betting, and still retain ownership of the tracks?
COMING SUNDAY: With New York State Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink leading the charge, state government takes an aggressive stance against NYRA.
Found the third...
Extension of NYRA\'s franchise has been controversial in past
MICHAEL VEITCH , For The Saratogian
In 1970, the New York Racing Association received a five-year extension on its original 25-year franchise, granted in 1955, extending it to 1985.
But in the early 1980s, as discussion evolved on the future of NYRA, State Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink staked out an aggressive position that inflamed relations between racing leaders and state leaders.
He contended NYRA was an instrumentality of the state, that its property belonged to the public, and that it could be appropriated without paying compensation to the association.
Jim Heffernan, president of NYRA at the time, rejected Fink\'s stance, reiterating that the association owned the properties and had never borrowed money directly from the state.
Heffernan also said the state could not take over NYRA without proper compensation.
State officials responded that NYRA received state money whenever the state simply reduced the amount of pari-mutuel taxes it kept and instead allowed the association to use that money.
While acknowledging in the early 1980s that NYRA carried a debt of $25 million, Heffernan said the assets of Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga were worth at least $500 million.
Fink issued a proposal for a state takeover of the tracks, while leaving NYRA management intact.
He also proposed the formation of the New York State Thoroughbred Facilities Corporation, which would retire NYRA\'s debt with a one-time payment and issue bonds worth $100 million for the purpose of improvements to the tracks.
Eventually, NYRA in 1983 received a franchise extension to the year 2000.
But that extension strengthened state arguments that it was the real owner of the tracks.
The new franchise law established a Capital Investment Fund (CIF), which allowed NYRA to borrow money for capital improvements at interest rates that were much more reasonable than the prevailing high rates of the mid-1980\'s.
An important, and controversial, aspect of the CIF was that it was funded by part of the revenue generated by NYRA simulcasts.
Simulcasting, authorized at that time by New York, is the television transmission of races to off-track betting sites.
Former NYRA president Kenny Noe Jr. often argued that the association was, in effect, being made to borrow from its own simulcast revenue that was being diverted to the CIF because of the new franchise agreement.
The 1983 renewal also said that if NYRA was dissolved, the New York Governor would take its assets, after liabilities were paid, and distribute them in accordance with applicable law.
Some analysts question whether the New York legislature actually had the power to enact the 1983 franchise law.
Their questions center on whether or not New York could strip NYRA, without due process, of its properties if its racing license expired or was awarded to another entity.
The 1983 law also made clear that when the NYRA license came up for renewal in 2000, that New York would conduct a bidding procedure for possible future operators of the tracks.
Yet, just a few months before bidding was to begin in late 1997, New York Governor George Pataki announced that NYRA was being given still another franchise extension through the year 2007.
COMING WEDNESDAY: A summary of legal statements supporting the arguments of both New York and NYRA on the claim of ownership.
The plot sickens...
http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=30366
twoshoes, thanks much for posting Veitch\'s articles.