City Hall - December 14, 2009

Politicos wonder what’s next for the Charter review commission (Page 6),

Vol. 4, No. 10

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December 14, 2009

and DC37’s Lillian Roberts, above, braces for four more years of Bloomberg (Page 16), while Betsy Gotbaum, left, looks forward to life after the advocate’s office (Page 23).

MCMAHON MIDDLE IN THE

The Staten Island congressman is just like every other first-term, marginal Democrat.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

Only more so.

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

Forethought

Lingering Questions On The WFP

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t the beginning of December, City Hall published “All In The Family,” a five-part investigative series on www.cityhallnews. com about the Working Families Party.

The Party was shown to actually have at least four different arms, enabling it to employ a web of for-profits and non-profits that take in and spend money beyond the rules generally governing political activity.

A pay-for-influence arrangement in endorsements was revealed, along with the details of the Party’s lobbying operation, as was its method of paying workers outside of the labor laws the Party itself has championed.

The questions are not of ideology: on nearly every general plank of its platform, Working Families is in line with most New Yorkers, and its specific goals match the overwhelming pro-union positions of so many people who actually head to the polls. The questions are about whether the Working Families has in fact lived up to the principles it espouses, and, more importantly, whether it has adhered to the rules as it has risen.

Has the Working Families hit upon something so revolutionary, so far beyond anything the Republican or Democratic parties have attempted, because they are ingeniously innovative? Or have they arrived at this place because others have been wary of pushing the limits in quite this way? Or because, as some suspect, there is something much more deliberate at play?

There is legal, and there is right. The Working Families should be living up to both. And enough people have their doubts about whether the leadership needs to do more than simply pay Skadden Arps to do a private review. There need to be some explanations publicly, and directly from the leadership.

Here are some of the questions that they can begin answering, most of which Working Families officials opted not to answer over the course of City Hall’s own inquiries: • What specific methods are undertaken to ensure that the many overlaps between the Working Families Party, Working Families Organization, the Progressive America Fund and Data & Field Services do not run afoul of any of the many tax and legal regulations involved? Why do so few people working for or with any of the entities seem to be aware of these distinctions?

• Why do so many people who regularly deal with what is supposedly a separate branch of the Working Families believe they are dealing only with the political party, to the point that they are almost always unaware that the other branches even exist?

• The Working Families Party routinely argues that its practices are in line with both the letter and the

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Money, influence and the obscure world of the WFP Log on to www.cityhallnews.com to read all five parts of the special investigative series about the Working Families Party. spirit of the law. Whether they have been in the letter of the law is for officials to determine. But can they reasonably say that they are holding to the spirit of the law in a way that would satisfy the standards they ask others to hold to?

• Why have there consistently been so many problems with the records of the Working Families Party, from the late campaign finance filings with the state Board of Elections over the summer, to the sporadic rent payments (and the one marked as being for “401 K PMT”), to the problematic records that caused the former treasurer to resign?

• How can the Working Families Party justify giving bigger weighted votes in endorsements and nominations to the unions that pay more money into its supposedly separate non-profit, the Working Families Organization?

• Why is ACORN paying the salaries, and possibly the rent as well, of Working Families employees?

• And most importantly: given how much evidence there is of blurred lines and strange overlaps, why does the Working Families so adamantly refute the idea that there are connections? If there is nothing wrong with what they are doing, why did it take months of resisted digging by City Hall to uncover what is going on?

The leadership of the Working Families Party has generally attributed all the recent criticism the party has faced to poor communication of their new methods, pointing out that, aside from the Campaign Finance

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Board ruling in September, most of the public criticism it has come under has been at the hands of news stories, editorials and political rivals.

But a growing number of political professionals believe that will eventually change, especially with all the eyes that will soon be going over the internal operations at 2-4 Nevins Street. There is the Randy Mastro lawsuit against Data & Field Services on Staten Island, in which Debi Rose’s lawyer initially resisted providing documents on Fifth Amendment self-incrimination grounds. There is also the City Campaign Finance Board’s standard series of audits of all the campaigns that took matching funds this year, and the Skadden Arps review.

But the Mastro lawsuit is focused only on Data & Field Services, and the Campaign Finance Board audits are focused only on Data & Field Services and the Working Families Party. The Skadden Arps review will have a wider scope, though it is not expected to look at the Progressive America Fund, despite the connections to the Working Families Party through the Fund’s Center for Working Families and National Open Ballot Project.

So if there are to be a full set of answers, it will have to come from somewhere else. If the Working Families really stands behind all its statements and demands for transparency, reform and a new approach to politics, the answers should start coming from the people in charge of the Working Families themselves.

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Bronx Democrats, Potential Candidates Back Off Espada Challenge Fresh off Cabrera win, county leaders focus attention instead on Nelson Castro primary

BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS fter his starring role in this summer’s Senate coup, the safe assumption was that Pedro Espada would be a marked man in 2010.

But that assumption may have been premature.

The Bronx Democratic Party, focused on refilling its depleted campaign coffers and coalescing around new leader Carl Heastie, has hinted that it will either sit out Espada’s race next year or even go so far as to back the feisty majority leader.

“So far, Espada’s been pretty decent,” one party source said. “I’m not so sure you’re going to find anyone willing to go up against him.”

Where the party stands on Espada will become clearer next spring, after Heastie has had the chance to survey district leaders in the neighborhoods that Espada represents and consider their viability as possible challengers. Party sources have indicated that a likelier target in 2010 will be Assembly Member Nelson Castro, whose district overlaps Espada’s and who has a host of legal problems of his own.

Another hint that the Bronx organization will most likely pass on challenging Espada is the Bronx senator’s close relationship with party consigliore Stanley Schlein, who represented Espada during the summer leadership negotiations. Although the two have had a volatile relationship, punctuated by a fistfight at the Bronx offices of the Board of Elections several years ago, some Bronx watchers assume that Schlein and Espada’s renewed alliance will curtail any potential party-backed challenges.

This does not sit well with some Senate Democrats, who are still stinging from Espada’s party-swapping dance in June, the month-long shut-down of the state government and the downward spiral of the Senate’s approval numbers.

In the immediate weeks following the coup, there was talk that Espada’s Senate colleagues would take full control of the effort to oust him, going so far as to recruit a qualified candidate and raise the necessary millions to fund the campaign.

But one-by-one, potential challengers have fallen by the wayside.

Lilliam Perez, chief of staff to State Sen. Eric Schneiderman, floated the possibility of her candidacy in the fall, telling a Columbia Journalism School newspaper, “this is not about whether I want to run. … If I am the one who has the best chance of beating him, I have no choice.”

But she has since stepped back.

“I said some people wanted me to run and that I was very upset at the time since I was interviewed the week of the coup,” Perez wrote in an e-mail. “At the moment, I am not running for office.”

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

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Haile Rivera, a community activist who soon after the coup started talking about running, has also taken his name out of contention, and even predicting that any attempt to run against Espada in 2010 will backfire.

“The Espada seat is not something I’m looking at anymore,” Rivera said. “He is my senator, so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

What speculation there has been has circled around a few well known names in the area: Carlos Gonzalez, the son of former State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez (whom Espada defeated in 2008 and who now is facing prison time stemming from

breaking with his Amigo colleagues— Ruben Diaz, Sr., Carl Kruger and Hiram Monserrate—with his vote in support of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.

Following the bill’s defeat, Espada told reporters that the coup and the 31-day stalemate paved the way for the bill to be brought to the floor for an up-ordown vote. He has also championed the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act, which would extend legal protections to thousands of the state’s undocumented farm workers.

Espada has always operated outside of the county party’s purview, declining to take sides in late 2007 when Heastie and his cadre of “Rainbow Rebels” successfully overthrew Rivera, and relying instead on his own network of non-profits, tenant groups and third-party allies for support.

In a recent campaign finance filing, which are few and far between, Espada reported having over $158,000 on hand, while the Bronx Democratic Party reported having less than $17,000.

The Bronx Party’s efforts to raise money for an Espada challenge may be hampered due to the ongoing and

One-by-one, potential challengers have fallen by the wayside. a corruption conviction) and Council Member Joel Rivera, the son of deposed party boss José Rivera. But though both are occasionally mentioned, neither have given any real indication of interest in the seat.

Espada recently made news by

controversial effort to develop the Kingsbridge Armory. Labor sources warn that if the plan to turn the armory into a shopping mall is killed by the City Council, then the building trade unions will not only cut the party off financially, but will actively support primary challengers against the Bronx delegation, forcing the depleted local party will have to spend precious resources to protect their members.

Meanwhile, Espada appears unconcerned with his own fundraising.

And with Steve Pigeon, a former aide to Buffalo billionaire and coup-bankroller Tom Golisano, staying on as Espada’s counsel, the Bronx pol appears to have at least one financial backer willing to spend his millions on politics.

Espada responded to a request for comment by sending an e-mailed statement, in which he said focusing on his re-election at this moment “would be a disservice to the poor, middle class, elderly, children and working families who are counting on me and the Senate Democratic leadership to help them through these difficult times.”

The new county leadership is still recuperating from the hard-fought Council victory of Fernando Cabrera over Rivera ally Maria Baez. And with Nelson Castro fully in the leaders’ sights, most observers predict the party will be spread too thin if it tries to take on Espada too.

“The party is broken up into pieces,” said Israel Ruiz, a former Bronx state senator. “I don’t think they want to pick a fight with Espada.”

This is not to say that Espada will get a free ride for the rest of his career. With redistricting looming, there are some who speculate that Espada’s district could be redrawn to include larger portions of the predominantly white neighborhood of Riverdale, which could hurt his future chances of re-election.

Others are holding out hope that indictments for Espada could be coming in the months ahead, either from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo or Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson. Espada is reportedly the subject of multiple investigations into questions regarding his residency and personal finances. He was indicted in 1998 but acquitted two years later.

Ruiz argued that despite Espada’s exalted status as majority leader—a position he traded for his loyalty to the Democratic conference—a well-funded challenger could still pose serious problems for him.

“I think he’s vulnerable, given all the bad publicity he’s gotten,” Ruiz said.

“Anybody who can go out and tell the folks that they would do things differently would probably have a really good chance at beating him.” ahawkins@cityhallnews.com

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

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Course Of Bloomberg’s Charter Commission Still Uncharted Advocates wonder if Bloomberg has enough time to keep promises for sweeping change

BY CHRIS BRAGG day after the mayoral race ended, Gene Russianoff, the senior attorney for NYPIRG, emailed Kevin Sheekey, a top advisor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Now that the election was over, Russianoff wanted to know what had come of the Bloomberg administration’s promise to form a 2010 charter review commission—a promise that paved the way for a third Bloomberg term.

Over a month later, Russianoff has still not received a reply.

He is not the only one who is in the dark about the mayor’s plans.

Howard Rubenstein, the political spokesman for cosmetics fortune heir and term-limits proponent Ron Lauder, was in the room when the two billionaires agreed to have term limits extended in exchange for convening a charter commission next year–and urging them to go back to a twoterm limit.

But Rubenstein has heard nothing from his client, Lauder, about the formation of the commission that would perform that task.

“I presume that Mr. Lauder would have called me if he had heard anything about it,” Rubenstein said.

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Lauder himself could not be reached for comment. The mayor’s press office also declined to comment on the administration’s plans.

Given the still simmering anger over the term-limits extension, most observers believe that Bloomberg will not break his promise to put a measure on the 2010 ballot, which would settle— perhaps once and for all—whether the city’s term limits should be set at two terms or three.

But many, from borough presidents to good government groups, are hoping for more.

During the 2008 State of the City address, Bloomberg promised a comprehensive, 18-month commission to look at the whole city charter. This never happened, and instead, the only change to the charter came through the mayor prompting the Council to make the termlimits extension legislatively.

If there is to be a commission, Bloomberg would have to be the one to call it, and as mayor, he has exclusive authority over how many people—up to 15—to appoint, as well as who those people are. The mayor also picks the chair of the commission and sets the agenda.

In all charter reviews, the

recommendations of the commission must be voted upon by the public as one single measure. If topics not germane to term limits were put up in addition to that issue, there are fears that this could muddy the debate and ultimate vote over term limits.

time and planning. In the 1989 sweeping charter review, the process took three years, employed 52 full-time staffers and held 141 public hearings.

With less than a year before the 2010 elections and no clear plan in the works, Russianoff speculated that this could lead to what he derisively called a “quick and dirty” review, like those Bloomberg conducted before the 2002 and 2003 elections to get favored causes, such as establishing non-partisan elections and limiting the public advocate’s power, on to the ballot.

In his 2008 State of the City speech, Bloomberg suggested that a commission could help make some of his signature initiatives, like the 311 line, permanent through writing them into the charter. And as he sought the Independence Party line this spring, Bloomberg told party leaders he was open to again looking at non-partisan elections, which is also a pet cause of party activists.

Then in October, at a Staten Island Advance editorial board interview, Bloomberg said that eliminating the public advocate’s office could be on the table. He also said that while he might be open to giving borough presidents a

“There has to be a good reason and you really have to have an independent committee,” said Prof.

Eric Lane. “You also have to have staffing that isn’t just made up of the mayor’s people.”

Alternatively, the commission could only put the term-limits question to a vote next year, and another commission could consider more sweeping measures in a subsequent year.

For those favoring a broader look at city government sooner rather than later, the apparent lack of movement on the commission is a cause for concern: a comprehensive charter review takes

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different role, he was not prepared to give them more power by taking it away from the Council.

Any move to get rid of the advocate’s office would likely meet strong resistance from Public Advocate-elect Bill de Blasio and a backlash at the polls from the Working Families Party.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has continued making the case to give borough presidents independent budgets and more power over land use.

Though some of the interests of the borough presidents and the public advocate intersect—such as the effort to obtain an independent budget— Markowitz said he expects that these battles will be waged separately.

“The public advocate will fight for what he believes is right and I will fight for what I think is right,” he said.

If a sweeping review does occur, the model would be the 1989 commission formed by Mayor Ed Koch. The commission was formed after the Supreme Court found the Board of Estimate unconstitutional, creating the need for sweeping changes in the power distribution of city government.

That 15-member panel was appointed by the mayor, but its members were suggested by the Council and borough presidents. Many of their

recommendations ended up contradicting Koch’s positions.

Good-government advocates say that if Bloomberg is indeed serious about a sweeping charter review, appointing a chair who is seen as independent from the mayor would be a critical first step. (The chair of a 2005 commission, Ester Fuchs, had been serving as a senior advisor to Bloomberg.) The three commissions Bloomberg has formed during his tenure have largely consisted of close allies.

One person already promised a seat on a commission is Lauder, in the deal made for his support of the term-limits extension, according to Rubenstein.

Eric Lane, who from 1986 to 1989 served as executive director of the Koch commission, said a broad-based review was possible then because the crisis in city government gave clear purpose to the commission’s work—and because Koch stayed out of their way.

Lane said he was pessimistic such conditions would exist in 2010, however, and predicted that any charter review commission would just nibble around the edges of reform.

“There has to be a good reason and you really have to have an independent committee,” Lane said. “You also have to have staffing that isn’t just made up of the mayor’s people.” cbragg@cityhallnews.com

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

Our Perspective A Growing Industry … and a Growing Crisis

By Stuart Appelbaum President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, UFCW lmost nothing says New York City more than the holiday hustle and bustle at our city’s biggest stores. It’s also a reminder that retailing is one our most important industries.

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Up until the economic downturn, retail jobs were increasing at a rate seven times faster than total private sector employment growth.

Ten percent of all New Yorkers working in private industry now get their paychecks from retailers. But most of those paychecks offer only a fraction of what families need to survive in New York City, let alone join the middle class.

The Problem: Low Wages The Fiscal Policy Institute found that within New York City’s retail sector three in five workers earn an hourly wage of $13 or less, and 44 percent earn less than $10 an hour. There are more lowWhen developers wage workers employed by retailers than any other single sector of our ask the public for city’s economy. And, contrary to missubsidies, tax conceptions, they aren’t teenagers. abatements and The vast majority — 78 percent — other help, the are 25 years of age or older. And public has the right more than a third are their family’s sole provider. Even in the best of to expect sometimes they struggle each day to keep thing in return. food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Rebuilding the Middle Class

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When developers ask the public for subsidies, tax abatements and other help, the public has the right to expect something in return: jobs that will pay workers enough to support themselves and their families. That doesn’t only mean requiring a living wage, but also guaranteeing that workers are able to exercise their right to join a union free from employer interference.

Eva Moskowitz, right, mulls a 2013 comeback (Page 8), new Council Member Liz Crowley braves the harsh weather for her first day on the job (Page 18)

Vol. 3, No. 8

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and Richard Ravitch, left, explains why everyone should get on board his plan to save the MTA (Page 23).

January 2009

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For decades, city officials have been willing to use tax dollars to help developers create poverty wage retail jobs. We can all be proud that there are some elected officials who aren’t afraid to stand up and say it’s wrong. Maybe, someday, we’ll have a mayor with the guts to do the same. One thing that is certain is that New Yorkers will be able to count on the RWDSU to push back and do whatever it takes to transform low-wage jobs into middle class careers.

Visit us on the web at

www.rwdsu.org www.cityhallnews.com

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

Quiet Closures As Health And Hospitals Corporation Struggles With Cuts

BY SELENA ROSS fter having been spared major budget cuts this time around, the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation could face draconian cuts when budget negotiators meet next.

This could shutter many of its programs, tossing thousands of the poor and sick into the streets.

State politicians won a rare victory for the Health and Hospitals Corporation this fall during bruising special-session budget cuts: they saved Medicaid spending, reducing cuts from a proposed $63 million to only $8.4 million.

But this winter, even as many public programs and social services around the state are about to go under the budget axe, the agency appears to be in for a major reckoning.

“We are grateful to the Senate for reducing the amount,” said Pamela McDonnell, a spokeswoman for the Health and Hospitals Corporation, about the midyear cuts. ”We hope that they take into consideration the essential role that public hospitals play when planning for the next fiscal year.”

In March, the agency announced the closure of programs that treated more

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than 11,000 patients, including four school-based mental health programs and a hospital-based one for adults. But in July, according to advocates, without much fanfare, the Health and Hospitals Corporation quietly closed more services.

The agency also closed HIV/AIDs programs at Jacobi and Harlem Hospitals, and closed or cut back primary care services in Sheepshead Bay, Highbridge and Tremont.

And the Health and Hospitals Corporation— which relies nearly entirely on public money, since much of their funding comes from Medicaid reimbursements—expects more cuts on the way. Under the pressure of the deficit, few health services can be considered off-limits to cuts.

“I think everyone involved feels that this is about the most gruesome budget year we have ever dealt with,” said Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, the chair of the Assembly Health Committee.

“Where would you draw the line? Frail, elderly people in nursing home beds?

Children with earaches? People who need cancer screenings? All of these things are either life-and-death or serious pain and physical damage.”

The number of New Yorkers who are uninsured or publicly insured is rising

BRONX

and advocates say the Health and Hospitals Corporation can expect to face a structural deficit of anywhere from $300 million to $1 billion in fiscal year 2011.

Ultimately, the MANHATTAN agency must decide which clinics to shutter after cuts come through. But in some cases, legislators can step in to protect certain clinics or hospital programs, and they can be lobbied hard to do so by constituents and advocates.

The agency then must balance between shuttering relatively little-used clinics and succumbing to the entreaties of the well-connected. For example, the Health and Hospitals Corporation announced in March the closure of a clinic in Springfield Gardens, Queens, but Assembly Member Barbara Clark and State Sen. Shirley Huntley fought successfully to keep it open.

The trouble right now, legislators say, is deciding what deserves special treatment.

“What can afford to take a hit is

QUEENS

BROOKLYN

Hitting Close to Home: Above are sites where the HHC has closed or scaled back some services within the past year.

Many are community clinics or mental health services for childen and teenagers. completely a matter of where you sit, right?” said Denise Soffel, the director of the Senate Health Committee under State Sen. Tom Duane. “It’s very subjective.” sross@cityhallnews.com

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City Suffers As Albany And DC Defund Landmark Environmental Laws “Polluter pays” policies considered to make up budget shortfalls at environmental agencies

BY ANDREW COTLOV tate lawmakers have effectively defunded a landmark environmental protection law passed by Congress more than three decades ago after years of bloodletting and budget cutbacks, experts and advocates say.

Like most state agencies, the Department of Environmental Conservation has seen its budget slashed as a result of revenue shortfalls and shifting federal priorities. But unlike those agencies, the DEC is charged with enforcing federal regulations on everything from water quality to smog.

Now, New York has fallen decades behind in its effort to comply with those mandates, resulting in a vast array of health and environmental problems.

Pockets of New York City, for example, have some of the highest asthma rates in the country.

“Any elected official worth his or her grain of salt, if they were not concerned about the budget impact and the negative effect it’s going to have as far as the air pollution in our community—then they should not be in office,” said Council Member Robert Jackson, who supports

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supplementing the lack of state funding with more money at the city level.

Over the last five years the DEC has suffered from a 25-percent reduction in its federal funding, a gap the state legislature has failed to fill. The agency has had to lay off dozens of inspectors and other officials charged with enforcing anti-pollution mandates, resulting in an increased workload across the board.

“The governor and state legislature has cut [DEC] funding down to the bone,” said Allison Jenkins, the fiscal policy program director at the Environmental Advocates of New York, which has released two reports in the past month examining the cuts.

Environmental Advocates found that the state has met just 17 of the 30 mandates set forth by the groundbreaking 1970 Clean Air Act, and 30 counties across the state have failed to achieve minimal federal standards for smog reduction.

Ten more counties have also failed to achieve the basic standards for reducing so-called “small particle pollution,” or soot.

The result, Jenkins added, would be to defer the costs of compliance until

taxpayers are forced to foot the bill.

“Taxpayers are picking up the burden of the cost of environmental protection because state resources are declining and federal resources are declining,” she said. “If we dedicate resources to enforcing the laws we have now, it will be less expensive than it will be to clean up dangerous and toxic situations in the future.”

Some experts have advocated a measure that would force polluters to pay for the costs of environmental compliance rather than the state, by taxing pollution at a higher rate and establishing a fee-per-mandate structure that charges polluters for failing to meet federal regulations.

“I certainly have no problem with the ‘polluter pays’ philosophy, and that might be something we’ll take a look at,” said Assembly Member Robert Sweeney, chair of the committee on environmental conservation. He cautioned, though, that even a new batch of increased taxes and fees might not be enough to fill the state’s environmental funding gap.

When asked about potential increases to taxes and fees, a spokesperson for the Business Council of New York stated that

they would not support any new taxes but declined to comment further.

In mid-December the Environmental Protection Agency determined that some ozone standards have been met in several upstate counties, but the agency also clarified that their ruling is not a re-designation of these areas under the Clean Air Act. It also did not make similar determinations on the air quality of the New York metro area.

“We’re meeting our obligations even with this time of fiscal uncertainty,” said Maureen Wren, a DEC spokeswoman said. “Some tasks relating to clean air regulations have taken a while to complete, but they are being completed in order to meet our final requirements.”

The costs of those delays to the health and safety of New Yorkers, advocates warn, have already been too high.

“Ozone, when it’s breathed into the lungs, actually is like getting a sunburn on the inner tissue of your lungs,” said Mike Seliback of the American Lung Association. “Until we can really clean up that air, we’re going to continue to see children being forced to go to hospitals to treat asthma attacks.”

Direct letters to the editor to editor@ cityhallnews.com.

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Cost Stability Comparison U.S. Electricity Production Costs 2008 Cents Per Kilowatt-Hour Coal — $2.75 Gas — $8.09 Petroleum — $17.26

Nuclear — $1.87 Comparative Megawatt Output Average Day Indian Point Energy Center 2064 megawatts Hoover Dam Hydroelectric Plant 2064 megawatts Niagara Falls Hydroelectric Plant 1880 megawatts

And numerous independent energy experts agree.

An independent safety evaluation panel concluded in the summer of 2008 that “Indian Point is a safe plant that meets all U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements, and plant safety systems are well maintained and reliable. Indian Point’s performance compares favorably to high-performing plants in most aspects of nuclear safety.”

In a 2006 report by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, a panel of independent experts came to the objective conclusion that Indian Point is critical to the region’s energy needs.

Without it, there would be an increase in air pollution, an increase in the cost of electricity and a decrease in power reliability.

The New York Independent Systems Operator said, “Indian Point’s capacity of over 2,000 megawatts represents approximately ve percent of New York State’s total generating capacity and approximately 30 percent of the energy generated within one of the most densely populated areas in the nation (i.e., Long Island, New York City and Westchester County).”

A report by the Business Council of Westchester concluded, “Unlike nuclear energy (Indian Point Energy Center), natural gas would also increase the region’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it nearly impossible for reaching carbon emissions elimination targets as agreed to by New York State as a partner in the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Natural gas is also subject to severe price uctuations.”

The MTA subways and suburban rail, Grand Central Station, the Port Authority, NYC airports, SUNY, CUNY, and the city’s public schools, police, re departments, as well as government facilities in the city and Westchester County, all count on the clean, reliable electricity from Indian Point Energy Center.

That’s why the NYS Building Congress, the NYC Partnership, the Independent Power Producers of NY, the Hudson Valley Chamber of Commerce and the NYS AFL-CIO to name a few, recently testied in support of the license renewal of the Indian Point Energy Center.

Largest gas-fired plant in NY 1064 megawatts Largest coal-fired plant in NY 766 megawatts

Direct Economic Impact

Largest wind farm in NY 300 megawatts

Annual Payroll and Purchases $400,000,000

Largest solar plant in US 200 megawatts

State and Local Taxes Paid $50,000,000

Safe. Secure. Vital.

Indian Point Energy Center

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

www.cityhallnews.com

CITY HALL

MCMAHON The Staten Island congressman is just like every other first term, marginal Democrat.

Only more so. here are 258 Democrats in the House of Representatives, 81 more than there are Republicans. Forty-nine of them represent districts won by John McCain in 2008. Thirty-one of them—and 39 Democrats overall—voted against the health care bill that is now getting carved up on either side of Capitol Hill.

Only one of them represents a major American city: Mike McMahon.

Just before Thanksgiving, he stood before 20 of his daughter’s high school’s senior classmates at the tony Poly Prep Country Day in Dyker Heights and got to the essence of his predicament.

“Demographics are very important to win elections,” he said, explaining that the 13th Congressional district is “the most Italian-American district in the nation.”

“Think about that,” he said, letting the thought settle.

“I’m Mike McMahon,” he said, wagging one finger, “a Democrat,” wagging the other.

Many of the Democrats who took over long-held Republican seats in 2006 and 2008 came from far outside the political class: entrepreneurs, career military personnel, even an NFL quarterback.

Not McMahon. He gave up a lucrative law practice in the 1990s to take a part-time job in the City Council to set himself up for an eventual run and, once in, slowly and carefully laid the groundwork for what was supposed to be a run for borough president.

An outsider he is not: his wife is a state supreme court judge, both his brothers are lobbyists, and his sister-in-law is a deputy mayor. This all served him well last year, after Vito Fossella’s speedy and steep descent—a DWI on the way home from a Giants party at the White House? A secret second family for the family values man?—gave way to its own circus of an estranged punk rocker son challenging his father on a third-party ticket, that father dropping dead right after sealing up the nomination, and the Republican Party fighting to get rid of their candidate, one of their own former elected officials, up until the bitter end.

McMahon had always dreamed of getting to “The Big Show,” as he called it. But he never could figure out how he would have squeaked out a victory. Last November, he won by 28 points.

Even his laundry played a role.

“You only have one dry cleaner?” McMahon marveled at John Luisi, the two-time Democratic nominee for Staten Island borough president, who was telling the thenCouncil member of how he was getting ready to ask his regular laundromat to hang a campaign sign.

“I have three,” Luisi remembers McMahon saying.

“To take something so personal, like who does your dry cleaning, and try to figure out how to get a political advantage out of it,” Luisi said. “I don’t know. It just shows what a serious political player he is.”

At Poly Prep, he told the students about fundraising, about dealing with the press, about the demands being a congressman has put on his family life.

They asked him about Obama, and he talked about the stimulus bill, which he enthusiastically favored, the bank bailout, which he tepidly did, and the health care bill, which he did not. He played the part of the cautious moderate, careful what he votes for, careful what he says about those votes.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

By David Freedlander

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

DECEMBER 14, 2009

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N MIDDLE IN THE

Though it is not clear that McMahon has any reason to be so concerned, so cautious, so careful. The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting two dozen Democrats in 2010, and McMahon does not seem to be the top of that list. And when national political guru Stu Rothenberg came out with his “Dirty Dozen” list of seats most likely to flip, McMahon was not on it. When asked where the Staten Island congressman would appear, Rothenberg said, “not on the top 30.”

McMahon benefits from a Republican Party that is riven with disorder and that has yet to attract what he calls an A-list opponent: a current elected official who comes with a geographic base and a record.

Instead, he has Mike Grimm, a former FBI agent who made his name busting a mafia capo unwittingly employed by the family business of his declared GOP rival, Michael Allegretti, a 31-year-old energy expert who raised $200,000, but who just moved to the Staten Island side of the district—where 80 percent of the electorate resides.

But McMahon is leaving nothing to chance. His days in the district are a whirlwind of fundraisers, senior centers and shaking every outstretched hand in Staten Island and Brooklyn. He has raised close to $1 million already. He has high name recognition and is the most popular Democrat on Staten Island. But he has a lot of seniors and union members in his district, who vote in high numbers in midterm elections and who see nothing in health care reform.

And so, McMahon says, he is the underdog.

“I’m what’s called a marginal,” he told the students. “A target. A frontline district—meaning that the Republicans have targeted this district as one they want to take back because they think I got in under unusual circumstances.”

The students stared up at him.

“I don’t expect to have that easy a time next time around.”

fter leaving the school, McMahon and his driver pulled out on to the Verrazano Bridge to head back to Staten Island, a place which is politically far closer to the heartland than the Heartland Brewery in Times Square.

On the bridge on his way to a dedication ceremony at a firehouse, he mused on the political possibilities of talking to his

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daughter’s classmates.

“It’s not so much the politics, it’s the fun part of it,” he said, before admitting, “but you know, they tell their parents you were there, and the buzz goes out in that regard.”

There is also a practicality to it.

“Besides, during the day kids in school and senior citizens are the only ones around,” he said.

After Poly Prep, McMahon visited five senior centers before lunchtime for the annual turkey trot, where he joined other elected officials to drop off frozen Thanksgiving birds before the holiday—and constituents dropped all their frustration with the Obama administration on him.

“I did not vote for the guy, but I want to root for the guy,” said one old-timer as McMahon smiled grimly and silently. “But he keeps getting worse and worse.”

They asked about the stimulus, which McMahon voted for, (“Hopefully those jobs will start showing up soon,” he said), about taxes and deficits and jobs.

They cornered McMahon on their Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment, which was down for the first time in years, with the Consumer Price Index falling due to the weak economy.

“Just my luck,” McMahon said when he was safely out of earshot. “I get into office and for the first time in a generation the CPI is down.”

Mostly though, they asked about health care. McMahon is something of a wonk, and patiently explained about cuts to Medicare Advantage, about the public option and single-payer and whom the new bill would affect and how.

Early on in his tenure on the Council, Mike McMahon was under pressure to vote with the leadership in favor of a big property tax increase that was wildly unpopular on Staten Island. After some agonizing, he decided he could not disobey the leadership, and it is a vote that Republicans intend to use against him eight years and a different legislative body later. He has taken those lessons to Washington, where McMahon’s colleagues say he was quietly firm from the beginning that he would be a “No” vote, something of a feat, considering most of the New York delegation voted in favor.

“I think sometimes the assumption is, you are from New York, you should be able to vote with the leadership—but in both our cases, in order for us to win re-election our supporters need to come not just from the Democratic base but

from swing voters,” said Dan Maffei, an upstate congressman. “There is a clear understanding that certain members from certain districts really shouldn’t vote for bills—I’m talking about members from Colorado or Mississippi. But if there is an ‘NY’ next to your name, I do believe that leadership, even subconsciously, believes we are in more Democratic districts than we are.”

McMahon straddles this line, too.

Take upstate Rep. Mike Arcuri (who voted for the health care bill): “He always says, ‘I’m not from New York City, I’m from Staten Island.’”

Or take Tom Rooney, a GOP freshman with whom McMahon has struck up an alliance that has brought both a lot of positive media coverage: “To be honest with you, I’m not even really sure where he is from,” he said. “I know he is from New York, but I honestly don’t know where.”

McMahon disputes the idea that his “No” vote on health care was political protection drummed up by Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, meant to insulate him against any challengers. This is really how he felt, he insists.

“There were no passes,” he said. “No one was given an easier time than others. … I was not given a political pass or an electoral evaluation concession.”

McMahon did not publicly announce which way he was going to vote on the health care bill until four days before the final vote. Other than the proposed special tax of executive bonuses, which McMahon claimed would impact Staten Islanders who worked on Wall Street, he has stood firmly with Obama and the Congressional leadership on the stimulus, cap and trade, and S-CHIP. That he chose to dissent on health care just as the 2010 speculation was really gearing up led many across the political spectrum to charge McMahon with political pandering. He was, they say, just trying to bring his laundry to as many dry cleaners as possible.

And some of them are not having it.

“People are not stupid,” said Tom LaManna, who worked alongside McMahon in the City Council. “He hasn’t shown great independence before, and then he’s giving all kinds of mixed signals for way too long on that vote, then he votes a quiet ‘No.’ People are saying he can be a little too cute sometimes.” f McMahon’s health care vote was a head fake, his Republican opponents were not fooled, and are already hitting with all the standard choice lines.

“His first vote was for Nancy Pelosi, and that is problem number one,” says Grimm, the former FBI agent. “With this liberal administration, the Obama administration, we will see more of what we are seeing: more taxes, cap and trade, health care reform, which is abomination.

Him being there with this administration just furthers that along.”

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

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Although most Staten Islanders are registered Democrats, Island politicos say that the typical voter profile there is of someone who fled the urban centers of Brooklyn and Queens to get closer to suburban (read: whiter) living.

Voters there are notorious ticket splitters, and even though the district went Republican in 2008, Obama provided some measure of protection to McMahon that will not be there come November.

“In 2008, voters who did not feel comfortable with Obama were able to vote for McCain and still vote for McMahon. This time, the only avenue to send a message to President Obama is to vote Republican,” said Dave Wasserman, the House editor of the Cook Political Report. “The voters are angry at the way the Democrats are proceeding are more likely to show up in 2010.”

Allegretti, the energy expert, is also trying to capitalize on the toxicity that he believes comes with McMahon’s party affiliation.

“One vote does not make a congressman a different shade of blue,” he says. “His voting record will speak for itself because we will expose it. There is a tide in this country against the Democrats in Congress. That is something he is swimming an upstream battle against.”

Every marginal Democrat in the country has been through this ground with their political consultants. McMahon, though, faces his own set of challenges, with the odd conglomerate of voting blocs in the 13th Congressional district that leaves him open on the left as well as the right. He has never been a darling of the Democratic Party regulars and activists on Staten Island— he is more a member of “The McMahon Party,” they scoff. He exacerbated those feelings when he endorsed a Conservative for borough president and Michael Bloomberg for mayor this year. (Both endorsed McMahon in his 2008 Congressional race.)

“I think he is disloyal,” said Susan Chew, a Democratic Party activist on Staten Island. “He is the highest ranking Democrat on Staten Island, and

he doesn’t endorse Democrats. If he supports Republicans, should we support a Republican against him?”

For this crowd, the vote against health care may be the last straw.

“Health care is not just another issue, this is a defining moment,” said one leading Democrat official. “How would you like to have a representative who voted against Social Security? He doesn’t dare be out front on some great injustices out there, which is why progressives are wary of him.”

After the health care vote, several unions rallied to denounce McMahon.

There began rumblings on the Island about somebody mounting a challenge against him from the left on the laborbacked Working Families Party line.

“If somebody runs a hard primary against him and stays in the race on a minor party line, he will absolutely lose and the district will go Republican,” the Island Democrat said.

He added that many of the district’s

“I’m what’s called a marginal,” McMahon said.

“A target. A frontline district— meaning that the Republicans have targeted this district as one they want to take back because they think I got in under unusual circumstances.” hardcore Democrats would like to see the district split after redistricting between two progressives like Reps. Jerry Nadler and Anthony Weiner, whose districts abut McMahon’s. With New York set to lose at least one seat after the next census, they say, those lines are going to get wider anyway.

“There are some people who think—let it go to a Republican, then in redistricting just carve the district up among two other Democrats. Then you get real Democrats rather than a guy you can’t depend on.

That’s the Nadler/Weiner solution.”

In September, McMahon’s former chief of staff and anointed successor, Kenny Mitchell, another moderate Irish Democrat from the old guard, was routed in his rematch with Debi Rose, an African-American activist who went into the primary with strong Working Families support. For a moment, Mitchell considered remaining an active candidate on the Conservative line. Rumors floated that McMahon would support him if he did (McMahon had himself beat Rose for the seat in 2001).

Though Mitchell ultimately opted out in deference to his old boss, McMahon’s belated endorsement of Rose angered

CITY HALL some of the Democratic activists and African-Americans he will need to survive.

When told about this, Stuart Rothenberg—the congressional watcher who had been so sure of McMahon’s standing—paused to reassess.

“When we see situations like that,” he said, “it makes us cautious.”

Rose’s win set off new rumblings of the long-rumored Fossella comeback.

Democrats on the Island say that for all the scandal, the still-wildly-popular old pro is the one with the best chance of beating McMahon. Fossella has kept quiet—to an extent. After the September primary, he appeared at a parade for the Island’s Little League team, spoke at a local health care forum, and has begun blogging at the conservative site Red State, where he accused the Obama Administration of “tripping all over itself to apologize, to ignore history, to coddle tyrants and terrorists.”

As the calendar ticks on, though, Fossella seems less and less likely to get involved.

“We’ve seen remarkable comebacks in American politics, but that would be up there,” said Wasserman, the analyst for the Cook Political Report.

If McMahon is successful in 2010, he could remain a congressman for a very long time. The political savvy that got him to Congress could help him get the linedrawers in Albany to make his district more favorable, by either moving further into Brooklyn or taking on parts of the southern end of Manhattan. He is already the freshman whip, a possible stepping stone to eventual House leadership.

Meanwhile, McMahon’s path to victory in 2010 is similar to that of many newly elected Democrats around the country: focus on the district, and let the national debate play itself out. He couches every vote he has taken in how it will benefit the district, what it will do to transportation or job growth or the environment. He still attends ribbon-cuttings for funds he secured for projects while he was still in the Council. He is relying on his old network of Democratic colleagues that still serve in the Council to make introductions in neighborhoods where he still needs to meet new voters.

One of his best human shields is Vinny Gentile, the popular Brooklyn Council member who joined him for part of the pre-Thanksgiving turkey trot to make introductions to rooms of gray heads in Bay Ridge.

“This is the guy fighting for your health care in Washington, D.C.,” he said, trying to get their attention.

It was a tough room.

“Why are they raiding Medicare?” one woman implored him. “It’s not fair!”

“He didn’t vote for it!” Gentile said, getting in the way. “He didn’t vote for it!”

And then he grabbed McMahon by the arm and shuffled him off to the next table. dfreedlander@cityhallnews.com

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CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

DECEMBER 14, 2009

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SAM WASHBURN

Lentol Points To Plan To Make CUNY One Click Away

Online degrees proposal faces opposition from professors union, Higher Ed chair

BY ANDREW COTLOV ed up with the rising cost of college tuitions and a system that he feels fails to offer flexibility for working adults to go back to school, Assembly Member Joseph Lentol has introduced a bill calling for the creation of online colleges within the city and state university systems.

CUNY already offers a limited online program,

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but students can only pursue two different degrees exclusively through online classes. The new virtual college that Lentol envisions will allow students to pursue the same catalog of degrees that they could at traditional colleges. But instead of taking classes together in large lecture halls, students would be able to log on from their living rooms.

“I think more people than ever will seek to go to

school with this program,” said Lentol, who would fund the program partially through federal stimulus funds earmarked for education. “It will just be a hell of a lot easier.”

Lentol is facing some serious opposition from teachers unions, who contend that the program neglects many key features of a student’s education.

“I appreciate that he is thinking about expanding access to higher education,” said Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress union, which represents CUNY professors. “We certainly share Assembly Member Lentol’s goal, but this is not the way to go about it.”

Bowen said that students enrolled in an entirely online program will be shortchanged because they will not have the same opportunities for growth through interaction with their peers. Bowen said she is also concerned that students will not receive the same personalized mentorship from professors that benefit traditional college students.

Labor disputes may become a point of contention as well because of the potential increase in workload for professors charged with developing and teaching the new online courses.

Bowen also raised the issue of a possible communication barrier for students taking classes only on the Internet.

“I do have a concern, especially at CUNY, where students come in with a multitude of languages and writing ability and because so many of them speak English as a second language, that your way of communicating with other students through an online setting is through writing,” she says.

Bowen is not alone in her opposition to Lentol’s plan. Other members of the Legislature question the merits of creating a virtual college.

“I haven’t spoken with Joe directly, I’m not sure what his thinking is about that,” said Deborah Glick, chair of the Assembly’s Higher Education Committee. “I’m not sure which gap Assembly Member Lentol thinks he’s filling.”

While Glick supports the effort to make higher education more accessible, she noted that Lentol is not on the Higher Education Committee.

She also questioned how much thought he put into his proposal beforehand and whether it was the role of the Legislature to micromanage SUNY and CUNY schools as he is attempting to do.

“At a time when we have over the last decade or two reduced the state’s support for both SUNY and CUNY and, certainly during the Giuliani administration, just treated CUNY disgracefully,” Glick said, “it seems a little bit odd that we would not be in conversation with CUNY to find out whether this is a direction they think would be good for the university.”

But Lentol is adamant that a new age of higher education is coming and that CUNY and SUNY will both fall behind the curve if they fail to develop their own virtual programs. He cites leading private universities like MIT offering competitive degree programs online.

“This virtual age that we live in has created a whole new world,” warns Lentol. “This is going to happen with or without them, and I would prefer it happen with them, because they’re good schools.”

Direct letters to the editor to editor@nycapitolnews.com.

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

www.cityhallnews.com

Facing Her Own Re-Election, Roberts Looks To Avoid Fallout From Mayoral Election Fears of retribution costs for city’s largest municipal union in mayor’s third term

BY CHRIS BRAGG hen members of District Council 37 gathered to endorse Bill Thompson in August, a palpable sense of anger filled the basement of the union’s headquarters.

For over a year, relations with Mayor Michael Bloomberg had been on a sharp decline. And though the press conference was in the middle of the day, DC 37 members clad in green T-shirts filled the room, unleashing their fury about the mayor.

“He’s changed! He’s changed!” exclaimed District Council 37 executive director Lillian Roberts.

But now, following Bloomberg’s narrow re-election win, Roberts will have to sit down in March with the man she so staunchly opposed and begin hashing out a new contract for the 125,0000-member public employee union.

In doing so, Roberts will be in a different position than many of the city’s other public-sector unions, who either sat out this year’s mayoral election or endorsed Bloomberg. Some feared privately that crossing the heavily favored mayor could effect their upcoming contract negotiations.

Nonetheless, Roberts said she still believes any animosity from the mayoral campaign would not carry over.

“This was never personal,” she said.

“This had to do with making the best decisions we could for our members and getting attention to our problems. And I think the same attitude applies to the mayor. I think he’s bigger than that.”

Roberts herself is up for re-election on Jan. 26 and faces what could be a tough challenge from Claude Fort, president of the Local 375 Civil Service Technical Guild.

Fort said that under Roberts the union has lacked a long-term political strategy that could have helped fight layoffs in light of the $5 billion budget gap.

He also expressed skepticism that Roberts’ rhetoric about Bloomberg would be forgotten so quickly by the administration, which has developed a reputation in some quarters for remembering such slights.

“She took it too personally,” Fort said.

“She had a personal vendetta.”

A group of anti-Roberts candidates running on a slate called “Members Deserve Better” are arguing that Roberts has soured relations with the mayor, and that new leadership is needed.

“She attacked Bloomberg, and everyone was scratching their heads,” said

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Arthur Schwartz, an attorney representing a number of candidates running on the slate. “Instead of being the first to get a new contract, I think DC 37 will have to wait the longest for a new contract, and will suffer the worst layoffs.”

Over the past four years, DC 37 has received generous 4-percent raises. But in making their endorsement decision this year, leadership decided it could no longer stomach the administration’s $9 billion in annual spending on outside contractors, thousands of public employee layoffs and opposition to a bill lifting residency requirements for DC 37 workers.

State Sen. Diane Savino, a former DC 37 staffer and chair of the Senate Civil Service committee, argued that the union had made the right call in endorsing Thompson.

“The mayor has not been particularly friendly to labor over the past year and a half, and DC 37 members bore the brunt of it,” Savino said. “You don’t endorse somebody when they’ve got their foot on your neck—and they were going to have a hard time bargaining with the mayor anyway.”

Some within the union are now also taking solace in the fact that the United

Federation of Teachers does not seem to be getting many concessions in its own current negotiations despite remaining neutral in the mayor’s race.

The union also does not have especially strong relations with Council Speaker Christine Quinn: they declined to endorse Quinn in her Council re-election campaign, citing Quinn’s failure to show up for a candidate interview. (The union made no endorsement in that race.)

But the union’s political director, Wanda Williams, said that she expected the Council as a whole to work on behalf of DC 37, should Bloomberg propose deep cuts in the DC 37 workforce. She noted that the union supported 11 of the 13 newly elected Council members, and many other returning members.

“We have a lot of support in the Council, and we see it as a counterbalance,” Williams said.

Opponents of DC 37’s current leadership argue, however, that the union does not wield the political clout that it once did. They hark back to the city’s last major financial crisis, in the mid-1970s, when the union’s president, Victor Gotbaum, brokered an agreement that helped save the city from fiscal ruin.

Now, the union is ill equipped to similarly deal with this fiscal crisis, Roberts’ critics argue.

CITY HALL When Roberts was elected, it was done with the expectation that she would serve for 18 months, while warring factions in the union found a long-term replacement.

Instead, seven years later, she is again running for re-election, in her 80s and with no clear successor in place.

Over her tenure, Roberts has been able to foster a close relationship with many in the rank-and-file, exuding a kind of grandmotherly warmth. But her personal popularity has not helped DC 37 become more united, said one high-level labor insider who works closely with the union.

“The warring factions that existed when she came in still exist today,” the insider said. “There’s no understanding that there’s 125,000 people depending on you to strategically deal with cutbacks and see them through a fiscal crisis.”

Opponents of Roberts say the union has been weakened by a leadership structure that does not brook dissent from its local union leaders, and which instead seeks retribution against those who are disloyal. They also assert that Roberts has not cleaned up corruption as promised, citing a recent scandal involving the 2054 College Assistants Union. The president of the union allegedly used union funds to throw a $30,000 party, spent $41,000 on a Cadillac and blew $1 million more on bad investments.

Roberts declined to discuss the leadership election or internal union matters.

Council Member Letitia James, who has worked closely with the union, said she believes Roberts has done an excellent job, especially in gathering information on Bloomberg’s use of outside contractors, which James has used as ammunition to rail against cuts to the city workforce.

James added that DC 37 also remains a force to be reckoned with politically and said the talk of disunity under Roberts was motivated by other factors.

“The 800-pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about is sexism and ageism,” James said. “The discussion about not being able to organize the members is a disguise for that. But I dismiss the notion that Lillian is past her prime. She still outpaces me and many of members of the Council who are younger than me.”

If re-elected, Roberts said one of the union’s top priorities would be to continue fighting the outsourcing of union jobs to private contractors. She also wants reform in what she believes are civil service testing rules unfairly placed on DC 37 members, but not other public employees.

In addition, Roberts said that after a heated campaign, she hopes to establish better relations with the mayor.

“I’m very concerned about some of what has happened,” she said, “and I’m hoping that in the third term, we’ll have better communication and a better understanding.” cbragg@cityhallnews.com

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CITY HALL

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

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With New Freshman Class, Responsible Development Takes Center Stage Fight over Kingsbridge Armory seen as heralding new era in Council land use decision

BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS hile in the Council, Maria Baez was seen as largely in favor of the plan to turn the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx into a regional shopping mall, despite widespread opposition from many labor and community leaders. But since she was defeated in the September primary

by New Life Ministries pastor Fernando Cabrera, who opposed the redevelopment, the controversial plan has run into even greater resistance.

Cabrera’s supporters say his intense interest in the Kingsbridge Armory deal will likely carry forward to other development issues planned for his Bronx district.

“Cabrera’s winning coalition was unions, community groups and churches,” wrote Neal Kwatra, political director at the Hotel and Motel Trade Council, which supported Cabrera, via e-mail.

“As a result, I think he will look to build a community coalition, as he has on [the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance], made up of the aforementioned groups for future key developments and re-zonings in his district.”

In a city with a strong mayor system like New York, Council members have little influence over many of the city’s

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day-to-day operations. But when it comes to issues concerning land use and zoning, Council members still have a lot of power. And with a host of new members arriving in January, many of whom made responsible development a key component of their campaigns, city residents are wondering how their neighborhoods will be impacted Incoming Council Member Brad Lander recently discovered how sensitive zoning issues can be for his constituents in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. Residents were in an uproar over a proposed amendment by public advocate-elect and outgoing Council member Bill de Blasio that would allow a private school to build atop of one of the courtyards that give the neighborhood its distinctive character. After widespread resentment about the plan, de Blasio withdrew his amendment, a move that Lander supported.

Before he opted to give up his Council seat and run for mayor instead, Tony Avella was at the forefront of an effort to oppose large-scale development in his Queens district. And while his successor, Dan Halloran, may come from a different political party (Avella is a Democrat, while Halloran is a Republican), the incoming Council member said he will continue

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Avella’s fight against irresponsible development.

“In some respects, Tony and I will have agreement on a lot of those issues,” Halloran said.

After taking office, Halloran said he planned on keeping a close eye on commercial developments and rezonings along Station Road in Auburndale to make sure it remains contextual to the neighborhood, as well as a plan to allow for the construction of row houses in his district. Crucial to all these plans, Halloran added, is ensuring that the City Planning Department is aware of the longterm effects of zoning and development in residential districts such as his.

“City Planning has to think about the next 40 years of what the city is going to look like when it’s putting together these plans,” Halloran said. “Everybody’s really not yet on the same page.”

Margaret Chin, who defeated incumbent Alan Gerson in her bid to become the first Asian Council member to represent Chinatown, will also face a host of development and rezoning issues upon joining the Council in January.

Michael Levine, director of land use and planning at Community Board 1, said Chin has already been in talks with residents and developers about rezonings planned for northern TriBeCa, as well as a long-term development plan for Chinatown.

“We know that our new Council member is very much plugged into that,” Levine said, “and is very much a part of our team.”

Cabrera, though, appears poised to be dealing with the most land use issues of the freshman class. In addition to the Kingsbridge deal, rezoning applications are being considered for Webster Avenue, Bedford Park and the Bronx waterfront.

Greg Faulkner, the incoming Council member’s chief-of-staff, said that responsible development is foremost in Cabrera’s thinking as he prepares to assume his new post. Faulkner said Cabrera is thinking in particular about rezoning Jerome Avenue to help create uniformity along the six-mile thoroughfare while preserving the neighborhood character.

His approach will veer significantly from that of Maria Baez, who was criticized by Cabrera during the campaign for being largely absent from important issues in the district, Faulkner said.

“He’s been at City Hall for the past couple weeks, sitting in on the [Kingsbridge] negotiations,” said Faulkner, who added that Cabrera has already been mobbed by union members and lobbyists with regards to development issues.

“He hasn’t even put his hand on the Bible yet and said, ‘I swear I’ll do this job!’” ahawkins@cityhall.com

More City Hall www.cityhallnews.com

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ISSUE FORUM

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

DECEMBER 14, 2009

CONSTRUCTION

During A Crisis, Construction Spending Can Buoy New York’s Economy

BY SETH PINSKY he legacy of the Public Works Administration (PWA)—federal stimulus 1930s-style—is still evident across New York’s cityscape.

LaGuardia Airport, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge all attest to the more than $250 million that was spent on city infrastructure projects following the onset of the Great Depression—funds that not only changed the look and feel of our City, but also stabilized an economy in freefall.

Today, over 75 years later, during our own “Great Recession”, investment in public infrastructure has once again become a crucial stabilizing factor in buoying the New York City economy generally and its construction industry more specifically. In fact, according to the New York Building Congress, this year government expenditures on construction will account for some 60 percent of all construction spending in the five boroughs—up from 46 percent in 2008.

And construction spending means more than simply constructions jobs; it also translates to thousands of other middleclass jobs that support the industry: the wholesalers, local retail establishments,

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even the neighborhood restaurants and delis that provide essential services to the sector.

Though over the long term we look forward to seeing a recovery in privatesector construction activity, in the meantime, we are pleased to be doing our part to keep New York moving forward.

While, of course, the primary goal of our capital spending is to renew the city’s infrastructure and put people back to work, in recent months, we at the New York City Economic Development Corporation have become aware of a secondary benefit of our new-found market position. Specifically, we have begun to see a rise in the number of bids—and bidders—chasing the $2.5 billion in capital projects that we plan to manage over the next five years. Besides the more than 9,800 jobs these projects are expected to create, this is also great news for taxpayers, because increased competition for bids almost always means betters rates for the public. Over the long run this will result in projects completed more quickly and more efficiently.

Going forward, we do not plan on letting up on our pace of building.

From the second phase of the criticallyacclaimed High Line on Manhattan’s West

Side, to the $76 million in infrastructure improvements underway at Queens Plaza in Long Island City, to the $75 million being invested to reactivate the long-dormant South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, to the $50 million going toward construction of the South Bronx Greenway, to the creation of retail in the long-underserved ferry terminal at St. George in Staten Island, we intend to impact every borough. In this way, we will generate new jobs, improve the quality of life for

the citizens of New York City and induce substantial direct and indirect economic benefits. In addition, we will also ensure that when the economic recovery comes in full-force—which we know it will— neighborhoods far and wide will have sites that have been prepared to take advantage of that recovery. In this way, we plan to correct the mistakes made in the 1970s when short-term thinking led to cutbacks in services and infrastructure investments, the effects of which were felt for decades.

In fact, it is largely because of the long-term focus that was a hallmark of New Deal programs like the PWA that ultimately made these programs a success. This kind of long-term focus has also been a hallmark of the Bloomberg administration. We remain hopeful that, over time, the investments that the administration has made since 2002 and is continuing to make across the five boroughs will prove to be as wise as the investments made by our predecessors during the 1930s—and no less indelible.

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Seth Pinsky is president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

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CITY HALL

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

19

ISSUE

CONSTRUCTION Politics Aside, A Housing Agenda That Provides Real Relief FORUM

BY STATE SEN. PEDRO ESPADA, JR. he city’s affordable housing crisis was never more evident than at 2285 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx, where 52 families have been without hot water and cooking gas (and now heat) since July. Upon learning of their plight several weeks ago, my staff and I have been working closely with the tenants and city housing agencies toward a swift remedy.

This story merely scratches the surface of the deplorable conditions that these Bronx residents and thousands of other families across the city are forced to endure.

Like many buildings, 2285 Sedgwick Ave. finds itself in receivership and is currently being acquired by a new landlord. Whether the consequences of the economic crisis or a bad apple in the housing industry—likely both—this scenario is far too prevalent throughout the five boroughs.

During the first legislative session with me serving as housing committee chairman in the new Democratic Majority leadership, the Senate passed more legislation and held more public hearings and housing forums than what our predecessors had done in the previous 40 years. The result has been greater protections for tenants. But our

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work in the Majority Conference has just begun. My housing agenda provides real relief, not just election-year political catch phrases, for tenants who cannot find quality housing or afford to pay their rent.

I am sponsoring legislation to create a Tenants Rent Assistance Fund that would help the poor, low-income, senior citizens and working families. A potential funding source could be from revenue generated by additional legislation I am sponsoring that would impose stiff financial sanctions against landlords delinquent in repairs and services. I also continue to oppose the governor’s attempt to balance the state budget with the use of hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for affordable housing construction.

Additionally, I have introduced legislation to establish a Housing Investment Fund that would provide a revenue source dedicated to the rehabilitation and construction of affordable housing. I am also supporting $500 million in state appropriations for the construction of multi-family buildings for low- and moderate-income families.

Opponents ask how the state can possibly afford this additional $500 million allocation in the midst of a fiscal crisis. The question is, how can we not afford to do it?

With the state’s multi-billion dollar deficit, an unemployment rate over 10 percent and more than 25,000 reported foreclosures since January, housing development and rehabilitation projects would provide comprehensive economic stimulus by creating community-based jobs, revitalizing neighborhoods and generating tax revenue, all while providing quality affordable housing. For example, a construction project will pump nearly $2 million into local businesses in Brownsville, one of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods, and fill city coffers with tax revenues in excess

of $4.4 million.

We must also find a common-sense solution so that $2 billion worth of shovelready projects and their more than 20,000 jobs, such as the $100 million project at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, can proceed.

The Senate must reconsider legislation that would re-authorize the ability of Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) to finance notfor-profit housing and other projects. Failure to enact this legislation will prevent the state from utilizing federal stimulus dollars, hurt labor interests and continue to frustrate not-for-profit service providers—ultimately impacting New Yorkers in need of affordable housing and services provided by nursing homes and hospitals.

In closing, it is imperative that we put aside political agendas and focus on a real housing agenda that will create and sustain affordable housing, protect tenants and encourage developers and property owners to provide quality housing that people can afford.

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Pedro Espada, Jr., a Democrat representing parts of the Bronx, is the Senate Majority Leader and chair of the Housing, Construction and Community Development Committee.

BECAUSE...

1 SUPERIOR HEALTH BENEFITS FOR WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

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SAFER WORKING CONDITIONS FOR MEMBERS AND THE PUBLIC

2 STRONG PENSION PROGRAM

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JOB SECURITY

3 ACCESS TO MIDDLE CLASS INCOME

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VIABLE APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING PROGRAM

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

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CITY HALL

ISSUE

CONSTRUCTION Construction Safety Not Just About Hardhats And Harnesses FORUM

A Message from the Building Trades Employers’ Association

NYC’S UNIONIZED CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: A LONG HISTORY OF SAFETY There is no higher priority to the 1,700 contractors and 28 contractor association members of the BTEA than public and worker safety on construction sites. New York has the best high-rise construction safety record in the world and recent statistics by OSHA prove it.

Federal government data shows that with the exception of 2008 (for the period 2004-2009), 75% of all construction fatalities occurred on non-union jobs for projects 10 stories or less (see chart below). What happened in 2008 was uncharacteristic and served as a painful reminder that we have to work every single day to ensure that safety remains our top priority. With this in mind, BTEA contractors have worked in partnership with the city’s real estate industry, organized labor, the Mayor’s office and the NYC Department of Buildings, in developing 20 safety legislative initiatives adopted by the City Council last year.

Every November, the BTEA holds its annual Safety Conference, bringing industry leaders together to review our performance and discuss new safety initiatives. This year it was announced that a Fire Safety Academy (www.nyfsa.com) would be created to train industry project personnel on fire prevention and safety and help eliminate potential fire hazards. The Fire Safety Academy will be financed by Bovis Lend Lease Construction Company through a grant of $2.5 million.

In addition, for the first time in any U.S. city, major construction management companies and their subcontractors have standardized safety training on every job site with every company using the same procedures through a program called “One City, One Industry, One Safety Standard.”

At the conference, our industry also reviewed the use of emerging safety technology such as Cocoon Netting Systems. Currently being used on several worksites, this system could be replicated across the city and help revolutionize safety at high-rise construction sites.

“Public and worker safety on construction sites has been and always will be the top priority of BTEA contractors. Our record proves it,” said Louis Coletti, president and CEO of the BTEA.

Louis J. Coletti, BTEA president and CEO, addressing the 2009 BTEA Safety Conference.

For More Info on the BTEA call 212-704-9745 or go to www.bteany.com

BY ROBERT LIMANDRI atal construction accidents in New York City have decreased 84 percent in 2009 when compared to last year, a significant drop that reflects increased oversight and regulations and a new heightened awareness of safety throughout the construction industry. The Department of Buildings has worked closely with industry members, the City Council and the Mayor’s Office to implement more than 20 new safety laws and launch new programs, such as a smoking ban at all construction sites and a citywide safety campaign to remind thousands of workers to wear their safety harnesses at all times.

Our inspectors, plan examiners and administrative staff have worked diligently to raise the standards of the industry through greater enforcement and greater education, and our message is beginning to have an impact on construction operations throughout the city. Three workers lost their lives on construction sites this year—compared to 19 in 2008, 12 in 2007 and 18 in 2006.

The recent slowdown in construction has played a role in the decline of serious accidents, but more accidents overall are being reported—even minor slipand-falls. That demonstrates how much site safety is on everyone’s mind these days. Last year, we issued more than 14,000 Stop Work Orders—the most in Department history—to ensure proper safety measures were being followed.

Contractors and developers understand a Stop Work Order can result in costly delays, more safety directives and other violations that can halt any project. In these tough economic times, no one can afford that.

A handful of contractors are even choosing to go beyond the current safety requirements by enveloping their high-rise projects in cocoon netting systems, an innovative way to prevent falling debris and better safeguard a job site in such a dense urban environment as New York City. A safer construction site means a safer city.

But more still needs to be done.

Construction safety cannot be solved with harnesses and hardhats alone— important safety measures that took years to become the job standard. It is the culture of the industry that must continue to change so public safety remains the top priority—in the office

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and on the ground. That philosophy must be integrated into everyday practices so New Yorkers are better protected.

Following the indictment of two major concrete-testing firms on charges of falsifying documents, we took away their licenses, issued a re-testing protocol for the affected buildings and formed a Concrete Unit to closely scrutinize the field work of their competitors.

As of Dec. 1, under a law passed by the City Council and signed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, every major contractor in the city must now register with the Department and obtain a safety tracking number to receive new permits.

This initiative will allow us to track their safety performance across job sites for the first time and determine precisely which contractors are more accidentprone than their peers. We expect this will force hundreds of contractors, both large corporations and small family-run businesses, to take responsibility for their work—and ultimately improve their operations for the sake of all New Yorkers.

It is clear that development is critical to the future of this city, but there is absolutely no reason why it must be at odds with the safety of this city.

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Robert LiMandri is the commissioner of the New York City Department of Buildings.

Working With: • NY City Department of Transportation • NY City Metropolitan Transit Authority • Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authority

• NY State Department of Transportation • The Port Authority of NY/NJ • NY State Bridge Authority

Kieran Ahern • President • 718-639-1636 Dan O’Connell • General Counsel • 973-549-7160

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

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CITY HALL

Fat Jokes And Basketball Disses As Christie Comes To City Hall

At a mid-November hearing on the Paid Sick Leave bill currently making its way through the Council, 24-year-old Republican Council Member Eric Ulrich did not miss the chance to point out that he is the lone Republican supporting the left-leaning legislation.

“I think everyone knows I’m a Republican, so that’s one strike against me,” Ulrich admitted, in kicking off a heartfelt opening statement.

Ulrich then related how his grandmother had worked doing laundry for a living, and how she often could not get time off, even when sick. He said the Council had a “moral imperative” to pass the bill, and that it was not a partisan issue.

New Jersey’s basketball team may be the worst in the nation, but the state’s incoming governor seems like a popular guy.

That is, at least, according to the level of excitement at City Hall on Dec. 10 preceding a meet-and-greet between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov.-elect Chris Christie. Christie’s appearance provided a rare moment of levity at City Hall in an otherwise dreary political season.

As the press corps waited in the Blue Room for Christie and Bloomberg to finish their private meeting upstairs, one impatient reporter mused, “Did you hear the pizza delivery guy just went upstairs?”

Once they arrived, Bloomberg offered his initial impression of New Jersey’s leader: “I will say: likeable guy, if you want to know what I think. And he comes with a reputation of being competent.”

Christie offered similar praise of the mayor, and said they had arranged to tour a Jersey City school together in January.

For most of the session, the two parried questions on everything from the World Trade Center site to the budget deficits of both states ($3 billion in New York, $8 billion in New Jersey). One reporter even tried, unsuccessfully, to get Bloomberg to criticize Christie on gay marriage, which the new governor opposes.

“I think Council Member Brewer has a crush on Council Member Ulrich,” observed Council Member Jessica Lappin.

Response from across the aisle to Ulrich’s speech was gushing, including from the bill’s main sponsor, Council Member Gail Brewer.

“I think Council Member Brewer has a crush on Council Member Ulrich,” observed Council Member Jessica Lappin.

Council Member Letitia James joined the praise as well.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to be associated with you,” James said. “Your grandmother did a really excellent job.”

After receiving his kudos, Ulrich quickly departed from the hearing, which went on after he left for several more hours.

Two Comptrollers, One Rockin’ Stage Incoming City Comptroller John Liu and State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli made their first public appearance together in early December, under the watchful eyes of Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and the Beatles.

Sharing the stage at an event hosted by the business and labor group BALCONY at the Hard Rock Café in Times Square, DiNapoli introduced Liu as an up-andcoming force in city politics.

“John has always been known as someone who’s smart and unafraid to call it like it is,” said DiNapoli, before sharing a warm hug with his soon-to-beinaugurated new counterpart. DiNapoli went on to say that a “strong partnership” between their two offices will be a boon for all New Yorkers.

Liu reciprocated by showering DiNapoli with praise for his watchful stewardship of the state’s finances.

“Tom is an incredibly creative public servant with the drive and energy to bring New York State out of these very difficult times,” Liu said.

Liu then cycled through his well-rehearsed stump speech, touching on his humble origins, immigrating from Taiwan to Flushing, and his tenure at financial firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

No mention was made of his controversial claims of having worked in a sweat shop.

Liu also thanked his former primary opponent and outgoing Council Member David Weprin, who was in the audience.

After saying he looked forward to taking office in a few short weeks, Liu plugged his transition team’s website and left the event.

There was no encore.

EDWARD REED

Ulrich Milks Chance To Show Off Bipartisanship

But only after dispensing with the otherwise boring business of budgets and mass transit did reporters get to the more amusing topics of discussion. Rich Lamb, of CBS Radio—himself a resident of the Garden State—posed this question to both men: “Does New Jersey get enough respect?”

Christie took the question as opportunity to advertise his economic agenda, discussing New Jersey’s high jobless rate and his promise not to raise taxes.

Bloomberg relayed a story about a subway rider berating him and yelling angrily, “Fix the Knicks.”

He turned to Christie and said, “Can you do the same for the Nets?”

At DMI Book Launch, Some Friendly Disagreement With Bloomberg When Andrea Batista Schlesinger left the Drum Major Institute earlier this year to join the campaign of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city’s progressive policy wonks were alternatively surprised and dismayed.

DMI had compromised its core values, they reasoned, in order to cozy up to the city’s most powerful man.

But if those activists were looking for increased areas of ideological overlap between DMI and the administration, they were probably disappointed at the launch of DMI’s latest book, From Disaster to Diversity: What’s Next for New York City’s Economy? on Wednesday, Dec. 9.

The mayor sat down for a brief questionand-answer session with Schlesinger at Trinity Church and, for the most part, rejected the premises of each of her questions.

The book, edited by the Drum Major Institute’s Dan Morris and former New York Times reporter Jonathan Hicks, is a collection of essays about the future of the city’s financial industry. In keeping with that theme, Schlesinger questioned the mayor on the gap between the rich and the poor in New York City.

In response, Bloomberg quoted a friend who at the time was visiting his

girlfriend, Diana Taylor, from Pakistan, saying, “Anybody who complains about anything in America should get on a plane and see the rest of the world.”

And he batted down the idea that the city could lift people out of poverty by taxing the rich, saying, “You have to have some … not self-esteem, but some understanding that you are responsible.”

Later, two guest speakers, incoming Council Member Brad Lander and failed Council candidate Mark Winston Griffith—who also worked as a fellow at DMI—criticized the mayor’s agenda on green buildings and Wall Street.

Griffith went so far as to call Wall Street’s insistence that it is not responsible for community development “bullshit.”

In an interview, Dan Morris, one of the editors of the book, described the book as “an intellectual organizing effort,” which he admitted might sound “lofty.” The idea, he said, was to bring divergent viewpoints together on a common topic, and pointed to essays from Kathy Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, and liberal Rep. Jerry Nadler.

As for the Bloomberg administration, he added: “City Hall is very aware of the project and aware of what we’re trying to do.”

By Chris Bragg, Sal Gentile and Andrew J. Hawkins

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CITY HALL

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DECEMBER 14, 2009

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ANDREW SCHWARTZ PHOTOS

Stepping Down ublic Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s decision not to seek a third term set off one of this year’s most hotly contested races to replace her. But it also sparked a debate about whether there should be a public advocate at all.

With the future of the office still very much in question, though, Gotbaum says she has much to be proud of—and a few things to regret. While trying to conclude some leftover business, Gotbaum took a moment to discuss her time in office, failing her fingerprint test and the hair issue.

The following is an edited transcript.

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City Hall: What are your feelings about leaving civic life? Is it bittersweet?

Betsy Gotbaum: Well, I think it’s going to be bittersweet to leave people. I feel like my office is great and I like everybody almost equally here, and we had a really good time and I think I’m going to miss people a lot.

I’m not going to miss the politics. I’m not going to miss the fighting. That’s the bitter part, but I’m not bitter and I’m not a bitter person. I think it was a wonderful run and I learned an enormous amount and I contributed a great deal. When I make a decision about something, I move on and never look back and I don’t say, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have left the Historical Society and run for office.” I basically said, “You know what, I’d done what I could do there and I made a decision to move on.” I think that’s the way I feel now. I’m very excited about what I’m going to do next, which I don’t know. I need to know. [Laughs.]

CH: How do you anticipate spending your first day as a private citizen?

BG: I haven’t got anything lined up yet that’s full-time where I’m going to hop out of bed on the third of January and into an office. At first, I was panicking a little bit about that, but actually, I’m not now.

I wouldn’t mind having the flexibility of not having to get up in the morning every morning and race to an office and get dressed and all that, so the first couple of weeks for sure, I’m going to organize my office and my life. The governor has appointed me to the parole board, and I don’t know when that’s going to happen.

I put all my paperwork in; in fact, I failed my fingerprint test this morning. It didn’t work. The thing didn’t work for me.

CH: You don’t have any fingerprints?

BG: No, I do, but the machine wouldn’t register. So they had to do it the old way.

CH: What are some of your proudest achievements as public advocate?

BG: The overriding theme would be, I think, I defined the office, because sometimes people want to know what the definition of this office is, to be available and be there for the most vulnerable New Yorkers who have no place else to turn.

And that was a focus that I had. It started with the Food Stamp program in 2002, which raised almost $1 million in private money to increase the accessibility to food stamps, all the way through getting Costco to provide food stamps for customers in New York. That’s been a theme … helping New Yorkers who have nowhere else to turn.

CH: How concerned are you about the survival of the public advocate’s office?

BG: Well, I was really concerned up to the election because we were cut 40 percent in the summer. I went through the dance that I’ve gone through for seven years with the mayor and the speaker, and always the speaker had restored, when it was Gifford Miller, except for one year, and Speaker [Christine] Quinn had always restored, but for some reason she didn’t do it this year. That was very upsetting to me, because I knew I wasn’t going to run again, I wasn’t going to fire people from this office, and I wasn’t going to lay anyone off. I was going to spend the money judiciously, but I would be leaving Bill de Blasio with very little money, and the good news was when the mayor had lunch with him, the mayor gave him back the $850,000, which he had not done for me and neither had the

speaker. I was much more worried than I am now. Bill de Blasio will be very good and he will be a very good spokesman for this office. He’ll be terrific. I’m not worried at all about that. I would hope that someone will take up the cause of getting this office an independent budget, because it’s just not fair that whoever is sitting here has to fight constantly to run an office that I believe is essential.

CH: You helped introduce a bill to the City Council to establish an independent budget for the office. Do you have any sense of how that’s going to go?

BG: I have. I doubt it very much. The bills only go when the speaker wants them to go. I don’t have a lot of hope that it will go anywhere. I think the best hope is that there will be a charter commission and that it will be a fair charter commission and it will be possible to put on the commission the independent budget issue, as opposed to putting it on the elimination of the office.

CH: With you stepping down from office, there will be a lack of citywide female officeholders…

BG: I think it’s really too bad. It’s very difficult for women to be in elected office and run for elected office. It’s much harder, I believe, for women than it is for men because we don’t have wives, so we don’t have partners that can do the things—like what I do in my house.

There’s a question of time with people who have children or have to take care of older parents. Women are the primary caregivers and it is difficult, not to say nothing about the hair issue.

CH: The hair issue?

BG: You always worry about how you look, much more worried than men.

You worry about how you look; you worry if your makeup looks right, if you have enough lipstick on, and if your hair isn’t falling all over your face. I do think women bring a different perspective to elected office, and I think it’s too bad, but I don’t think it means that women won’t run. Three or four years from now, women will run for higher office and I hope they will run—and I’ll be right up there to give

them advice.

CH: During the race to replace you, there was some criticism from some of the candidates that maybe you didn’t run the office as aggressively as you could have. What did you think about some of those comments?

BG: Well, I think those comments are actually true. Mark [Green] had a mayor who was very aggressive, loud, and shut the door on lots of people—and you needed a foil for that mayor. Mark was very effective at that. He was very good with the press, he spent a lot of time fighting for things that he felt the mayor shouldn’t be doing, and that was his emphasis. My emphasis was quite different. My emphasis was more on helping the vulnerable people who didn’t have any place else to turn. I upgraded the ombudsman service in this office. I put a lot of focus on a lot of attention, making sure our people had the capacity to do intake and do the calls to the agencies. I found a mayor that was more accommodating than Giuliani was for helping people with nowhere else to turn—what was I going to fight with him about?

CH: Were you also surprised by the mayor’s election results?

BG: No. I won a lot of bets.

CH: Really?

BG: I’m getting two dinners next week. I said it would be single digits, and people said I was crazy and didn’t know what I was talking about.

CH: What sort of advice would you then pass on to Bill de Blasio going forward into his first term?

BG: I don’t think he needs any advice. I think he got $850,000 just by waking up.

CH: Do you have any regrets?

BG: I regret not getting a better handle on the press in the beginning. I didn’t have a press secretary for the first six months so I felt that, I think, things got away from me and I couldn’t establish what I just told you about helping vulnerable people and being less of an attack dog on the mayor. I think my failing was that I didn’t really figure out how to handle that.

—Andrew J. Hawkins ahawkins@cityhallnews.com

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With permission from the New York Daily News

The New York Daily News: School Gun Terror

June 18, 2008, A School Safety Agent safely evacuates students and staff in response to a gun incident at a Brooklyn public school.

Our Children Rely on Us To Protect Them New York City schools are safer than they’ve been in decades, thanks to the hard work and dedication of School Safety Agents. They’re part of our community. Many are the parents and grandparents of public school children.

School Safety Agents perform an invaluable civic service as defenders of students, teachers and public safety. Their jobs are not easy and never without risk. They keep dangerous weapons and criminals out of our schools. They work closely with students and provide at risk youth with positive alternatives through outreach programs such as the “My School has Rhythm, not Violence” rap contest.

The men and women who serve as School Safety Agents are among the unsung heroes of our education system.

Since 2000, crime in City schools is down by 44%. And we have School Safety Agents to thank. They keep our children, teachers and school staff safe day in and day out.

Keep Our Kids Safe!

Support the Work of School Safety Agents.

Teamsters Local 237 is proud to represent more than 25,000 dedicated public workers in New York City and Long Island, including the 5,000 School Safety Agents who keep New York City’s public schools safe.

Gregory Floyd, President • Teamsters Local 237 • 216 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 • www.Local237.org