Immediately following the COVID-19 school shut down in March of 2020, Public Broadcasting stepped up in a huge way to ensure students did not fall behind. PBS assisted schools, students and parents with high quality digital learning tools through their PBS Learning Media platform, replaced regularly scheduled programming with live teachers, teaching current curriculum, and created new digital and on-air content. The value of PBS was felt in a big way.

Farmingdale State College (FSC) sought to develop a multi-field athletic complex in partnership with Dynamic Lacrosse on 15 acres of unused land on its campus where they planned to host large tournament events that historically drew thousands of families to the area. This public-private partnership would seed significant investment in infrastructure leading to the creation of jobs, opportunities for students and generally positive outcomes for the College, including exposure for the campus to potential applicants.

Long Island’s Farmingdale State College (FSC), the SUNY system’s largest College of Technology, consistently broke a troubling enrollment trend throughout SUNY for years: while enrollment across the system was consistently down, FSC continually trended up, and they were quickly running out of room to house their popular growing programs. They sought State capital funding to construct a Center for Computer Science and Information Technology (C-SIT).

When the Governor and SUNY announced the opportunity for capital funding through the NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program in 2011, UAlbany had the vision to bring together scientists and entrepreneurs from across disciplines to collaboratively find solutions to society’s most complex challenges. The plan was to open a research and development complex centered on UAlbany’s core strengths including Climate and Atmospheric Science and Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity.

ASA was retained by CLMHD toward the end of February of 2023 and confronted with an extremely delicate policy issue. Daniel’s Law -- legislation in honor of Daniel Prude who died after his encounter with police in Rochester while he was experiencing a mental health crisis -- involves comprehensive reform to our statewide emergency and crisis response efforts. While well intentioned and meaningful, the approach as written would have effectively removed the integral local government unit influence and perspective essential in community planning.

ASA worked with our client, the Firefighters Association of the State of New York, to allow volunteer fire departments to begin billing a patient’s insurance for the services they render. There had been a prohibition on billing for over three decades – it was a national anomaly as all other states’ volunteer-run ambulances enjoy this capability. It had been estimated that around $100 million annually was failing to be collected, with costs cratering volunteer fire department-run ambulance budgets and directly contributing to a chronic disinvestment in emergency medical services throughout New York's suburban and rural counties.

Since New York adopted the State’s statutory framework in 1934 to regulate the distribution, sale and consumption of alcohol following the end of prohibition, wine and spirits stores were completely prohibited from selling alcohol on Sundays until 2003.  And after being granted the legal permission to conduct sales on Sundays in New York, Wine and Spirit Retailers were only allowed to sell between the hours of Noon and 9pm. Having been left out of New York’s “Brunch Bill’ in 2016, which permitted restaurants to begin serving alcohol at 10am instead of noon on Sundays, the Sunday hours restriction on Wine & Spirit stores was a law that was long overdue for modernization in New York. 

In recognition that electrical demand in New York City will continue to rise while transmission congestion will hinder new resources from reaching the city, in 2010 Transmission Developers, Inc. (TDI) was formed to provide a solution.  TDI proposed the Champlain Hudson Power Express – a bold idea to bring clean renewable energy into NYC through HVDC electric cables reaching up the Hudson River to vast hydropower resources, representing the longest underground project of its kind ever attempted in North America.  

When SUNY and Governor Cuomo announced the opportunity for capital funding through the NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program in 2011, UAlbany had the vision to bring together scientists and entrepreneurs from across disciplines to collaboratively find solutions to society’s most complex challenges. The plan was to open a research and development complex centered on UAlbany’s core strengths including Climate and Atmospheric Science and Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity. 

As the largest bike-sharing system in the United States, Citi Bike sought to expand use of E-Bikes in New York State as part of its continued mission to promote healthy and environmentally friendly transportation options in New York City.  ASA worked with the Governor’s transportation team and the Senate and Assembly sponsor to secure key changes to the legislation that would allow for the dimensions of the e-bikes to be able to accommodate the disabled and helped make changes in the bill to promote safer user habits for riders.