An attorney long active in state and county Democratic Party committee work has been named regional director of the Empire State Development agency”™s mid-Hudson office in New Windsor.
Starting in her $114,000-a-year post this month, Aimee J. Vargas immediately began work overseeing Gov. Andrew Cuomo”™s newly formed Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council as its executive director. The 21-member council, which held its first meeting Aug. 9, has a November deadline to submit to Albany a strategic plan for the sprawling and diverse region”™s economic development.
Vargas succeeds Sullivan County resident Susan B. Jaffe as regional director. Jaffe, who with her husband, Marc, owns and operates Snowdance Farm in Livingston Manor, was hired for the state post in January 2010 after serving as vice president of the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development.
Jaffe was given short notice that she would be replaced in the ESD office while preparing the launch of the governor”™s regional council, according to Hudson Valley sources.
“I think it”™s just pure transition,” Jaffe said of her sudden departure. “It”™s a new administration, a young administration, and we”™ve just begun to see some of the transitioning that in other administrations would have happened a little earlier.”
Jaffe noted her “closing act” in the office was the deal that will result in Mediacom Communications Corp. expanding its Orange County presence with the construction in 2012 of a 110,000-square-foot corporate headquarters in Blooming Grove. The approximately $35 million project, announced Aug. 4 by Cuomo, will keep 250 jobs in the Hudson Valley at the nation”™s eighth-largest cable TV company, which plans to expand its local workforce in the coming years.
Empire State Development provided the company with an incentive package totaling $7.5 million.
By July, Jaffe said, the mid-Hudson office this year had distributed about $25 million in economic development grants in the region, already topping last year”™s total.
On the couple”™s 80-acre livestock farm, Jaffe said she will develop a new business plan that includes value-added agricultural products. She also plans to rest before her next step in economic and community development work.
“I really haven”™t had a vacation in more than two years,” she said.
Vargas is a graduate of Syracuse University and Yeshiva University”™s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. She  most recently was associate counsel and director of the state Department of Environmental Conservation”™s Office of Environmental Justice in Albany. From 2009 until this year, she served as finance director for the town of Clarkstown in Rockland County, providing strategic analysis for town officials to develop and implement fiscal policy for a $134-million budget, according to ESD officials. She also served on the town”™s economic development committee.
Vargas”™ political party work began in 1997, according to her profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn. She was Bronx coordinator that year for both U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer”™s election campaign and the New York State Democratic Committee”™s Latino voter operation. That same year she was hired as media specialist for former Assemblyman Roberto Ramirez, a Bronx Democratic Party leader.
In 2007, Vargas was named executive director and counsel for the Rockland County Democratic Committee. She resigned that position in early spring this year and no longer serves on the party”™s county committee, according to a Rockland Democratic Committee official.
Wow, what a joke. An attorney running our regional economic developement team? We could do without the expense Mr. Cuomo.