After Scott Stringer had a private meeting with Mike Bloomberg, Mr. Stringer dropped out of the mayor's race, to clear the way for Christine Quinn's own mayoral race. Now, in an apparent reward, Mr. Stringer faces no opposition in his newly downsized mayoral campaign for controller. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
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)
With HP in charge, the ECTP 911 emergency technology project has gone almost $1 billion over budget. Hmmmmmmmmm...?
From The New York Daily News :
City Controller John Liu is vowing to reject any future city contracts with computer giant Hewlett-Packard until the company repays $163 million it overcharged the city for upgrading New York’s emergency 911 system.
An audit by the controller’s office last May concluded that HP, the lead contractor on the 911 upgrade, had repeatedly submitted inflated and questionable bills between 2005 and 2008.
In one outrageous example, a $279,000-a-year HP consultant hired as a software engineer was actually an administrative assistant whose daily timesheets were filled with such mundane tasks as “print and bind documents,” “called to kill a waterbug in the ladies’ room” and “open the door for 5 folks.”
No wonder the 911 project — the most ambitious public safety initiative of the Bloomberg administration — ballooned from an original $1.2 billion price tag to more than $2 billion and is years behind schedule.
Many City Council members are wary of endorsing candidates in the 2013 mayoral race until after budget season because they're afraid a vengeful Speaker Christine Quinn will cut their share of $50 million in discretionary funds, DNAinfo.com New York has learned.
The funds, which are controlled by the speaker, are dished out to members each summer to fund constituent-pleasing services, such as community centers and seniors programs. While Quinn’s office has long insisted that the money is allocated based on districts' needs, it’s no secret that members on Quinn’s good side tend to profit — while those who cross her get their budgets slashed.
And many Council members now worry that endorsing a rival in the mayor's race, where Quinn is widely perceived as the front-runner, will result in the same fate.
“I definitely think that discretionary funds will be wielded as a weapon in the fight for endorsements,” said one Democratic Council member, who, like nearly a dozen others who spoke to DNAinfo.com New York, asked for anonymity to avoid angering Quinn.
“Certainly, that is the elephant in the room,” another member said.
“It’s a legal form of blackmail," still another member said.
To avoid retribution, some Council members are weighing postponing their endorsements until July, after the budget is adopted and Quinn no longer has sway over the money.
Has the union 32BJ SEIU become co-opted by the Real Estate Board of New York ?
A notable union representing doormen and service workers, 32BJ SEIU, appears to have become co-opted by the Real Estate Board of New York, a trade association of slumlords.
32BJ and REBNY will be screening mayoral candidates together in joint meetings. From the appearance of such an arrangement, the union and the trade association appear to be collaborating on a joint endorsement, which would mark the death of the independence of unions.
Already, Rob Speyer, chairman of REBNY, said in a statement, "Early on we realized that the interests of REBNY and 32BJ actually align in more ways than not."
The neoconservatism of the REBNY has translated into neoliberalism at the unions. We are doomed.
Witness how New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn booby-trapped the ATU Local 1181 bus strike by issuing a statement on February 12, in which she called on the union to end its strike and engaging in a "cooling off period."
There's more than one way to bust a union, either by dooming a strike, or by infiltrating it to sabotage its own best interests. Or so it apparently seems...
Mike Bloomberg is blind to the homeless problem. No surprise.
Homeless advocates are criticizing Mayor Michael Bloomberg's assertion that "no one is sleeping on the streets," after he was asked today about a report that the city shelter system is turning away families during cold winter days. (NY1)
How can anybody take Mike Bloomberg seriously, if he is so blind to his own elitist worldview ? Will anybody take him seriously when he makes an endorsement in the mayoral campaign ?
Is Phil Monaco trying to protect his boss, Christine Quinn ?
Phil Monaco, a staff attorney in the New York City Council general counsel’s office, is warning Councilmembers about an e-mail from a staffer “who works for the Gothamist,” who is following up on a Freedom of Information Law (or FOIL) request.
The FOIL request was being made as part of an investigation by Gothamist into the "finances of City Council members," reported the local news blog Politicker.
Gothamist is investigating how Councilmembers are paid their reimbursable expenses and their standard office expense allowances, but Mr. Monaco is trying to shut down any attempts to investigate City Council payments. In his e-mail to Councilmembers, Mr. Monaco was trying to reassure Councilmembers that he was trying his best to shut down the Gothamist's investigation. "These emails are NOT legitimate FOIL requests. And they do not require a response, as they are not proper requests under the law," Mr. Monaco wrote. "There is nothing your offices need to do at this time."
In the Politicker report, the publisher and co-founder of Gothamist, Jake Dobkin, confirmed that Gothamist had “about 40 FOILs open right now.”
How much longer before the Gothamist turns up more evidence of how Speaker Quinn has become a total political boss with all the attendant misuse of political power and taxpayer money ?
At tremendous political peril to Christine Quinn, the leader of the NAACP plans to make ''stop-and-frisk'' a major mayoral campaign issue.
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has been so close and chummy with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's and NYPD Commish Ray Kelly's unconstitutional and racist policy of ''stop-and-frisk.'' She has been waging a neoliberal campaign that is hard on crime by being harder on people of color.
But now comes NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, who is sick and tired of the racial profiling that underpins the entire ''stop-and-frisk'' program, The New York Post reported.
Mr. Jealous "trashed" the stop-and-frisk program during remarks he made at Nazarene Congregational Church in Brooklyn yesterday, and Mr. Jealous's comments were seen as criticism of Mayor Bloomberg's and Police Commissioner Kelly's ill-conceived support for the use of stop-and-frisk. Indeed, Mr. Jealous portrayed Mayor Bloomberg and Commish Kelly as "villains."
“We intend to ensure through every legal means that stop-and-frisk becomes a thing of the past with the next mayor of this town,” Mr. Jealous said.
Three of the four major Democratic candidates — Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former city Comptroller Bill Thompson — have all said the practice should be reformed but not scrapped. Quinn has yet to take a position on a package of bills before the Council to scale back the program.
City Comptroller John Liu wants to abolish stop-and-frisk altogether.
Jealous also said he wants the next mayor to get rid of Kelly, who consistently polls higher among Democrats than any elected official.
Quinn has signaled she would keep Kelly on board if she won the race and Kelly was willing to stay.
Her competitors in the primary have not made the same commitment.
Let's take a look at how Bill Thompson's wife, Elsie McCabe Thompson, has become all mixed up in depending on tens of millions of dollars in donations from Mayor Mike Bloomberg. (The Village Voice) Hmmmmmmmmm ?
NY1 Exclusive : Anti-Quinn Activists Still Have Work To Do : New Poll Shows Quinn In Front Of Other Potential Democratic 2013 Mayor Candidates
Last night on the Road To City Hall program on NY1, it was mentioned amongst the panel of experts that, given voters' relative low negative perception of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the Stop Christine Quinn protest effort still has work to do, because voters are not yet educated on Speaker Quinn's horrible record while in office.
One of the activists, Louis Flores, has posted a solicitation for resources, in order to escalate his efforts.
What are New York City Democrats’ impressions of these mayoral aspirants ?
65% have a favorable opinion of Quinn, while 17% have an unfavorable one. 18% have either never heard of her or are unsure how to rate her.
49% have a favorable impression of Thompson, while 20% do not. 31% have either never heard of him or are unsure how to rate him.
48% of New York City Democrats have a positive view of de Blasio, while 20% have an unfavorable one. 32% have either never heard of him or are unsure how to rate him.
When it comes to Liu, 43% have a favorable impression of him while 27% have an unfavorable one. 30% have either never heard of him or are unsure how to rate him.
26% of Democrats have a positive opinion of Albanese while 20% have an unfavorable view of him. 54% have either never heard of him or are unsure how to rate him.
Poll results have a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percent.
It seems that Speaker Quinn's favourability ratings are being artificially inflated due to the biased and deliberately fluff news pieces being published about her.
Two very insightful letters published by The New York Daily News, which continues to reveal voter anger toward the corruption by New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has lost tough with reality of the challenges facing average New Yorkers :
Chris cross I
Brooklyn: Re “Begin the Quinn spin” (Feb. 12): Middle-class housing for a family of four with an income of $103,000 to $142,000. If that is middle class, where are my food stamps, Medicaid card and free housing? Those amounts are not the middle class that I know. Christine Quinn must have been making a joke in her State of the City speech, right? Clifford F. Zeman
Chris cross II
Richmond Hill: Has City Council Speaker Christine Quinn convinced herself that she is a fair, honest and ethical leader who is worthy to hold the office of mayor? In 2006, she approved a generous pay raise for herself and the entire Council. Then, she extended her own patronage-appointed, cradle-to-grave city career by changing the laws of term limits for dictator Bloomberg. The final betrayal was her denying a vote on paid sick time for the working poor. Clean up your act, Empress Quinn, and withdraw your deeply flawed candidacy. Adele DeLeva
Christopher London wrote on February 3, 2013, 3:21 PM [LINK]
As stated in Rolling Stone: “In an excellent new book, Twilight of the Elites, journalist Chris Hayes argues that what happened is this: Our ruling class failed us. Behind the seemingly haphazard pile-up of recent calamities he sees a pattern: In each case, a cadre of Very Important People succumbed to some combination of blinkered groupthink, deception, self-dealing, fraud, smugness, and self-delusion. And in virtually every case, they escaped accountability. Or, as Hayes puts it: "All the smart people f_cked up, and no one seems willing to take responsibility."
Quinn is now taking heat from the LGBT Community including her own Chelsea: District 3, because, her remarks (via mass email) praising Ed Koch upon his death, she didn't acknowledge his failure to address the AIDS Crisis as thousands of gay men were dying. The gay press has not yet mentioned the fact that Christine Quinn actually rewarded Koch for his endorsement, despite his preference for someone other than Quinn, by renaming the Queensboro Bridge after him in exchange for his unwavering support of her Mayoral candidacy. The Council and the public opposed the renaming of that bridge.
Who would have thought that the Editorial Board of The New York Times would enable the corruption of the Board of Elections in order to help their mayoral pick, Christine Quinn ? Really ??
. @nytopinion A June primary would help me so much ! Thx for looking out for my best interests - as always !! @unitednyblogs @defeatquinn
