Mayor Michael Bloomberg greets 2012 with a smile. (Getty)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave his verdict on the ambitious slate of plans for New York Governor Cuomo presented in his annual State of the State address in a press conference following the speech today. Overall, the mayor called it a "very good speech."

"I thought the governor's speech left us all walking out thinking it was a great hope for the state, the state is going in the right direction and it's a challenge to all of us to put our nose to the grindstone and actually do the work," Mayor Bloomberg said.

Mayor Bloomberg expressed support for most of Governor Cuomo's ideas, but he did take issue with Governor Cuomo's plan to end New York City's program of fingerprinting food stamp applicants. Despite the disagreement, Mayor Bloomberg once again insisted the rumors of tensions between City Hall and the Governor's Mansion are greatly exaggerated.

Governor Cuomo's focus on the economy earned a thumb's up from Mayor Bloomberg.

"I liked that it was focused on the economy and on job creation, that is really what this state needs, New York City as well. I thought it made it the right speech for this time in our state," Mayor Bloomberg said.

The mayor also gave Governor Cuomo points for understanding "the importance of keeping the states budget in balance and keeping spending in check."

Governor Cuomo's speech included a slew of ambitious initiatives for the year ahead. Mayor Bloomberg said he "strongly" supports the governor's push to eliminate unfunded mandates and institute pension reform.

"I strongly support the governor's proposals on pension reform. During fiscal 20-02, when I became mayor, our pension costs were $1.5 billion a year. In the current fiscal year, they're $8.4 billion," Mayor Bloomberg said. "That is roughly a five hundred percent increase in pension costs and we need the state to do something about it, because most of it comes form pension bills passed by the state and paid for by the city."

Governor Cuomo's plans for 2012 include a proposal to expand the state's criminal DNA databank to include samples from “any person convicted of a felony or Penal Law misdemeanor.” This initiative also got the mayor's seal of approval.

"I support the governor's proposal on DNA sampling for anyone convicted of crime in our state. You think about it, in this day and age, there's fundamentally no difference between taking fingerprints and taking a DNA sample, and it really is critically important to solving crimes and equally as important to keep people who are innocent from wrongly being convicted," Mayor Bloomberg said.

Another item on Governor Cuomo's menu for next year is a plan to open the nation's largest convention center at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. Mayor Bloomberg said this idea was quite promising for New York City.

"I think all of us agree that we need a bigger convention center. We've been able to get 50 million tourists to New York City this year with a convention center thats so small it could fit inside the McCormick Center in Chicago," Mayor Bloomberg said. "Can you imagine what we could do if we had a world class, appropriate size convention center?"

Governor Cuomo's convention center proposal also involves razing New York's current convention center, the Jacob Javits Center, to create "a new 21st century neighborhood for the West Side.” Mayor Bloomberg supports this idea too.

"We've got this enormous redevelopment going on the West Side, this just complements it," said the mayor.

The one idea proposed by Governor Cuomo that didn't earn the Mayor's backing was a plan to “increase participation in the food stamp program” by removing “barriers to participation” including the electronic fingerprinting New York City currently requires from applicants. Mayor Bloomberg said the fingerprinting prevents fraud and doesn't deter prospective food stamp recipients from applying.

"New York City has a higher percentage of those people who are eligible for food stamps getting food stamps than the rest of the state, if I understand the numbers. And we're the only place that fingerprints, so obviously fingerprinting is not something that stops people from signing up for food stamps," Mayor Bloomberg said. "When you have fingerprinting, it detects fraud, which means it gives people incentive to not commit fraud."

Mayor Bloomberg ended his remarks by denying reports his relationship with the governor is strained.

"People try to make us battling all the time, that is just not true," Mayor Bloomberg said. "We send an enormous amount of money up to Albany. It would be nice to get more of that back and, so, if the governor has plans to do things in New York City that'll create jobs in New York City and expand our tax base that's great."

Governor Andrew Cuomo (Getty)

In his annual State of the State address today, Governor Cuomo outlined his ambitious vision for the future New York State including sweeping campaign finance reform, massive construction projects, an entirely new neighborhood built from scratch on the West Side of Manhattan, legalized casinos and a slew of new social programs. Governor Cuomo described his strategy for 2012 as an effort to build on a first year in office where he changed the culture of Albany from partisanship to constructive cooperation.

"By all accounts, last year was a tremendous success. There are many reasons why, including one simple one: We changed our attitude," Governor Cuomo said. "By the end of the year, we were not first Democrats and Republicans, we were first New Yorkers and we acted that way. We put the politics aside and put the people first. And it worked. And we worked. We delivered for the people. … Today, I am telling you this: we are going to reach even higher"

Governor Cuomo said his goals for next year fall into three main categories; growing the state economy, launching programs designed to maintain New York's status as "the progressive capital of the nation" and creating a "re-imagined government" through reforms designed to reduce costs and corruption.

The centerpiece of the governor's plans for making over state government is a set of broad campaign finance reforms including a statewide program of public financing for elections modeled after New York City's system, tighter limits on political donations, stricter regulation on contributions from public contractors and lobbyists and the creation of an enforcement unit in the State Board of Elections that will be tasked with investigating violations of campaign finance regulations.

"These and other reforms to our campaign finance laws are necessary to empower New Yorkers by giving them an equal voice in our elections," Governor Cuomo said.

Governor Cuomo also wants to enact mandate relief and pension reform.

"By next year,pension costs for schools and state and local governments will have increased 100 percent since 2009. We need to reform the pension system and create a Tier VI," said Governor Cuomo.

On the economic front, Governor Cuomo hopes to bring revenue to the state through a series of large-scale construction projects created through public/private partnerships including a new Tappan Zee Bridge and "the largest convention center in the nation." Governor Cuomo said his office is pursuing a joint venture with a gaming company called the Genting Corporation to build this convention center at the Aqueduct Racetrack and raze the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. Governor Cuomo said the site of the Javits Center could then be used to create an entirely new Manhattan neighborhood.

"We will follow the highly successful Battery Park City model, which has resulted in housing, hotels, museums, and over 10 million square feet of Class A office space," Governor Cuomo said. "We estimate over $2 billion in private sector development in creating a new 21st century neighborhood for the West Side."

The governor also reiterated his desire to revoke the state ban on commercial gaming and bring casinos to New York.

"When it comes to gaming, we have been in a state of denial. It’s time we confronted reality. It’s not a question of whether we should have gaming in New York — the fact is we already do," said Governor Cuomo referencing the state's abundance of electronic gaming machines, Indian casinos, racinos and the legal casinos in nearby states and Canada.

Governor Cuomo also wants to give the economy a boost by investing over a billion dollars in public funds to local governments including $200 million in regional economic development awards and $1 billion in development incentives for the city of Buffalo.

"While we build on our strength in New York City, we must also invest in the struggling areas of our state," Governor Cuomo said. "The State of New York is ready to invest $1 billion in a multi-year package of economic development incentives. That’s a “B” — for $1 billion and for Buffalo."

Governor Cuomo said he expected the Buffalo investment to yield "$5 billion in new investment and economic activity." The governor also plans to invest state money to fund a series of infrastructure improvements and alternative energy initiatives.

Socially, the Governor said he wants to cement New York's status as America's "progressive capital" by launching programs designed to help farmers secure loans, aid immigrants transitioning to American life, double the number of minority and women-owned businesses that obtain state contracts, protect tenants from abusive landlords and foreclosures, ensure "reproductive rights" for women, and improve public education with $60 million in challenge grants to SUNY campuses.

Governor Cuomo also hopes to improve quality of life in New York by fundamentally changing the state's food stamp system and criminal DNA databank. With food stamps, the governor said he wants to "increase participation in the food stamp program" by removing "barriers to participation" including New York City's current practice of requiring applicants to submit to electronic fingerprinting. Governor Cuomo also promised to propose a bill that would expand the DNA databank to include samples from "any person convicted of a felony or Penal Law misdemeanor."

"This databank helps establish guilt and innocence; it has provided leads in over 2,700 convictions and — just as important — led to 27 exonerations of the wrongfully accused," Governor Cuomo said. "Currently, DNA is collected only from those convicted of less than half the crimes on the books in New York State."

Education will also be a major focus for the governor next year.

"I learned my most important lesson in my first year as Governor in the area of public education. I learned that everyone in public education has his or her own lobbyist. … The only group without a lobbyist? The students," Governor Cuomo said. "This year, I will take a second job— consider me the lobbyist for the students. I will wage a campaign to put students first, and to remind us that the purpose of public education is to help children grow, not to grow the public education bureaucracy."

Though he acknowledged his plan for 2012 is an "ambitious agenda," Governor Cuomo sounded confident he can make his vision a reality.

"We are the state of infinite possibility — because we are New York. There is nothing that we can’t do when we are together. Because we are New York."

• As they say in Vegas: This town wasn't built on winners.
• Hitting the jackpot: Wouldn't be the first time he made history in Queens.
• At least he's only gambling with his money.
• Many insiders are seeing his loss as yet another referendum by machines against those pulling on them.

And so on.

[Photo via jonathanlentz.]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek