Bill de Blasio Is Uncommitted To Saving NYC Libraries

New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio talks down the wave of library closings under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He says it is not his priority.

The Public Advocate, who is running for mayor this year, does not directly address the fact that civic activist Michael D. D. White points out that the Public Advocate has accepted campaign money from the Ratner real estate developer.

How disappointing to see the Public Advocate have no position on library closings in Brooklyn, or the disastrous plans (known as the Central Library Plan) for the Main Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Isn't he supposed to be advocating for the people as Public Advocate ? If he abdicates that role as Public Advocate, what would he be like as mayor ?

For more information, please visit http://www.savenypl.org or visit the blog : Citizens Defending Libraries or sign the petition.

Bloomberg-Quinn City Budget Fines Outer Borough Businesses

Bill de Blasio report finds that New York City's Quinn-Bloomberg budget deal rakes in $50 million in fines from small businesses in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

Small businesses in the outer boroughs have been crushed by ever-more-expensive fines, according to a new report from Public Advocate and mayoral hopeful Bill de Blasio.

"The farther you get from City Hall, the more likely your business is to get inspected and fined,” de Blasio said Thursday in his latest broadside against the man he hopes to replace. “That's no way to balance a budget and it's no way to spur hiring in the boroughs that need it most.”

De Blasio’s 25-page report, called "Borough Bia$: How the Bloomberg Administration Drains Outer Borough Businesses," is an analysis of data on small business fines that Public Advocate obtained through a lawsuit against the administration. (Daily News)

No word, yet, from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, on the mendacity of her press releases about the "no new taxes" in last year's city budget deal.

Protesta contra parar y revisar -- y contra Christine Quinn

Desde que se hizo la presidenta del Concejo Municipal, más de 3,7 millones de neoyorquinos se han pasado por el programa de policía de "parar y revisar." ¿Por qué es esto aceptable?

Únase a nosotros para marchar y exigir que el Concejo Municipal reduce los recursos proporcionados a la policía de Nueva York que permite a la policía para continuar con su práctica inconstitucional de "parar y revisar" a personas inocentes.

Traiga pitos. Nos reuniremos en la calle 74 y la Avenida Roosevelt. Entonces, nos marcharemos a lo largo de la avenida Roosevelt. Y soplamos nuestros pitos contra la programa de "parar y revisar."

The Wave Far Rockaway Christine Quinn Letter To Editor

The Pork Continues To Roll

Dear Editor,

To the victor go the spoils, continues to be practiced by NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn and her predecessors for decades.

On Friday, January 21, she issued checks for 50 percent of each Councilmember’s annual awarded lulus of between $4,000 to $28,000 per year on top of a $112,000 base salary to her loyal members for chairing a Council Committee or subcommittee. The base salary plus lulu is three times what average constituents earn for a job officially classified as part time. Hardworking municipal civil servant employees and most ordinary New Yorkers would never see such treats from their employers.

Perhaps Quinn will host a ceremony when issuing the remaining 50 percent balance of lulus in July 2012 to coincide with completion of the renovated City Council chambers. Construction began in 2007 with an original cost estimate below $50 million and completion date of 2009.

Quinn continues the tradition of allocating millions of dollars in member item pork barrel projects to her Council favorites.

In 2008, the first of a series of cost overruns raised the price tag to $65 million.

The bills for both a final price tag of $123.8 million and completion date of July 2012 along with all the lulus are paid by your hard earned tax dollars.

Councilmembers have staff to also drive them around town and private parking privileges at City Hall. I wonder how many ever considered using mass transit for commuting to work like millions of their constituents do on a daily basis?

Do any Council members have a Metro Card and use it on a regular basis? Check out the City Hall parking lot when the Council is in session and see for yourself.

Quinn continues the tradition of allocating millions of dollars in member item pork barrel projects to her Council favorites.

With 9 percent of 8,000,000 New Yorkers still out of work, there are many public minded citizens besides the current 51 Council members with the knowledge and wisdom to perform their jobs at a fraction of the cost. Many would gladly serve and show up for work full time without all the perks of office for $112,000 per year minus all the traditional insiders lulus or other benefits ordinary citizens can only dream about.

LARRY PENNER

$600M NYC Budget Deficit From Failed Taxi Plan

What are New York City Council Christine Quinn's ties to the taxi industry lobbyist, Emily Giske ?

When it was announced in June, the Bloomberg-Quinn budget plan to balance the New York City budget relied on $635 million in revenue from the expected sale of new yellow taxi medallions, The New York Daily News reported.

But now comes Dana Rubinstein from Capital New York, with a shocking inside story about the $600 million budget meltdown over the failed taxi plan : /p>

On August 22, 2012, Speaker Christine Quinn "dodged a barrage of questions about the mayor's stalled outer-borough taxi plan, what role she has played in its failure, and what role she plans to play in repairing the subsequent budgetary damage."

By all accounts, the [state] legislature told the mayor's office that no home rule request was necessary. Nevertheless his staff and the speaker negotiated for months to reach some sort of agreement. It remains unclear why they were unable to, and Quinn told me in an interview that she couldn't say why the administration chose to go around the Council, in effect, by going straight to Albany."

Ms. Rubinstein goes on to point out that :

Quinn has never publicly expressed support for the mayor's plan. Nor has she publicly derided it.

The speaker, who's running for mayor next year, has a habit of avoiding politically touchy subjects, though she did recently express some muted displeasure with the judge's decision, since, among other things, it leaves a gap of more than $600 million in this year's budget.

Speaker Quinn has close ties with the powerful lobbyist Emily Giske, whose firm inteferes with government policy on behalf of special interest groups, such as the taxi industry.

Related : Quinn's Friendship With Taxi Lobbyist May Pose Test in Mayor Bid (NYT)

Peninsula Hospital Closing Protest

Peninsula Hospital Center - Protesters Take Over Lobby - Hospital Closings in NYC

Approximately 200 union employees, residents of Far Rockaway, in Queens, and local officials, gathered in the rain outside Peninsula Hospital Center, across the bay from JFK Airport. Peninsula Hospital Center has filed a plan to shut its doors. The hospital’s owner is embroiled in a political and financial scandal, but employees and residents are worried about the threat to public health, should the hospital’s closure plan be approved.

Attendees of the rally braved the rain, then, once the rally had ended, stormed into one of the lobbies of the hospital, until hospital officials called the police, to clear the lobby of its own employees.

In the time that Christine Quinn had been speaker of the City Council, eight hospitals (not counting Peninsula) have closed. If Peninsula closes, it would mark the ninth hospital to close under Speaker Quinn's watch.

This week, President Obama agreed to severe budget cuts to social safety net programs, that underpin the social contract we make with our government and amongst ourselves. More budget cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will lead to a further collapse of our healthcare system. Is Christine Quinn in Bermuda with Mayor Michael Bloomberg each time a hospital closes in New York City ? Is President Obama surfing in Hawaii each time a hospital closes in America ?

If we obediently listen to people, who are in power (the same people who work for us, the very same people who are closing our hospitals), telling us to leave the lobby of a closing hospital, then it just makes it that much easier for the New York State Department of Health/Christine Quinn to keep closing hospitals.

CityTime Protest Rally Today

Christine Quinn dips into Retiree Trust Fund for City Employees

From Crains :

Council eyes trust-fund raid; watchdog barks

The City Council wants to dip further into a trust fund created for retired city employees so it can stave off “decimating” cuts to education, social services and public safety.

In its response Friday to Mayor Mike Bloomberg's preliminary 2012 budget, the council wrote that it would not seek to raise taxes or cut capital spending but would instead set its sights on a one-shot.

“We must give consideration to a measured additional use of the Retiree Health Benefit Trust Fund,” the council wrote, referring to the account it helped create in 2007. The fund was designed to offset the ever-expanding unfunded liability created by covering retirees' health care.

The city stashed $2.5 billion of surplus in the fund during its first two years, but it has since siphoned money from it to close budget deficits. The mayor will draw down $395 million from the fund this year and $672 million next year, according to the Independent Budget Office.

The council has now signaled its apparent desire to use even more money from the fund to pay for programs that would otherwise be lost. But one watchdog group growled at the idea.

The Citizens Budget Commission, which tracks the city's finances, has urged the council on multiple occasions not to raid the fund. “This is not a rainy-day fund,” said Maria Doulis, an analyst with the group. “It's not a surplus fund. It was established to fund retiree benefits.”

Doulis added, “The council is not using this money for its intended purpose.” The mayor has used the trust fund to pay pension expenses, which arguably also stretches the defined purpose of the fund.

A spokeswoman for Council Speaker Christine Quinn would not comment further on the council's plans for the fund, or say how much additional money it might seek to take from it.

As of June 2010, the unfunded liability of retiree health care was $70 billion, according to the commission.

Budget Cuts In New York City Will Result In Massive NYPD And FDNY Layoffs

What Does Christine Quinn Do to Stop Mayor Bloomberg's scorched earth plan to Keep Laying Off More and More Police and Firefighters ? Nothing, as usual.

In newly-released plans of how the New York City plans to cut important services that underpin public safety and public health, a growing outrage is being expressed that Mayor Michael Bloomberg's budget cuts are going too far.

''The city's Independent Budget Office projected yesterday that by June 30, 2012, the Police Department will have shrunk to 34,413 uniformed personnel, a record low since the 34,825 that were on the force on that same date 20 years ago when crime rates in the city were near epic highs,'' reported The New York Post.

"Crime statistics show there is a breaking point, and we're at it," City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr., chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, told The Post. "We can't absorb any more public safety cuts."

''The IBO further reported the Fire Department will have 10,282 uniformed personnel on June 30, 2012, down from 10,911 this year, and the lowest level since at least 1980, when the IBO first started tracking the numbers.''

Everybody seems to be outraged by the proposed budget cuts, and the impact it would have on teachers, police, firefighters, and even the City Morgue. But nobody is doing about the tens of millions of dollars disappearing into the shady black holes of IT contracts. Or what about the failed $2 billion Unified Call Taker-911 dispatch and emergency call system ? Who is the only person in New York City government, who can stand up to Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo ? If you are counting on Speaker Quinn, better go looking for another champion, because she doesn't do anything to stand up for essential city service cuts. Just look at how Speaker Quinn has done nothing to even save St. Vincent's Hospital from turning into luxury condominiums.

Rudin Gives Interview About St. Vincent's ; Nothing But Silence From Christine Quinn

Rudin Interview on New York Real Estate Harvesting From Bankrupt Hospitals.

William Rudin, chief executive officer at Rudin Management Co., talks about New York City's real estate and the outlook for commercial property, including the millions the family stands to make from the carcass picking of the real estate property of St. Vincent's Hospital. Watch at 5:40.

To add insult to injury, naturally this interview was broadcast on Bloomberg Opinion, in keeping with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's worldview of starving the beast until it dies in the back of an ambulance, stuck in crosstown traffic.