Albany

A year after Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivered a booming State of the State that preceded the swift passage of New York's controversial SAFE gun control law, the governor laid out a much more muted agenda to kick off his first re-election year.

The hourlong speech, titled "Building on Success," seemed custom-fitted to alienate no major constituency, and even ended with a call for statewide solidarity: "At the end of the day, we are one," Cuomo said. "We are upstate, we are downstate — but we are one."

After an extended review of the accomplishments of his first three years in office, Cuomo began his inventory of proposals with his plans for $2.2 billion in tax cuts to businesses and individuals — including property tax mechanisms that would place pressure on the state's myriad levels of local government to spend less or consolidate.

The governor set an aggressive timeline to award the first four upstate casino licenses by fall, and called for universal pre-K throughout the state as well as a $2 billion bond issue to end technology inequality in schools.

At perhaps his most animated point in the speech, Cuomo decried the fact that in some schools the most advanced technology in the buildings is the metal detectors students pass through to start their days.

"We can do better, we must do better, we will do better," Cuomo said. "Let's invest in the future, let's reimagine our classrooms for the next generation. Let's have the smartest classrooms in the nation, because our children deserve nothing less than the best."

Cuomo also called for new laws that would permanently revoke the driver's license of anyone convicted three times of driving while intoxicated or impaired by drugs. He wants to double the license suspension period for anyone younger than 21 convicted of texting while driving.

But the first-term Democrat spent less than a minute on what some believed might be the most headline-grabbing element of his speech: His decision, leaked earlier this week, to administratively allow 20 hospitals around the state to begin dispensing medical marijuana to patients suffering from certain illnesses.

His plan, far more restrictive than programs in other states, would make use of existing law and would essentially serve as a pilot to "evaluate future policy."

Cuomo completely ignored two of the most divisive issues in the state right now: New York's implementation of the Common Core educational standards, and the pending decision on whether to allow the gas-drilling technique known as hydrofracking — a topic that drew hundreds of boisterous protesters to the concourse outside the Empire State Plaza Convention Center.

And a day after Cuomo basked in the spotlight that Vice President Joe Biden brought with him to Albany, it seemed at seemed at times that the governor was contending with the long shadow of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who received VIP treatment as he was squired from meeting to meeting with legislative leaders in his first trip to the Capitol since taking office a week ago.

One of de Blasio's meetings included a solidarity session with the Senate's four-member Independent Democratic Conference, the leaders of which have backed the new mayor's plan to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund pre-K in New York City — something the tax-cut-driven Cuomo has said should be part of a larger conversation.

In the hall, the only sour note was struck when state Sen. Kevin Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat, loudly booed Cuomo's announcement that former New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly would serve as special adviser to what Cuomo has billed as the country's first College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity.

Parker, whose jeers were quickly smothered by applause, said Kelly's support of the police department's divisive stop-and-frisk policy under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg discriminated against minority youth.

After months of publicly jousting with a Legislature that refused to pass his proposed ethics reforms last year, Cuomo seemed to strike almost a conciliatory tone Wednesday, renewing his call for lawmakers to enact public campaign finance and other reforms by appealing to their common interest in restoring faith in government.

"Government is limited by the lack of trust," Cuomo said. "We have accomplished great things, and I want to see us accomplish even more."

With considerably less volume than in his 2013 speech, Cuomo renewed his call for passage of the 10-plank Women's Equality Agenda, which ran aground in the Legislature last year because of resistance to an abortion-rights provision. Advocates for the package hope their chances will improve in an election year.

Cuomo's Republican critics poked at the unanswered questions. Though Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos has broadly praised Cuomo's marquee tax relief plan, Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, R-Schaghticoke, called Cuomo's proposed two-year property tax freeze "a scam — it's unworkable."

Under the program, Cuomo proposes reimbursing taxpayers whose local governments keep tax increases within the state-imposed cap and achieve structural savings. A "circuit breaker" offering relief to households that direct a larger percentage of income to property taxes would follow the freeze, and require similar local budget austerity.

State Republican Chairman Ed Cox assailed the entire fiscal underpinning of Cuomo's plan, accusing the governor of simultaneously aping long-standing GOP ideas on cutting corporate taxes. Cox also questioned Cuomo's promise of a $2 billion surplus by 2016-17 to pay for it all when state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's office, assuming larger spending increases than Cuomo, has said current projections are for a $1.7 billion deficit next year.

"That just says everything about the governor not really addressing reality," Cox said. "It's all projections. It's all rhetoric for an election year where he's finally giving a compliment to Republicans. He's stealing our clothes."

jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com • 518-454-5445 • @JCEvangelist_TU