Category: News and Opinion

The City section of Sunday’s NY Times had an article about Jose Adames, who has the crazy idea that he is really Mayor of New York.

The story treats Adames as a harmless eccentric but does point out that he is constantly violating the law by taping or pasting fliers on light poles and other places.

The 2 relevant paragraphs are:

Mr. Collins confronted Mr. Adames at a board meeting in February. “I stood up,” he recalled, “and I said to him, ‘I have a question: Will you stop littering the community with your fliers?’ People in the audience applauded. He said, ‘No.’ ”

I hear there are lots of people around the country who aren’t that worried about the fate of the earth and humanity. Judgment Day is coming and both are doomed, in their view, but that’s OK because righteous people like themselves will be going to a better place and leaving the losers behind. It is kind of like the hippie vision in the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song Wooden Ships. While I’m not a theologian, however, I’m not sure Judgment Day will turn out like those waiting for the Rapture have planned. Perhaps God has placed humanity in a circumstance that will force all of us to cast judgment, collectively, on ourselves — by placing us on a planet with the resources, and giving us both the ability and the will, to create either heaven or hell right here on earth. And He is sitting back and waiting to see what our choice will be.

A few months aback, when I first wrote about the vacancy in the 40th city council district, I had never in my wildest imaginations expected so much drama to a simple special election; but drama we had, and maybe the best is yet to come. No sense rehashing all the funky stuff of the past few months, but let me bring some of you up to date as to where we are, with just three days to the election (part two).

About 48 hours ago, a federal judge put candidate Wellington Sharpe back on the ballot, after he was removed by the NYC Board of Elections, which had upheld a challenge on Sharpe’s petitions from the Mathieu Eugene camp. Then yesterday, an appellate court held that despite the fact that Eugene had created the present vacancy in this district- by failing to take up his duly elected post- he should be still placed on the ballot, since his deceptive behavior didn’t reach the level of a felony. They arrived at this position despite the fact that the law is clear: once you create a vacancy, you cannot run for said office. The law is also clear that failing to swear in to office meant that “you” created the vacancy. So on Tuesday (4-24-07), there will be a special election in Brooklyn again, with Mathieu Eugene, Wellington Sharpe and Harry Schiffman as the candidates. So much for the law, its variations and violations; and on we go, and on we go, and we go on………

Current Employment Survey data is out for March, and local government employment is down 2,700 from 12 months earlier in New York City and up 8,400 in the rest of the state, continuing a trend that has gone on forever. Clearly something must be done about this. Such as taxing NYC residents to send more "tax relief" to the rest of the state, so it can continue hiring, while cutting the city's general revenue sharing. State government employment was up by 100 in NYC, and 1,600 in the rest of the state, as well. At least the city's private sector is growing. Because if it wasn't, and state revenues dropped, the city would be first in line for reductions in state funding, based on what has happened in the past.

I’ve downloaded 2005 financial data on mass transit from the National Transit Database, and crunched it down to the most relevant information, with the intention of providing and discussing it on Room Eight. I’m still going to do that, but something I saw there makes me uneasy. The only heavy rail (subway) system in the U.S. with lower operating costs per revenue vehicle hour is the Chicago Transit Authority. This could be because the CTA has already installed a more advanced signal system (cab signaling) and gone to one-person train operation, efforts underway in New York, but there may be another factor. New York City Transit spent nearly 70 cents on fringe benefits for every dollar spent on wages, and while some of those benefits go to those working today, much of the money is for pensions and retiree health benefits. In Chicago, according to the NTD data, fringe benefit spending actually exceeded wages and salaries. But I read that the CTA is drawing to down its pension fund to pay oppressive retiree costs rather than building it up. In that case, the CTA’s costs may appear lower because retiree costs are being deferred to a future financial catastrophe. Given varying levels of pension and retiree health care under-funding, what does this comparative cost data really mean?

The Fiscal Policy Institute has released school aid data based on the adopted budget. Their data shows the city’s share of state school aid was cut. But from what I can see, this data only includes school aid that is called school aid. From a practical perspective, it doesn’t matter if you send money to schools for them to spend without collecting local taxes, send money to schools to offset the local taxes they do not then collect because they spend it instead (STAR), or send money to taxpayers to offset what they do collect (the new checks). Education funding, therefore, in reality includes STAR and the new “tax relief” checks. I want to see it all.

2007 is an “off-year” in New York City politics. There are no Citywide or Statewide positions to be elected and no Congressional seats to be filled.

But there will be an election this year in New York City and there even may be some Primary contests.

As a public service, I present the list of public offices to be filled this November, with some commentary about who might be running.

This list only applies to public office (not party positions like District Leader or Judicial Convention delegate) and does not include special elections. Also, this list is still subject to change because on death or resignation.

Based on what I read in the newspaper, I'll give credit to the Freelancers Union and Councilmember David Yassky for sticking up for one of New York's losers: self-employed freelancers and owners of their own small businesses. Many of the former are employees in all but name, but designated independent contractors so their employers do not have to pay social security and unemployment taxes, and can provide tax-free health insurance to the higher ups and those with seniority but not to new hires. Most of the victims of this shift in practice are the young, yet another two-tier contract with a worse-off following generation. And the City of New York adds injury to injury by taxing the income of freelancers twice, once through the local income tax and once through the unincorporated business tax.

The discussion of the New York State Budget appears to be just about over in the mainstream media. Tidbits have come out, given to favorable newspapers, and accusations have come out in unfavorable ones. I could talk about the budget based on what I have read, but I will defer doing so until the information I want comes out. Including STAR, the Son-of-STAR checks, and school aid that is called school aid (that is including all funds expended THIS YEAR in CASH (not permission to borrow) to pay for, or offset local taxes raised for, public elementary and secondary education), what is NYC's share, and what is the share for the rest of the state, this year, and what will they be next year?

Regular readers of my posts and comments on this blog know that I have been a consistent critic of Al Sharpton.

And I don’t back off any of them.

But this week, Rev. Al has been getting a bum rap.

After the Don Imus controversy and the exoneration of the Duke Lacrosse players, a bunch of commentators, including Imus himself, started yapping about how Al owed the Duke lacrosse players an apology for all that he said about them.

But guess what – apparently Al didn’t say much about them.

Ellis Henican in his column in Newsday reported that Al never went down to Durham, NC to vilify players.