Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy, in Watertown today, responded to criticism that the regional economic development councils he is due to lead have poorly drawn boundaries.

Those concerns were raised in the Watertown Daily Times back in February, were legislators in both parties noticed how the boundaries encompass diverse geographic areas that have little economic relation to each other.

Still, Duffy said today a sweeping change to the program wouldn’t work.

We’ve listened very carefully to that. I think the tough thing is trying to break down the state in manageable geographic areas. And I think that the governor is open to listening to some of the issues and adjustments that come up but in the end I think a large wholesale change might not be practical.

The councils are meant to compete with each other in order to generate job-creation ideas in order to receive economic development funds that is being distributed by the Empire State Development Corp.

It was expected that the councils would be coming sometime this week, but so far their composition and fleshed-out design have not been released. Duffy said Gov. Andrew Cuomo was focusing on legislative priorities.

The governor is going to announce the councils when he’s ready. The governor’s number one priority is the legislative priorities for the rest of the session….between now and the end of session the governor will decide when he’s ready to announce the regional councils.

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