What is the difference between the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the mafia? There are several, but one of the most important is that the mafia provides protection at a far more reasonable price. Perhaps because its members live in the neighborhood, and have more sympathy for the locals. Additional commentary on 2012 Census of Governments employment and payroll data for Police, Fire protection, and Corrections, along with a series of charts, may be found on “Saying the Unsaid in New York.”
Tag: City Council
WADING INTO THE SPECIAL ELECTION FOR THE 28th CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT (QUEENS)
|Next week Tuesday (Election Day) there will be a special election held for the 28th council-manic district in Queens. The need for which came about after Council-member Tom White died recently. Originally there were fourteen candidates registered with the NYC Campaign Finance Board (CFB); namely (in alphabetical order and with latest CFB financial-filing numbers): Victor Babb -$15,500; *Albert Baldeo -$54,994; *Charles Bilal -$5,298; *Martha Butler -$0; Leroy Gadsden -$0; *Allan Jennings -$15,417; Vishnu Mahadeo -$0; Joseph Marthune -$0; Elaine Nunes -$0; Lyn Nunes -$0; *Nicole Paultre-Bell -$12,033; Hattie Powell -$0; *Harpreet Toor -$18,895; and *Ruben Wills-$25,800. The seven with an asterisk (*) in front their names, have survived the petition and court-challenge phases and are now on the ballot. Only one (Willis) has received matching funds so far. Do note that former council-member Jennings has withdrawn from the matching funds program of CFB.
Now, I am not going to get into all the political gossip and mud-slinging that has plagued this race up to this point, since it has really been distracting as far as I am concerned. Some mainstream (and even local) newspapers have had a field-day with all the gossip, attacks, lies, innuendo and aspersions cast by various candidates against other candidates. On the streets of this district all sorts of sordid things have been said, and all sorts of nasty literature have been lit-dropped: so I am excusing myself from all that. However, I will endorse RUBEN WILLS and I will tell you why.
Initially, I felt that there were four candidates in this race with decent chances of winning. In that list I included Baldeo, Jennings, Paultre-Bell and Wills. I didn't think the other three survivors (Bilal, Butler and Toor) had much chance of attaining victory. Look, I am not saying I am right or wrong; I am just giving my opinion that's all. For full disclosure let me say that I thought Lyn Nunes would have won had he made the ballot: but neither he nor his sister made it; so that's yesterday's news.
I want to believe that Ms. Nicole Paultre-Bell has now emerged as the favorite to win this race, since she picked up the endorsements of two formidable unions recently (1199 and 32BJ). On Election Day their GOTV (get-out-the-vote) operations will be quite helpful to her cause. She has also secured endorsements from Congressman Gregory Meeks, activist Al Sharptongue, Public Advocate Bill DiBlasio, Council-members Jumanee Williams, Ydannis Rodriguez, James Sanders and many others. I am told that she has been on a roll since Congressman Meeks pushed her into this race; deliberately stepping in to block Wills and his endorsement from the Queens County Democratic Party machine.
It is said that Meeks has never forgiven Wills for attempting to challenge him in a primary a few years aback. If this is true then Meeks has put revenge ahead of common sense. Let me tell you why I say so.
I have nothing personal against Ms. Paultre-Bell. I know little about this ostensibly beautiful young woman beyond what I have read in the newspapers, after her fiancee was tragically killed by over-zealous policemen, in an infamous shooting a few years aback. This was both sad and unfortunate. But as far as I have been able to ascertain, neither Ms. Bell nor her deceased fiancée (Sean) were ever involved in the politics of this district. I am told she still lives in Long Island. A news report claims that even yesterday she said that she still hasn't moved into the district as yet; but expects to be living there by Election Day: which is exactly six days away. She is surely cutting it close despite still being within the letter of the law.
Of the seven candidates running, she is most likely the least politically-active here. Whatever she has done in regard to politics and community-activism, seems to have come about after the tragic shooting. This endorsement from Meeks and company is a slap in the face of many others in this race who have been involved in politics and community development for eons. There were others in this race more deserving of these high-profile backers. I wish these endorsers would explain their justification to some of these candidates: I am sure that many of them are now very anxious to know the reasoning behind this groundswell of support for Ms. Bell. Is she up to date on community issues? How well does she understand the history of this community and its development? Can she articulate the needs of the city and of the district in particular? Where does she stand on contemporary political issues in general? Does she understand policy-formation or the inner-workings of the city council? Has she ever studied the city charter? And so on and so on!
In communities of color we need more people to become active in the local politics. We need more people involved in their churches, schools and civic organizations. We need more activity on community boards and their attendant committees. We need more involvement in block associations and tenant groups. We need more crime-watchers and civilian patrols. We need more input by ordinary citizens into issues facing us on a daily basis. When elected officials bypass those who have paid dues in various communities of color, in order to support neophytes for public office, simply because of personal vendettas (or because other higher-ups control them and push candidates on them), what they actually do is further discourage others from contributing and becoming more involved in the community. Many potential candidates, their relatives, friends and supporters look at these things and feel unappreciated and undervalued. They often spread a bitter disgruntlement across the hood, contaminating others and discouraging many. It may sound trite, but it is true.
Look; from where I come in politics, “paying dues” counts. Ruben Wills has paid a lot of dues. He has been active in community-service since he was a youngster. He is about forty years old and has been involved in youth-development, economic-development, Christian-church outreach, sports, education, business, community-development, political activism, et al. When hospitals were closing all over the city Ruben Wills could be seen (and heard from) openly protesting against these closings in various communities (not just in communities of color). He was an early Obama supporter, who has worked with unions for worker's rights and for better working-conditions for all. He has marched for human and civil rights, and also for issues and causes that were local, state, national and international in scope. He is a bona- fide political activist.
It is notable that Wills has the support of various electeds in the area, including state senators Shirley Huntley and Malcolm Smith; assembly members Vivian Cook and William Scarborough; councilman Leroy Comrie; and an assorted number of male and female district leaders all over south-east Queens. He also has union-backing, including police officers from the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA) and the formidable DC 37 city workers. He should do well next Tuesday, but his chances of winning have surely diminished since Ms. Bell's ascendancy. Still, I wish him all the luck in the world: he is probably going to need some.
Stay tuned-in folks.
Heads I Win Tails Your Future is Destroyed and I Lose Nothing
|If that's the deal, and you are completely selfish, why not gamble more? So the city's public employee pension funds seem to have concluded. They want to put more money into hedge funds, which generally don't hedge (accept lower but more assured returns) at all. They leverage — producing huge returns in some years, and 100 percent investment wipeouts at other times, all while charging massively higher fees to their massively overcompenstated managers.
What this is about is coming up with a rationalization to claim the pension fund investment returns will be higher in the future than they will actually be. So more pension enrichments can be awarded but not paid for, until the costs explode and devastate the future of younger generations.
Mandated Sick Leave: Cutting My Vacation Days
|I’m back, after losing my internet service for a week and spending yet another day home waiting for Verizon (which threatened to keep me home an additional day besides). With the continual outages on the phone old lines that run to my house, I’ve probably spent three days of the 20 days off per year I get waiting for repairs. And now members of the City Council propose cutting my days off from 20 to 15.
The Bloomberg Administration: A Review Part II — Leadership
|This is the second post of my review of the Bloomberg Administration. The first post was on its management of the City of New York as a $60 billion per year multi-function enterprise. This post is on leadership. By leadership, I mean the ability to give direction and inspire community spirit among 8 million New Yorkers, to encourage them to contribute to common objectives, without being in a position to force them (through laws), and without them feeling they would become mere tools of those who extract more from and contribute less to the community. A second aspect is to identify and promote what is unique and desirable about the city, to make existing residents and businesses proud and happy to be here, and those elsewhere interested in coming. To identify and promote a way of life in New York City, in other words.
Since this is a role beyond the functions of local government, one may wonder what business an elected official has being a leader in the first place. I’ll answer that in two ways. First, as our social collapse proceeds, people increasingly look to the advertising for advice as to how to live, and this has resulted in an “I want for me now” culture that is in danger of collapsing under its own weight. We need alternatives. Second, we are paying for leadership. To the extent that we still have real elections, which is the case for Mayor more than most offices in New York, our elected officials are selected and paid to be the leaders. The fact that Mayor Bloomberg only accepts $1.00 per year does not diminish the responsibility.
A New Era For Parks and Recreation?
|I was glad to see parks and recreation get some additional attention in PLANYC2030, and in a subsequent additional announcement by the Parks Department. We are at the end of a third era for this public amenity, or trying to recover from that third era. In the first era there were few public parks, but the public streets, lacking motorized traffic and parked cars, were available for children to play and adults to socialize. In many parts of the city there were private and informal recreation facilities, like private pools, sandlots on vacant lots in the still-developing city, and beach and rowing clubs, the latter taking advantage of the city’s extensive waterfront. In the second era pollution forced people out of the water and traffic and parking pushed them off the street, but Robert Moses built hundreds of small parks. These, however, were too small for the city to afford on-site staff, and thus expensive to maintain. So when money ran short we reached the third era, with the streets and waterways still mostly off limits, small parks often and vandalized or in disrepair, school playgrounds off limits after school and sometimes used for parking during it, and larger parks maintained much better in places where private contributions are available. Will a fourth era now arrive?
PLANYC 2030: The Assumptions
|Given that I’m not only a certified city planner but also was paid at one point to write parts of similar documents (no, you didn’t read them, no one did), I thought I ought to do Room 8 readers the favor of actually reading through PlanNYC2030, a document whose public discussion has thus far been limited to congestion pricing. This plan follows the similar 1969 Plan for New York City and the 1987 New York Ascendant, each of which was issued at the peak of an economic boom, each of which promised extensive public and publicly-subsidized improvements for city residents, and each of which was immediately followed by a fiscal crisis. I therefore have strong doubts about the value of grand plans, especially those identified for “further study,” and PlanNYC has many of those – often those with a particular group of planning ideologues in favor (I recognize their footprints from the past) who received a tip of the hat here. And then there is the unsaid – which I will try to fill in. The plan, however, also has many real proposals, many good proposals, which I will discuss in other posts. In the end, however, New York in 2030 will come down to something I have come to think about more and more over the years. Money.
How To Create Affordable Housing
|If you read my screed on tax breaks here, you can guess my position on the 421a program, which exempts new condos and apartment buildings from property taxes for years and years. Get rid of it.
The developer captures that benefit from the apartment buyer by charging more, or from the renter by renting for the same amount and pocketing the savings. The development site owner then captures it from the developer, by also charging more, leaving housing no more affordable, development no more profitable, and new housing no more likely. If the tax breaks are exchanged for new units dedicated to a few people earning $35,000 or less, then the taxes are instead collected from others equally less well off, or diverted from services such as schools.