GOP big: We’ll talk speed cams

ALBANY — State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan said his Republican members are willing to approve an extension of the city’s expired speed camera program — but notably didn’t say if he has plans to call them back to Albany to vote on a bill.

Instead, the powerful Suffolk County leader hit Gov. Cuomo and the Assembly Democrats for not engaging on the issue.

“Let me say publicly what I have been saying privately for weeks and what we said in Albany: The Senate Republican majority is willing to approve an extender of the existing New York City speed camera program,” Flanagan said.

But he said he’d like to also see “a more comprehensive safety plan with all of the stakeholders involved.” And he bashed the Assembly for ending the legislative session without passing local tax extenders for four upstate counties.

The Senate Republicans have been taking heat for allowing the speed camera program around schools designed to protect kids to expire on Wednesday.

Gov. Cuomo has repeatedly called on Flanagan to call his members back and take up one of the versions already passed by the Assembly before the legislative session ended in June.

But instead, Azzopardi said, Flanagan wants to tie the issue to the upstate tax extenders, “which shows he doesn’t really care about the safety of New York’s children — it’s just another bargaining chip.”

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie Friday responded to Flanagan by tweeting that he is not opening to continuing negotiations on the issue and that Flanagan merely needs to bring his members back to pass one of the bills the Assembly passed in June. He said one of the bills,. which would expand and extend the speed camera law, include the tax extenders Flanagan referenced.

The bulk of the 140 speed cameras in school zones around the city went dark on Wednesday.

Bills that would keep the speed camera program up and running passed the Democratic-controlled Assembly, but died in the Senate, where Republicans held up passage of the legislation on behalf of Sen. Simcha Felder.