Category: News and Opinion

The future of New York, City and State, has been severely diminished by the self dealing of the past, including the recent past. But we can at least be thankful that Bloomberg, Paterson, Silver, Skelos and Quinn are not proposing a stunt like this.  New Jersey's pension funds have only half the money needed to pay benefits, even given an assumed rate of return they'll never get, and unlike in New York it was taxpayers unwilling to pay taxes rather than public employees seeking pension sweeteners that get the lion's share of the blame.  So what is being proposed in the Garden State?  Keeping taxes down by taking (another) "holiday" from required pension contributions! 

There is no question that Upstate metropolitan areas have their problems. Once among the most dynamic and forward-thinking areas of the United States, the region has been living off the former prosperity generated by older companies, a prosperity that is passing away with those companies due to economic change. Employment has been kept steady by the growth of government and government-dependent sectors such as health care, and low-paid retail and services. The average private sector worker in the Upstate metro counties (Albany, Broome, Dutchess, Erie, Monroe, Niagara, Oneida, Onondaga, Orange, Rensselaer, Saratoga, and Schenectady) earned 11.4% less than the average for the United States in 2007. In the post-air conditioning “Sunbelt” era, an era ironically abated by Syracuse-based air conditioner maker Carrier (who even needs air conditioning up there?), the beautiful lakes and trees and abundance water of our northern interior states have been thought by millions of Americans to be less desirable than warmer, southern states that get more sunshine and less snow. So to be fair, I’ve compared the local government employment and payroll of the Upstate Metro counties with several other older, urbanized, cold-weather manufacturing-based counties across the country — Allegheny (Pittsburgh), Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Franklin (Columbus OH), Wayne (Detroit), Milwaukee and Hennepin (Minneapolis). In 2007, all had far fewer local government employees per 100,000 residents than the Upstate NY metro counties, with the exception of…

In my previous post, I used employment and payroll data from the 2007 Census of Governments, described in my first post on the subject, to compare New York City with other older central cities. In this post I compare full time equivalent local government employment per 100,000 residents and March 2007 pay per employee for New York’s Downstate Suburban counties — Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam — with other suburban counties with large job bases in the Northeast Corridor. To Fairfield County in Connecticut, also presented in the initial table, I add Middlesex County outside Boston, Montgomery County outside Philadelphia, Baltimore County outside the City of Baltimore, and Montgomery County MD and Fairfax County VA outside Washington DC. With the exception of one of these counties, local government is clearly more expensive in the Downstate Suburbs than in other northeastern suburban counties, due to higher employment levels, particularly for schools, roads and police, higher pay, or both. Even in that county, moreover, the total cost of government may be lower due to lower debts, less rich pensions, and a less expensive Medicaid program that is not shifted to the local level. But looking just at those on the local government payroll, the suburban county where there are even more local government workers earning more money than in the New York Suburbs is…

Maybe it’s time for me to take off the kid gloves again. Maybe it’s time for me to start going after the many mistakes that Barack Obama makes; mistakes which some in mainstream media (and also in alternative media) tend to be lenient about. The campaign is over now, so those of us who didn’t want to negatively impact on his chances for victory can return from that hiatus from objectivity. He won.   

I am quite perplexed by the many problems that Barack Obama often seems to create for himself: there is a pattern here. And because the media tends to be relatively lenient it doesn’t mean that he will forever get away from full scrutiny. Many times I have wondered if Obama really understands what he is getting into. Has this always been about raw personal political ambition? Is this about some death-wish for martyrdom? Or is this truly about “change”? 

One of the arguments the city’s dead trees made to overturn term limits, and perhaps eliminate real elections, is that Mayor Bloomberg has financial acumen beyond nearly all other New Yorkers, and is indispensable at this time of financial crisis. Recently I have gained firsthand knowledge of the financial brilliance with which the City of New York is being run. It seems that the City has made an investment with a 60% rate of return over 7 ½ months. Over a full year that is nearly a 100% rate of return, or a doubling of the City’s money. Unfortunately, I have found this out because I am on the other side of the trade, and forced to pay that massive rate of return. If I do not, “further legal action may ensue.”

There will be a Memorial Service for Joe Gentili on Wednesday evening, December 3rd from 6 to 8 PM.

Joe was a one of the most active and effective leaders of the Brooklyn Republican Party for many years and was a top official of the Board of Elections. Joe was gruff at times but underneath was a real good guy and will be missed.

The service will be held in the Seminar Room of Trinity Church, 74 Trinity Place, 2nd floor, just north of Rector Street, in lower Manhattan. This location is near all major transit lines, and the R train at Rector Street is closest.

Anyone who knew Joe is invited to share your favorite Joe Gentili stories. Colorful language is encouraged and expected, as Joe would have insisted.

I remember doing a column earlier this year which dealt with the Fox News Network’s (FNN) unfair and unbalanced handling of the election coverage; I don’t think it got much attention, although it should have. You see, from my perspective FNN had a vendetta against Barack Obama. I know that their response to this column will be, that other mediums were in the tank for him; and as such, they weren’t about to go down the same highway. 

I am not going to sit here writing this without admitting that Barack Obama charmed the pants off of many a journalist’s/reporter’s typewriter: he did. And he did it with brilliant speeches, surprising (to them) primary and caucus victories, a high-quality political organization, his decorum, temperament, intellect and more. His reassuring calm -especially when under fire- was as admirable a trait as seen in any presidential candidate in contemporary times. It is possible that mainstream media gave him the half-decent treatment he deserved; something that he earned; and not their usual ferocious pit-bull attacks. Despite his mixed-race (he is a mulatto) they treated him like the full human being he is; something admirable coming from mainstream media.

According to today’s New York Times, California Attorney General Jerry Brown (where have I heard that name before?) has asked the State Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the voter initiative which bans same-sex marriage. Brown said such a review was necessary to provide closure and clarity on the ballot measure, as several challenges to the measure had been filed with the Court.

Apparently, the central argument in the law suits is that Proposition 8 is a significant enough revision to the State Constitution to require the approval of the Legislature.