Why did Chautauqua County have to pass resolutions asking the state Legislature to pass extensions of its occupancy and sales taxes this year?

Because the state Constitution requires a home rule request for such legislation to be brought to the state Legislature floor.

But apparently the state Constitution doesn’t apply equally in all cases.

During the state Assembly’s extra two days of session in mid-June lawmakers passed the Planned Offshore Wind Transmission Act. Most of the bill is typical state policy that requires the New York State Energy And Research Development Authority to establish a plan for improved transmission planning and coordinating systems for an offshore grid; requires NYSERDA conduct a benefit-cost-analysis and ratepayer impact study to determine the overall costs of implementing planned transmission and coordinated systems for an offshore grid.

But there is a second piece that is troublesome — temporary alienation of parkland in Long Island that will allow the Empire Wind 2 project to be built 14 miles off of Jones Beach State Park. Alienation of the parkland was one of the sticking points for Republicans, who questioned why there was no home rule request for the public park abandonment as is typically required in such situations and, as we noted above, a host of other local concerns like the levying of additional taxes.

“As I said previous to that there are issues that are not just minor issues,” said Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Corona and Assembly speaker pro tempore. “There are longer, bigger issues impacting the whole state and it’s under those circumstances the home rule request is not required in this instance.”

We call baloney. The state Constitution doesn’t include an escape clause for projects the majority party really, really wants to see happen that are held up by uneducated rubes at lower levels of government who haven’t passed the home rule request required by state law. There is no “matters of statewide concern” rule in the state Constitution.

Judging from local press reports, there is little local consensus on Empire Wind 2, which needed the parkland alienation to bury transmission lines under a beach from the offshore wind project to a transmissions station on land. The local City Council had approved a home rule request seeking control over the beach portion of the project, not a straight alienation. Of course that request was deemed defective. No further request was received. But Democrats did what they wanted anyway regardless of what the state Constitution says.

This is a bigger issue than just an offshore wind project or home rule requests for local taxes. If Democrats are willing to overlook the state Constitution to ram through an approval needed for an offshore wind project, what else are they willing to overlook in the state Constitution to get what they want?