Thursday, March 17, 2011

Will the Irish Bum Rush Bloomberg Today?

 Is It A Great Day for A Parade Bloomberg?

If making a off color joke about the Irish always being drunk is not enough. The mayor also faces a pro labor crowd along the parade root today.

In a year when the questions of union power and the responsibility of governments to their employees have taken center stage, St. Patrick's Day is taking on dual meaning for many Irish-Americans, with their rich ties to the labor movement. The struggles their famine-worn ancestors faced as new arrivals — the slurs from their neighbors, the "Irish need not apply" signs — still echo through the generations, as does the avid union support that helped lift them to positions of power, influence and ultimately acceptance. Will the parade goes let the mayor have it for his plans to roll back pension and change LIFO? Third Term's Not the Charm for Mayor (WSJ)  * Labor threats carry poignancy for Irish-Americans(WSJ) * Mayor Bloomberg's approval rating hits 8-year low (DN) * Bloomberg at the Parade (WABC - Video)*  Bloomberg Tries to Make Amends for a Joke, but a Cloud Trails Him (NYT)

 

You Got to Know When to Hold and When to Fold  

Three Men Cover Their Ass With An On Time Budget

NY leaders to meet for state budget talks (WSJ) * Legislative budgeteers are rising above their normal clownish standards, but not too much above (DN Ed) * State Lawmakers Hopeful Of On-Time Budget (NY1) * Democrats Press Cuomo on Rent Regulations (NYT) * Cuomo said there’s “flexibility” in his executive budget and he wants to make a deal with legislative leaders.* The outlook for the extended millionaire’s tax is not good at the moment.* Rudy Giuliani thinks Cuomo has gotten off to a “very good start” because he’s “doing everything that a Republican governor would do in a similar situation.”* Both the Assembly and the Senate included money in their one-house budgets for the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment – the old-school partisan method of redistricting.*Cuomo 'Doing Everything That a Republican Governor Would be Doing'(NYO) * * Governor Cuomo meets with legislative leaders: With two weeks until the budget deadline, Governor Cuomo and top ... (Albany News) * Cuomo: School Districts Playing A ‘Game’ (YNN) * AQE, Students To Cuomo: Two Can Play Political Game (YNN) * * School Cuts Loom Large Over Five-Way Albany Budget Meeting (NY1) *  Cuomo: Rent Control And Tax Cap ‘Connected’ (YNN) * * Reaction to Cuomo’s bashing (TU) * Salaries: An AP reporter is amazed at how many state workers earn more than the governor. * Public Cuomo: "[T]he governor twice tugged on the back of Senate Minority Leader John Sampson’s suit jacket as the senator gave opening remarks."* School Funding" Cuomo says there's "waste" and "abuse" in districts. "Districts say 'we don't have any.' I don't believe it." [Reuters]

 


Bosses Play Politics With Our Schools

Teachers Union Cries Foul Over DOE Email  On Tuesday, an education department employee sent an e-mail message to dozens of Queens parent coordinators—DOE employees who work at schools as liaisons between school administrators and the community—asking the coordinators to circulate a petition among parents and others that would be delivered to elected officials. The petition is to urge elected leaders to help end the state's last-in, first-out layoff rule and instead allow "teachers to be retained based on their performance, rather than just seniority." (WSJ) * Teachers-city feud over evaluations puts $302M at risk (DN) * More students with high SAT scores opt for CUNY colleges (DN) * City's Next Engineering School May Be Foreign Outpost (NYT)

Another Failed City Contract                      More Schools Passing Up DOE Database, Part 1 When the city spent tens of millions of dollars on a computer system for student information, officials said it would revolutionize the way schools worked. But three years later, hundreds of schools are choosing to pay for a different system, which they say works better. In the first of three stories (NY1)


City looking to sell vehicle fleet, then lease it back (DN)

 

 

 

 Congress Masks Earmarks

Lawmakers Find a Path Around an Earmarks Ban Congress pledged to usher in a new way of doing business when it banned earmarks, but lawmakers still have a way to get their projects funded: appealing directly to federal agencies for money.(NYT)

 

2010 State Payroll Posted on SeeThroughNY

  • The highest paid employee in state government was Kevin Broadus, the former men’s basketball coach at SUNY Binghamton.  Broadus was paid $1,026,793 by the University in a settlement. 
  • The next highest paid were SUNY Downstate Medical Center’s Stephen Onesti, chairman of the neurosurgery department, and Alain Kaloyeros, vice president and chief administrative officer of the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, took home $974,605 and $763,289 respectively.  Payroll files from the SUNY Research Fund show that Kaloyeros earned an additional $83,881 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010. 
  • 996 state employees earned more than the Governor’s $179,000 salary, 96 more than in 2009 (1,119 state employees earned more than the Governor’s self-imposed $175,000 salary).
  • At $100,552, the New York State Police had the highest average earnings among Executive branch agencies (excluding SUNY & CUNY).

 

Social Network Elections  

Internet Users Turned to Social Networks in Elections, Survey Finds (NYT) One in five adults who use the Internet, including a growing number of older, conservative Republicans, turned to social networks to get or share information about the midterm elections last year, according to a Pew Research Center study (NYT) * U.S. ad recovery benefiting TV, Internet & other sectors; newspapers sole category to suffer decline 

 

  Everything Changes From Day 1                       

 

 Three years ago on this date, David Paterson was sworn in as New York’s first black governor following the resignation of his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, due to a prostitution scandal.  * Paterson Traded Senate Resources For LG Run in ’06

 

 

 

Subway Meltdown

Snow fiasco shakes up NYC's subway command (DN) *  MTA inspector accused of falsifying crucial safety record vows to beat records

Faked Subway Inspections May Result In Arrests (NY1) * Signal Maintainer Charged With Allegedly Faking Subway Inspections (NY1)


 

 

 Kruger the Gift that Keeps On Giving 



Kruger crony leaned on me for vote: pol

A Forest City Ratner executive whose cozy relationship with state Sen. Carl Kruger is featured in a new criminal complaint against the Brooklyn politician personally lobbied a Yonkers councilman hours before a controversial vote that later led to bribery charges against a councilwoman. Yonkers Council Majority Leader John Murtagh Jr. said FCR Vice President Bruce Bender leaned on him in 2006 to change his expected vote opposing a controversial FCR development. The meeting was set up hours before a Yonkers council vote by then-Yonkers Republican Party chairman Zehy Jereis.* t's payback time for 'Four Amigos' Hiram Monserrate, Pedro Espada, Ruben Diaz Sr. and Carl Kruger (DN) * At Board 18, Nary a Whisper of Kruger (NYT) * Lobbying Clients Prepare For Life Without Lipsky (CHN) * Ratner's Kruger connection! Bruce had dealings with arrested senator (Brooklyn Paper)




Ratner: When Your Lobbyist is Arrested Your Distract

Ratner's Forest City project at Atlantic Terminal ongoing problems with funding beyond the public tit just got deeper.  Their lobbyist Richard Lipsky and VP Bruce Bender are caught up to their eyeballs in the Kruger pay to play scandal.  If you depend on government money and in the middle of of a federal corruption scandal you get your tenants the NYT (Ratner built the financially troubled Times HQ) to run a puff piece to distract the public and pretend your making progress Prefabricated Tower May Rise at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards (NYT)



NYU: Why Not Move Back to the Bronx?

NYU Shifts Expansion After running into heavy community opposition, New York University unveiled a modified expansion plan for its Greenwich Village campus on Wednesday. (WSJ)

Court Backs Refunds for Unhappy Condo Buyers (WSJ) 



Senator You Waited Until People Died
Chinatown unregulated buses have been around for years



Some of Clinton Moving Downtown

Harlem Is Losing a Piece of Clinton The William J. Clinton Foundation is moving some of its offices to Lower Manhattan, but Bill Clinton’s office as a former president will remain in Harlem. (NYT) * Assemblyman Keith Wright says Harlem has no hard feelings about former President Clinton’s impending departure. 

 

No Nudes, Nu?: Orthodox Community Clashes With LES Gallerist Over XXX Art 

 

 

 NYT to Start Charging for Website on March 28


The Times Announces Digital Subscription Plan (NYT)
Readers accessing articles through Google – the most common work-around to paywalls – will be cut off after five articles are viewed in one day. However! There appears to be no cap on how many times you can access articles through Twitter or Facebook.
 New York Times' Unveils Metered Online Paywall * * So NYT will let people read more than 20 articles for free if they access those articles from Twitter and Facebook. So why pay at all? * * The New York Times revealed its long-awaited plans to charge online readers. (WSJ) * * Everything You Need to Know About the New York Times Online Paywall (Gawker)

Washington Post Suspends Reporter For Plagiarism (Huff Post) * Son of Daily News bigwig busted in "kegs and eggs" scandal (DN) * House Votes to Defund NPR (Mediaweek)


A Century After Triangle, Unions Battle New Fires (Tom Robbins, Forward)


Mayor Signs Pregnancy Center Law, Setting Stage for Abortion Battle (WSJ)





Terrorism  Little Backlash When Schumer Led Probe of U.S. Muslims (WSJ)




Japan's China Syndrome

Water Cannons and Helicopters Used in Race to Cool Fuel(NYT) * U.S. Sounds Alarm on Radiation (WSJ)

Indian Point 

Cuomo Orders Safety Review For State Nuclear Plant (NY1) * NY to review safety at Indian Point nuclear plant in wake of reactor disaster in Japan  (SI Advance) * Cuomo has long thought Indian Point was too risky to be located so close to NYC.* Evacuating everyone within a 50-mile radius of Indian Point would entail relocating 15 million people.