Category: News and Opinion

Back on April 29th, I made some observations concerning how the NYS budget process actually works, which seemed so ludicrous and absurd that some people thought I was making the whole thing up. As one can now see, this story in today’s (12/3/06) New York Times pretty much confirms the process I’d outlined.

Before the release of the motion picture bearing his name, the character “Borat”, portrayed by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, was most famous for a sequence on Cohen’s TV series, "Da Ali G Show", where, at an amateur night in a Country and Western bar, he performs a song where he advocates "Throw[ing] the Jew Down the Well’’ to an appreciative audience of rednecks.

In an interview in “Rolling Stone”, Cohen, a Sabbath-observing Jew, admitted that the audience may not have been anti-Semitic, but merely humored the character to be polite. He nonetheless pointed out that such polite indifference and conformity to anti-Semitism led to the Holocaust.

About ten years ago I happened to be one of three guests on a television show, along with present NYC councilmember Charles Barron and activist-attorney Colin Moore. The name of the show was “Caribbean Roundtable”, one of the better Caribbean-American talk shows still around. The hostess (Verna Smith) was a Jamaican-born journalist, who just happened to be quite active in Brooklyn’s Caribbean-American political circles; thus her questions were not of the powder-puff variety; not at all, since Verna can be a tough interviewer at times. On Sunday mornings, you can usually catch the show on Cablevision, and at other times on Time Warner cable. The gist of that show was basically an analysis of the results of the 1997 Democratic primary elections, which had taken place a few weeks before. Just before the show ended, the topic of “police brutality” crept in. Given that Barron and Moore brought to the table, tremendous knowledge in this area, they immediately jumped on the issue, offering some insight into the whys and wherefores. When it was my turn to speak, I got a few things off my chest that I had wanted to say publicly for quite some time. My opinions riled both guests. I wasn’t really surprised. The events of last weekend brought back memories of that roundtable exchange. I will get to that in a second.

Submitted for your consideration, dueling headlines:

“Court Dismisses Suit Against Plan for Pier Parks” – Brooklyn Heights Press (11/30/06)

“Park backers lose waterfront lawsuit” – Brooklyn Papers (12/2/06)

So who’s right? Did those who want the park win, or those who want to stop it?

As I’ve documented, it’s been quite clear for well over a decade that the only way a Park was ever going to be built on the Brooklyn Heights Waterfront was if it were self supporting. The lawsuit mentioned in the headlines sought to block the use of the revenue sources (including apartment buildings) proposed in the plan to create “Brooklyn Bridge Park”. Those behind the lawsuit, brought by the Orwellingly named “Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund”, include the Willowtown Association, which has opposed any park on the Brooklyn Bridge Waterfront, long before housing became part of the plan, because it would lead to people from outside the neighborhood walking past their homes (residents of Joralemon Street actually hung up signs saying "Don't Tread On Me"). Also in the opposition is Roy Sloane of the Cobble Hill Association, who has stated quite clearly that he opposes the building of any park except on his terms, which are fiscally insupportable. Thus, those who supported the lawsuit, including publisher Ed Weintrob of the Brooklyn Paper (a resident of Willowtown), can only be termed park opponents, since they oppose the only plan which has any hope of bringing a park to fruition.

“Some bloggers just rattle…the anonymity of the computer gives them free reign to incessently idle about with their conspiracy theories and salacious gossip. GM didn't do that; he backed up the reasons for his statements (which is more than we can say for many bloggers). You may not have agreed with what he said … but the mere fact that we came back and engaged him – and ourselves – is a testament to the power of his words, and the popularity and importance of the political blogger."-Black Pride (5/23/06)

“The Hippocratic Oath begins with the injunction “First do no harm”. It is not a high standard to meet, but it is one at which the WFP has utterly failed. It is time to put the patient out of its misery and pull the plug on the WFP. Vote for Spitzer for Governor on the Democratic line”- Gatemouth (10/28/06)

Well Rumsfeld is finally gone, pushed out for being half right. He was right about how easy it would be to topple Sadaam, but wrong about how easy it would be to get Iraq up and running and get out. Too bad he wasn't completely wrong. By the time we took over the place, we'd have had enough troops, and we might be out by now. There is no such accountability in the economic policy realm, where interest trumps ideology and the same mantras are repeated regardless of the evidence. For example, what about all those Republicans who claimed that cutting taxes on investment returns, but eliminating tax breaks for consumer debt, would encourage savings and investment?

Any month in which Chris Owens gets to issue a mission statement for a new political movement, or Charles Barron is given the opportunity to sound off about an unarmed black man hit by 50 bullets on the night before his wedding (while the shock of the underlying incident stuns Gatemouth into a failure to respond to his ill-chosen words), is bound to produce its share of unique rhetoric. Add to that the fact that most of November is devoted to post-election recrimination and spin, and the opportunities to pick low hanging fruit off the vine increase exponentially.

This is by no means a selection of the most ludicrous quotes in a month where the cup hath runneth over; it’s just a sampling of a few favorites, with some notes:

For a few decades, in large part as a result of state fiscal policies, the City of New York has spent far more than average on the health care industry (not all on health care) and far less than average on the public school system (and even less than that on education). With the possibility of at least somewhat more fair school funding from Albany, and the release of the report of the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century, there is an opportunity to alter that pattern. As other forms of transportation developed, much of the nation’s rail capacity became redundant, and eventually had to be abandoned to save the rest of the rail system financially. Since rights-of-way are uniquely valuable and hard to replicate, many places preserved them as trails. Similarly, in a densely populated city space is scarce and expensive, and one of the city’s educational problems is the lack of it. The hospitals and wings to be closed have been exempted from local property taxes for decades, an exemption the value of which likely exceeded their current value many times over. They should be purchased by or given to the city, gutted, and turned into high schools (if large enough) or other schools. If purchased, the money received should only be used for a purpose consistent with the purpose of the tax breaks had been received, not bonuses for departing executives. At least the schools would have decent labs and, if a high school were located in the former wing of a still-working hospital, perhaps some of the students would be inspired to health care careers. For despite the “jobs lost” in the short run due to the proposed closings, the long-term situation in health care is a labor shortage.

So the Court of Appeals has ruled that in 2004 New York City schools should have spent, at a minimum, an additional $1.93 billion. Is that a lot, or a little? Would the total be an excessive waste of money, or nowhere close to the need? If the state paid for it all, would those elsewhere in the state have been cheated out of their rightful share of aid, or have continued to shortchange the city’s children? And would city residents have reason to be on-their-knees grateful, or outraged? To me, the way whatever settlement is described is as important as what that settlement is, because it will set the stage for what is demanded, and what is rationalized, for years to come. New York State’s winners expect a high level of service; they not only expect to win, but also expect to be told they have been generous, or cheated, so they can continue to sneer at and resent the losers. You’d think the truth would be the easiest thing to provide, since giving one person the truth doesn’t’ take money from someone else. It actually appears to be the most difficult. As it happens, while the Zarb Commission appears to have had Fiscal 2004 data years ago, that happens to be the latest available to me, both from the New York State Department of Education Fiscal Policy Unit and the U.S. Census Bureau. And below, using that information, is the meaning of the CFE $1.93 billion.

Let’s be clear from the start; this is not another piece making fun of Chris Owens; he just happened to start the discussion. Last week Owens, the self-proclaimed (and surely consensual) leader of Brooklynites who call themselves “progressive” stated that those who share his vision support “public policies that promote and establish equitable social [and] economic…outcomes for all Americans, including quality public education, affordable and accessible health care, and quality and affordable housing.” Although, for my own reasons, I don’t call myself a progressive, these goals are just fine with me; however, in seeking to implement those goals, Owens proposed, among other things, support for efforts to “maximize voter registration and voter turnout….regardless of an individual voter's profile”, to which I replied: