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The Fight over Julia Richman
November 15th, 2006

Given the Department of Educations zeal to create small schools, one would expect they would love the Julia Richman Educational Complex, a once failing big high school that is now home to six small schools. Think again. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is considering a proposal from Hunter College to take over and demolish the Julia Richman site on Manhattans East Side so the college can build a new science center and public health school. Hunter has offered the Department of Education a site on its auxiliary campus where the Julai Richman school could get a new facility.

But parents, staff and others object to the scheme. Earlier this year, the New York Times reported, “Teachers and parents at the small schools have mobilized against [the move], saying it would destroy a delicate educational ecosystem and a potent, phoenixlike symbol of possibility.”

And the objections continue. Yesterday students and others held a protest to save Julia Richman and, this morning, Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News weighs in on their behalf. Calling Julia Richman “”a shining example of how to turn around failing public schools,” Gonzalez reports that “school officials, in typical Bloomberg-administration style,” never asked staff and parents for their opinion “on the sale and demolition of their schools.” The News columnist concludes, “Someone needs to teach Klein some basics of education: You don’t break things you’ve already fixed.”

Many students at Julia Richman had previously “been seriously underserved by the system,” writes Cathy Tomaszewki Bruce, of the Julia Richman leadership team. “Were these schools comprised of mostly white and upper middle class families, we have little doubt that the city would be celebrating their success and using the building as a model for other schools across the city. Instead, Hunters proposed destruction reveals a gross disregard for our citys low-income and families of color.”

The James Betelle, Where Are You? blog, while also objecting to the plan, takes a different approach: “The not-so-subtle insinuation here is that [the buildings] age makes it a bad school facility worthy of demolition, while a new structure is inherently better,” But, the writer continues, “School construction from the 1920-30s is often more solid, more insulated, more efficient than modern structuresIts hardly surprising that most schools built in this period are still functioning.”

By Gail Robinson on November 15, 2006, 9:51 am
In category: Education, Gotham City | No Comments »

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City Council Pay Raises
November 15th, 2006

With a vote scheduled in City Council today, the Daily News makes a last ditch effort to stop the members from giving themselves and other elected city officials a pay hike. “This type of piggish behavior provokes scorn,” the paper says. “Serious legislatures” increase salaries for future officeholders, not themselves, the editorial argues. And it says, “As for the money, a $22,500 hike from $90,000 to $112,500 for a part-time job is too much.”

By Gail Robinson on November 15, 2006, 9:47 am
In category: Electoral Politics, Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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Reviving Republicans
November 14th, 2006

How the Republican Party of New York can come back after the first Democratic sweep of statewide offices since 1938 remains a hot topic.

A few days ago, the NY Times offered its prescription. Today:

A Newsday editorial focuses on advice for Joseph Mondello, who is being considered for the next state Republican party chairman, but also says the party’s best hope is to refurbish itself as a fiscally conservative but socially moderate alternative to the Democrats.

Former City Councilmember Charles Millard writes in the Post that new leadership is needed, and a plan.

The Daily News is happy that Rudy Giuliani is running for president.

By Jonathan Mandell on November 14, 2006, 7:33 am
In category: Electoral Politics, Governing | No Comments »

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Shea Stadium --> Citi Field? Ugh
November 14th, 2006

An editorial in the New York Post takes exception to the announcement that the new Mets stadium will be named Citi Field, after the bank that is giving them $20 million a year. That’s barely enough to pay a year’s salary for Carlos Beltran alone. The Post wanted the stadium to be named after Jackie Robinson.

An editorial in the Daily News (scroll to the bottom) also regrets the new name, because it will no longer honor William Shea, who brought National League ball back to the city after the Dodgers and the Giants skipped town.

Planned within the new stadium, however, are a William Shea Memorial and a Jackie Robinson Rotunda.

By Jonathan Mandell on November 14, 2006, 7:07 am
In category: Gotham City, Land Use | 2 Comments »

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Investigategate
November 13th, 2006

An editorial in the Daily News has another suggestion for change in Albany beefing up the State Investigation Commission, turning it from a sleepwalking, see-no-evil, assisted-living community for aging pols into an anti-corruption gangbuster as it once was.

By Jonathan Mandell on November 13, 2006, 9:25 am
In category: Albany, Crime & Safety | No Comments »

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Actually, People DO Prefer Mississippi To New York, Congressman Rangel
November 13th, 2006

New Yorkers hope they will gain substantially from the Democratic sweep in Congress the subject of essays by a range of New Yorkers in this weeks Gotham Gazette. (See After The Election — What Will Be Different Now)

How the rest of the country may react to any ascendancy of New York can be glimpsed by the hubbub following a comment by Congressman Charles Rangel in an article in the New York Times last Thursday entitled After Years On The Outs, New York Comes Back In.
Rangel, who will assume the chairmanship of the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, was complaining about the uneven flow of dollars from the federal government, and chose to put it this way: Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?”

Reaction was swift and widespread:
Please Come Visit Our State, Mr. Rangel wrote the Delta Democrat-Times of Greenville, Mississippi.

The other question Rangel might have asked is why people from Mississippi aren’t flooding into his politically corrupt, crime-ridden city, James W. Bailey wrote in The Clarion-Ledger, a Mississippi newspaper (though Bailey himself apparently lives in Reston, Virginia).

Mississippi Republican Congressman Chip Pickering demanded an apology: I hope his remarks are not the kind of insults, slander, and defamation that Mississippians will come to expect from the Democrat leadership in Washington, D.C. Pickering added: “I have friends and colleagues from New York that are fine people, and I’ve visited their state and think it is a wonderful place. But I love Mississippi. I would rather live in Mississippi, raise my family in Mississippi and serve Mississippi — and there are millions of Mississippians who agree with me.”

And they are not alone. An editorial today in the New York Sun compares the two states: From 2000 to 2005, Mississippi experienced a population growth of 2.7 percent, compared to 1.5 percent for New York. A larger absolute number of people may opt to live here, but Mississippi is growing faster. No doubt that has at least something to do with the business climate — a business group ranked Mississippi as the seventh best state to do business, while New York was put at 45th, apparently based mostly on various taxes.

And Steve Malanga in City Journal finds fault not only with Rangels uniquely obnoxious way of expressing himself but with the context of his remarks. Malanga argues that the predictions will prove false about New York legislators asserting unprecedented influence in Washington, and receiving unparalleled goodies for their constituents. There is no major pot of gold waiting for New York, only perhaps a few more scraps of pork sent our way, he writes. The reasons he cites for New York receiving less money in federal funding than it gives in federal taxes are manifold — a lack of defense contracts and of retirees, for example. But the reason why he thinks this will not change boils down to the New York delegation being too far to the left to have much clout nor effect. By voting against tax cuts, for example, Malanga says the delegation undermines the interests of their constituents, whose incomes are on average higher than those of taxpayers in most other states, [and who therefore] pay disproportionately more in federal taxes.

The legislators from New York, Malanga claims, really just want an increase in funding for social programs - and that, he argues, is not going to happen, because New York already ranks number one in per capita spending on many such programs. By contrast, he adds, Mississippi (to take Rangels example) received about 25 percent less per capita in social program spending than New York, though Mississippi has a higher poverty rate.

Update: Rangel has issued several, albeit oddly-worded, apologies. For a clue as to how Mississippians have reacted, see an account of the contretemps on the Web site of Station WDAM in Laurel-Hattiesburg, Mississippi which depicts Rangel literally as a horse’s ass. “In talking about wanting to bring more federal money to New York, he said he used Mississippi as an example because it gets back $1.77 for every $1 it sends to the federal government, and New York gets back 79 cents on the dollar.”

By Jonathan Mandell on November 13, 2006, 6:55 am
In category: Gotham City, Public Finance | 11 Comments »

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Should Somebody Born Male Be Able To Alter His(Her) Birth Certificate To Female, And Vice-Versa?
November 12th, 2006

The Daily News publishes opposing views of the proposal by the New York City Board of Health to allow transgendered New Yorkers to change their gender on their birth certificates, whether or not they have had a sex-change operation.

The Yes essay is by Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund , who argues that such a move will help make life a little easier for what he calls one of the most discriminated-against communities in the city: When they apply for jobs, they will no longer need to fear rejection because their ID doesn’t match the way they look; it now will. When they enter office buildings, they will no longer have to explain to security guards why the gender on their ID doesn’t match their appearance; it now will. When police officers stop them from using the bathroom that matches their gender presentation, they’ll have identification that says they have the right to be
there.

The No essay is by James Kirchick, who writes for the Independent Gay Forum. He argues the proposal amounts to falsifying government documents and eliminating a physical standard for determining gender, and says that it would cause a raft of complicated situations (What if a man who, despite never having had his gender surgically changed, asserts he is a woman then wants to marry another man, despite gay marriage not being legal in New York State?). More generally, tacking on transgender issues to gay rights, Kirchick writes, is partly responsible for the fact that it remains legal to fire people – just because they are gay – in 36 states.

By Jonathan Mandell on November 12, 2006, 3:21 pm
In category: Civil Rights, Demographics, Gotham City, Health | 6 Comments »

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The Good News For Republicans
November 12th, 2006

An editorial in The New York Times, after recounting how completely New Yorks Republican Party was defeated in last weeks elections, says that it could remake itself, independent both of Albany politics and Washington ideology, embracing pragmatic issues like lowering taxes and crime rates and protecting the environment, grooming future candidates to reconnect with a distinguished lineage that includes Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey, Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller, and Louis Lefkowitz, but looking to Mayor Michael Bloomberg as its guiding star.

Comments on the Room Eight blog
Barry Popik: “NY’s GOP has always had Rockefeller Republicans and has never been far-right.)”
628: “[Republicans] could probably be eliminated if the Democrats and Republicans hadn’t divided the state up into a group of patronage fiefdoms, and if the Democrats provided better government.”
Larry Littlefield: “The Republicans have essentially waged war on New York City at the state level for 25 years or more.”

By Jonathan Mandell on November 12, 2006, 2:50 pm
In category: Electoral Politics, Governing | 1 Comment »

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A Day For Silence
November 11th, 2006

Today is Veterans Day, which began as Armistice Day in noisy celebration of the end of World War I on November 11, 1918, but soon was made a national holiday to commemorate all veterans. An editorial in the Daily News (second one) points out that New Yorkers used to observe a moment of silence on this day, something the British still do. An editorial in The New York Post calls the Veterans Day parade up Fifth Avenue, one of the most moving of the year. El Diario offers a special tribute to Latino veterans. The News reprints a poem by Laurence Binyon:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

By Jonathan Mandell on November 11, 2006, 2:05 pm
In category: Gotham City | No Comments »

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The Voters Have Acquitted Hevesi
November 10th, 2006

An editorial in the New York Sun, which had endorsed the Republican candidate for New York State comptroller, J. Christopher Callaghan, over the ethically challenged incumbent Alan Hevesi, now says in effect, let Hevesi serve his term: Impeachment in the wake of the kind of landslide that returned Mr. Hevesi to office would be, by our lights, a mistake.

By Jonathan Mandell on November 10, 2006, 8:37 am
In category: Albany, Electoral Politics, Governing, Law, Public Finance | 2 Comments »

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So, What Else Is Going On? (Cell Phones In the Subway)
November 9th, 2006

Two days after the election and the topics for discussion seem to be exhausted. The Democrats have taken the Senate and the House — we won’t have to wait through a recount. Plus, by now everyone has noted that Charlie Rangel is going to be really powerful, and made their predictions about whether or not Eliot Spitzer will be able to change Albany and when Hillary Clinton will announce that she’s running for president.

So it seems time to move on and talk about things that will really affect the lives of New Yorkers — like what would happen if people were able to use their cell phones on the subway. To read the Gothamist post about the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan to award a contract to a company that can make this possible, the result would be widespread violence.

One reader worries that wiring the stations will make it easier for terrorists to blow up the city using cell phone triggered bombs, but this isn’t the kind of mayhem most people consider likely. One commenter quotes the Onion: “If they lift the ban on cell-phone use, they better lift the ban on passengers beating the s— out of each other, too.” The next one threatens to “kill about a thousand people during my commute the first day this goes into effect.”

Gothamist itself, however, doesn’t see any of this happening too soon. This is, after all, a plan being carried out by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority:

“We bet by the time the MTA is ready to award the job, cellphones will be passe and people will communicate via ESP.”

By Joshua Brustein on November 9, 2006, 4:32 pm
In category: Gotham City, Tech, Transportation | No Comments »

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Dealing With Hevesi
November 9th, 2006

Eliot Spitzer was given virtually no grace period before being hounded about what he plans to do about embattled state comptroller Alan Hevesi.

In the New York Sun, Thomas Carroll of CHANGE-NY provides a list of candidates he thinks would do a good job.

By Joshua Brustein on November 9, 2006, 8:00 am
In category: Gotham City, Governing, Public Finance | No Comments »

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Hillary Clinton After the Victory
November 8th, 2006

To no one’s surprise, Senator Hillary Clinton was among last night’s electoral winners. Political writers immediately began discussing how Clinton will leverage the results to give herself the best chance of becoming president in two years’ time. She certainly seems to have momentum — and money — to spare after her landslide victory yesterday. And some are predicting that her unofficial presidential campaign will become official pretty soon.

“Clinton needs to set up a presidential exploratory committee before she can spend a penny of the $15 million sitting in her Senate campaign account on anything remotely presidential,” writes Glenn Thrush in Newsday. “When Clinton files the papers, it’s likely to generate about as much buzz as if she rented Madison Square Garden and literally threw some kind of a hat into some kind of a ring.”

Clinton’s current job, meanwhile, has yet to be defined. If the Democratic candidates for Senate in Montana and Virginia end up winning — and their party is already claiming victory — then Clinton will be in the majority in the Senate. During the campaign, Clinton claimed that Republican control of the presidency and both houses of Congress had kept her from installing her plans to improve New York’s economy.

The Daily Politics has a post discussing how this might also affect the state’s other senator, who was in charge of the Democrats campaign this fall:

“If they pull it off, Chuck [Schumer] will — depending on which Democrat you talk to — either be a national hero, or totally impossible to take. Or both.”

By Joshua Brustein on November 8, 2006, 12:53 pm
In category: Gotham City | 6 Comments »

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Needed: Latino Candidates
November 8th, 2006

Reviewing New Yorks election returns, El Diario is dismayed that “despite the fact that one sixth of the states population is Hispanic there was not one Latino among the elected statewide officials in New York. There was not even a Latino among the contenders.” And, the editorial continues, “it doesnt feel as if Latino candidates are on the radar.”

Perhaps El Diario can take comfort from federal results in the region — the elevation of Representative Nydia Velazquez to the chair of the House Small Business Committee, and the re-election in New Jersey of Democrat Bob Menendez, who became the state’s first Hispanic U.S. senator when he was appointed to the Senate in January. Menendez, son of Cuban immigrants, is one of three Hispanics now serving in the Senate and the sixth Hispanic to ever serve in the body.

By Gail Robinson on November 8, 2006, 10:00 am
In category: Albany, Civil Rights, Electoral Politics, Gotham City, Governing | 1 Comment »

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Rangel's Rise
November 8th, 2006

With the Democrats winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives, New York Citys Democratic congressmembers are looking forward to increased clout. Quoting a reader email, the Daily Politics notes, “Perhaps the central story for New York today is that the state boasts “a powerhouse delegation for the first time in recent memory.”
Charles Rangel, longtime representative from Harlem seems certain to lead the Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax legislation. The Daily Politics also says that as the leader of the Democratic senate campaign effort, Senator Charles Schumer will be an important Democrat in the party hierarchy, and Representative Jerrold Nadler will gain influence on transportation and constitutional issues.

Acknowledging Rangels increased clout, the Post comments, “Spitzer aside, perhaps the happiest New York politician today is the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, Representative Charles Rangel. After nearly four decades in Congress, Rangel has achieved his life dream” as he “stands to lead the most significant panel on Capitol Hill.”

The paper tempers its congratulations noting its “substantial differences” with Rangel. But, it continues, “We hope that Rangel will keep in mind that, ideology aside, he is from the city that remains – for now – the world financial center. We hope and trust he will take use opportunity to find ways to work in the best interests of New York and the nation.”

By Gail Robinson on November 8, 2006, 9:47 am
In category: Electoral Politics, Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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Day One For Governor Eliot Spitzer
November 8th, 2006

Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer promised change on day one, and most New York newspapers offer an opinion today of what he is facing, or what they expect him to do when the 56th governor of New York takes office in 53 days:

Daily News (second editorial): Smite Medicaid, pay-to-play, bloated spending, crushing taxes, unfair school aid.

Daily News Columnist Bill Hammond: Fire Hevesi

Daily News Columnist Errol Louis: Face down the immovable object that is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

New York Post: Fire Hevesi, neutralize Silver; scrub Albany clean

Newsday: ethics reform, the right combination of seasoned insiders and new blood to staff the government; the first budget, which should have deep but intelligent cuts to Medicaid and to make a good-faith downpayment toward settling the New York City school-funding suit.

New York Times: Mr. Spitzer has repeatedly promised to do in Albany what he did on Wall Street as attorney general. That means cleaning up cronyism and the culture of secrecy. But his plans for reform are by no means limited to the way the political game is played. He promises Medicaid reform, debt reform and court reform each one involving entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo. At the same time, he vows to make New York a national leader in the areas where leadership has failed in Washington, like education, civil rights, the environment and housing. Mr. Spitzer will hardly be doing it all in his first hundred days. But we do expect to see immediate action on his central promise to make state government more responsive to the people and to clean up the way special-interest money distorts policy in the state.

By Jonathan Mandell on November 8, 2006, 9:46 am
In category: Albany, Electoral Politics, Governing | 1 Comment »

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Spitzer vs. Hevesi?
November 8th, 2006

Even though he won re-election yesterday, Comptroller Alan Hevesi, tainted by a scandal involving his use of a state employee to drive his wife around, was the odd man out in the Democratic victory celebration. In fact, he wasnt even at the party, notes Power Plays. What was also notable was the absence of any mention of the New York State Comptroller,” the blog reports. “As the hour approached 11 p.m., a television in the press filing center showed Alan Hevesi accepting victory at his own headquarters. Reporters had to crowd around the set to hear him because the volume was turned down.”

But, if the Post and News get their wish, Hevesi will not be just a wallflower; hell be out of a job. Getting rid of the comptroller should be one of tasks for Governor-election Eliot Spitzer, the papers editorials say. “Hevesi has no business as New York’s fiscal watchdog. So now Spitzer needs to roll up his sleeves – and get rid of him, ” the Post says.

And the News imagines a phone conversation where Spitzer demands Hevesis resignation. “Make my day, Alan. I’ll have the Senate throw you out in a heartbeat,” the fictional Spitzer tells the pleading comptroller. “How am I supposed to control Medicaid spending, fix the public schools, jump-start the upstate economy and change the culture of Albany with Albatross Hevesi hanging around my neck?”

By Gail Robinson on November 8, 2006, 9:31 am
In category: Albany, Electoral Politics, Gotham City, Governing | 1 Comment »

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Spitzer vs. Silver?
November 8th, 2006

Eliot Spitzer had barely a minute to relish his record-breaking victory for governor before the citys commentators began cautioning him about the hard job ahead.

The
Times notes that the govern-elect has repeatedly vowed to clean up Albanys notorious “cronyism and the culture of secrecy.” But the editorial cautions, “Albany regularsseem to feel that they can grind the new governor down the same way they did his recent predecessors . It will take enormous skill and resources for Mr. Spitzer to keep appealing directly to the public in order to force the old guard into accepting change.

To the Daily News Errol Louis, that old guard is personified by one man: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. “The guy is much smarter, tougher and shrewder than most people realize. And he holds institutional power that nobody can touch, not even a reform-minded governor who has vowed to change Albany,” Louis writes. “Silver holds nearly as much political power as the governor, and often uses it to grind Albany’s gears to a halt.”

In an op-ed in the Sun, Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute agrees. Silver, she writes, “has represented that lack of accountability for over a decadeMr. Spitzer’s success or failure in neutralizing Mr. Silver’s future influence will give New Yorkers an indication of whether Mr. Spitzer’s efforts at reform will succeed or fail.” She urges Spitzer to find a way to maneuver Silver out of his leadership post so the new governor can really bring reform to the nations famously dysfunction state capital.

By Gail Robinson on November 8, 2006, 9:20 am
In category: Albany, Electoral Politics, Gotham City, Governing | 1 Comment »

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Democratic Sweep In New York (And Maybe U.S.)
November 7th, 2006

Democrats swept all statewide races yesterday. Attorney Eliot Spitzer was elected governor, according to unofficial results, and Hillary Clinton won her bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate. (Click here for more complete election results as they come in.) Democrat Andrew Cuomo won the race for attorney general, and Comptroller Alan Hevesi won re-election despite the scandal over his use of a state employee as his wife’s chauffeur. It remains unclear, though, whether Hevesi will be able to serve out his four-year term. Spitzers running mate, State Senator David Paterson of Manhattan, will become the states first black lieutenant governor.

Nationally, CNN is projecting as of 11 p.m. that the Democrats will pick up the necessary 15 votes in the House of Representatives to become the majority party for the first time since Republicans assumed control in 1994.

“This is a big night for the Democrats, isn’t it?” Hillary Rodham Clinton began her victory speech. (Watch a video of it on CNN)

By Jonathan Mandell on November 7, 2006, 11:15 pm
In category: Albany, Electoral Politics, Governing | No Comments »

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Election Results
November 7th, 2006

The polls have now closed. For results of New York political races as they become available, check out our 2006 New York City Election Grid

By Jonathan Mandell on November 7, 2006, 9:04 pm
In category: Electoral Politics, Gotham City, Governing | No Comments »

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