It's difficult to keep up with all the stadium proposals coming down the pike in New York these days. From a taxpayer standpoint, things are looking better. Consider:

After months of numbing single-mindedness, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg concedes there is, after all, an alternative to building a West Side stadium in hopes of capturing the 2012 Summer Olympics: Plan B involves having a new Mets stadium in Queens serving as an Olympic stadium if the city wins the bid. The International Olympic Committee will select the host city next month; Paris and London are considered the favorites, but New York City has put together a much stronger bid than many anticipated.

Government officials have a duty to the taxpayers to get the most out of this public asset as possible. With an alternative plan in place to lure the Olympics, state and city officials shouldn't rush this decision.

The Poughkeepsie Journal

School's out, and students are feeling the pleasure of escape from the classroom routine. The state Board of Regents has a collective smile, too, but for another reason: it finally resolved the nagging problem of how, or when, to establish a 65 passing mark for high school Regents tests.

The smiles are unwarranted. The solution is a step back from standards movement that Commissioner Richard Mills and the board have pursued doggedly since the mid-1990s.

It allows a four-year phase-in to get to a passing grade. The current 55 mark was supposed to be a temporary measure.

The 55 passing standard was adopted in 1995, 10 years ago. The 65 was supposed to be applied beginning in 2003, but that was delayed.

Mills and the Regents believe 65 is the passing standard and 55 is the stopgap. But their actions don't uphold their beliefs. That hurts the movement they've begun.

The Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester