Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s promise to bring Hollywood to Onondaga flopped on Friday, when the state unloaded the Central New York film hub, a $15 million taxpayer-funded boondoggle, onto the management of Onondoga County for $1.
And the state’s still shelling out another $1.7 million on it, reports The Syracuse Post-Standard: $1.5 million for improvements and $200,000 for two years’ operating costs.
When the gov announced the hub back in 2014, he said it would produce 350 permanent jobs. Yet since it opened, it has only employed two full-timers, and no major studio has shot a film there.
It’s not just waste, but corruption, too. SUNY Polytechnic Institute ex-President Alain Kaloyeros — whom the gov used to praise as “New York’s secret weapon” — and two Cuomo-donor developers will stand trial this month for bid-rigging over this lemon, among other charges.
Sadly, this won’t be the last Cuomo white elephant to collapse, nor the biggest: The taxpayers spent $750 million on that Buffalo solar plant, and it remains on life support.
It turns out the secret weapon was aimed at New York taxpayers.



