Silver to delegates: Hobart's 'greatest tribute is you'

April 9, 2005

PICTURED: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is interviewed by the media after his speech to NYSUT delegates.

If you seek Tom Hobart's monument, look around you," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told delegates at the RA. "His greatest tribute is you."

Silver paid homage to Hobart on Friday, presenting the outgoing president with an Assembly Resolution thanking him for his 33 years of service to education and labor.

In his speech, Silver touched on some of Hobart's labor victories, including the union's massive May 2003 rally used as a catalyst by the Assembly majority to override Gov. George Pataki's veto of education funding.

Speaker since 1994, Silver credited Hobart's steady leadership with helping the Assembly push education and health care funding through the Legislature.

Silver was critical of current state and federal models relying on regressive property taxes and other unstable methods to fund public education. He then promised the delegates the Assembly majority wouldn't relent in fighting for CFE funding.

"We can't hurt another generation of children," Silver said. "We can't depend on VLTs and gamble on our kids' future. We have to hammer out a statewide plan once and for all."

In paying tribute to Hobart, Silver jokingly posed an interesting question to the crowd: "Can you imagine if Tom Hobart had decided to run for governor instead of NYSUT president?" Silver mused. "Parents wouldn't have to go to court to force the state to provide adequate funding for education. Teachers wouldn't have to buy teacher supplies for their classrooms, they wouldn't have to go years without a contract. Nurses wouldn't have to work until they drop because there wouldn't be a nursing shortage."

In the end, Silver acknowledged Hobart did pretty well with the path he chose.