You may have heard that New Jersey Governor John Corzine has called a special session of the New Jersey State legislature to tackle the “intractable” issue of high New Jersey property taxes.  He plans to reduce pensions and benefits for new employees, to offset the cost of the pension enrichment for those cashing in and moving out, and borrowing against the pension funds, passed during the Whitman Administration.  He plans to try to entice, or force, New Jersey’s high-spending school districts to consolidate to cut costs.  And, he plans to raise other taxes, perhaps at the state level, to offset a property tax decline.  Those are tough stands. Compared with the next Governor of New York, however, the fact is Corzine has it easy.

I’m going to stick my neck out here and predict that, ultimately, the continuing saga of the possible computer tampering at the NYC Board of Elections will turn out to be a lot of sound and fury, signifying very little.  Not that  I’m entirely dismissing the concerns expressed by Maurice Gumbs in his 83 part series posted elsewhere on “Room 8”, but a criminal conspiracy seems to me an unlikely scenario. I'd be more scared if I believed that anyone competent worked at the Board (of course, it's also kinda scary that there ain't). The Board is where the County Organizations bury their neediest cases (right up to the Board's Counsel's Office); the best and the brightest go elsewhere. In general, the Board of Elections couldn't organize an orgy at a convention of nymphomaniacs

When I left off on the first part of this column (see Rock Hackshaw’s blogs/Room Eight), I had given you all the story of how Roger Green got his nickname (the Dodger) in 1986.

I also gave a brief history of his subsequent ride downhill. Well, that’s brings us to today, where as of this writing, Roger is still a candidate for Congress in the 10th Congressional District. He is facing both incumbent Ed Towns and insurgent challenger NYC Councilmember Charles Barron.

With four fortnights to the election, Green filed that he had raised around forty thousand dollars, spent all of it plus, owed another twenty thousand or so, and held about four thousand cash on hand. This has led to all kinds of speculation as to why he is even in this race. Everyone knows that to run a credible Assembly race one needs around sixty thousand dollars (and this is a low-ball figure); with that in mind, figure the cost of running a congressional race, where you are tackling about 5 times an Assembly district in size.

In several past posts, and in several future posts, I’ve discussed the winners, those categories of services and people who get far more public funding here than the national average, in some cases more than in anywhere else in the United States.  But despite state and local taxes that were 43% higher than the national average in FY 2004, relative to personal income, and lots of fee income besides, taxpayers are not the only losers in New York City.

Spending on the city’s public schools has been below national average as a share of income, often far below, as far back as the data goes.  Parks, recreation and culture had been above the national average until1989, Ed Koch’s last year in office.  It has been far below average ever since, despite lots of private donations.  Major transportation projects are proposed and planned, but never built here.  Yesterday, the Daily News reported that the city’s libraries are rarely open.  http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/441273p-371556c.html.  No surprise there.

"Have I defended Lieberman? I don’t think so. I’ve never particularly cared if Lieberman or Lamont represents Connecticut–Lieberman’s annoyingly sanctimonious, and less of a neolib than a neocon. Maybe the self-righteousness is why he’s never actually convinced many fellow Democrats to change their minds on anything, the way President Clinton changed minds on welfare, for example, or Fritz Hollings changed minds on the budget. Lieberman blew his one chance at greatness when he kowtowed to the race-preference lobby at the 2000 convention. ("Please don’t end it." It’s that pathetic ‘please’ that cuts it for me.)" – Mickey Kaus

It’s time to admit it:  like just about everyone else in New York City, I’m a criminal, but my life of crime may be coming to an end.  My particular crime:  allowing the kids’ dog off leash in Prospect Park, during the designated hours listed on the park’s website.  How is that a crime?  It is a crime because New York City has an ordinance on the books that says at all times, and in all places, all dogs must be on a leash no less than 6 feet long when in public.  No exceptions.  No exclusions. 

When off leash hours were established, the city didn’t bother to change that ordinance.  It decided instead to not enforce the ordinance during certain hours.  It decided, in effect, to make me a guilty criminal, but to let me get away with it.  Now some folks out in Queens who don’t like off leash hours have filed a lawsuit.  It’s goal?  To force the city to enforce its own laws, and ticket those who allow their dogs to be off leash.  Who could argue with that?  I will argue against the city’s original decision to avoid changing the ordinance, and as part of general principle of law and ethics rather than as a specific canine case.  This is a long post, but if you are interested but that bothers you, you can copy it, paste it, and print it out.

Friday’s NY Times had one of their weekly stories speculating about Mike running for President.

It jumped to the conclusion that Mike having dinner with the Execurtive Director of the DLC meant he was running for President.  I guess when Mike had lunch  a few years ago with stars of  The Sopranos, it meant he was buying HBO.

But one part stood out in the lame story – "the mayor himself has sent mixed signals about his plans".

As I recall Mike has consistently said  he was not running and  has used the phrase "what part of the word No don’t  you understand".

A few days ago I wrote some comments previewing the hearing on petitions at the New York City Board of Elections.

I attended the hearing for a few hours and here’s some of what I observed.

A few candidates for Delegates to the Republican Judicial Convention were disqualified because they were, in fact, registered Democrats.

A candidate who wanted to run for the Assembly from the 55^th Assembly District was removed because the address he is registered to vote from and which he put on the petition was in the 40^th A.D.

It’s time for Al Sharpton to shut up. It’s time; case closed. It’s also time for mass-media to stop foisting this charlatan on us. He has been discredited over and over and over and over and………………… Enough already. Integrity is the cornerstone of any person’s reputation: “Sharp-tongue” has none. So it’s time for him to shut the f*** up. Period.

Last week, he and Jesse “James” Jackson injected themselves in the Connecticut Democratic primary race by endorsing Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman. Prima facie that’s okay; they do have the right to endorse any candidate that they want to. But it’s when you dig a little deeper that you expose one of Sharptongue’s many flaws: he is both a political pimp and a political whore, at the same time.

The title of this piece is actually stolen from a well-known political consultant/lobbyist, but I’ve utter confidence he’d not want his authorship of this bon mot to be widely disseminated, so I’m jumping his claim and taking it for my own. He was speaking of the Working Families Party (WFP), and so am I.

I have nothing against adding more parties to the ballot; let a thousand flowers bloom in our glorious democracy! Let’s lower the scandalously high signature threshold for independent candidates, but eliminate cross-endorsements (except in the case of qualified incumbent judges, who should, ideally, be exempted from facing partisan campaigns for re-election; although retention elections would be an even better idea).  Parties should run their own candidates instead of operating glorifed extortion rackets preying upon others.