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Indictments in Bell Shooting
March 16th, 2007

It will not be official until Monday, but lawyers for officers involved in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell said this afternoon that they believe three police will be indicted in the case. They are Michael Oliver, who fired 31 of the 51 shots that night; Gescard Isnora, who shot first; and Marc Cooper, who fired four shots. Two other officers at the scene will apparently not be charged.

The grand jury decision is under seal until Monday morning, when Queens district attorney Richard Brown will hold a press conference and reveal what charges the detectives will face. But the fact that the indictment is sealed is significant, said the Reverend Al Sharpton, who has been advising Bells family and the two surviving victims of the shooting. You cannot seal a no indictment. Sealing something means there is something to be sealed. Whether its worth the glue its sealed with we dont know, Sharpton said.

By Gail Robinson on March 16, 2007, 3:34 pm
In category: Civil Rights, Crime & Safety, Gotham City, Law | No Comments »

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Wanted: One More Miracle
March 16th, 2007

Moving away from the controversy over who gets to march where in tomorrows St. Patricks Day Parade, David Garrard Lowe in the Sun looks at another mainstay of the Irish in New York: St. Brigids Church in the East Village. Built to serve the citys growing Irish community in the middle of the 19th century, the churchs tall twin spires were a political as well as a religious proclamation for parishioners from a country where Roman Catholic churches, if allowed at all, had to be inconspicuous, Lowe writes. Those spires were demolished in the 1960s, and now Cardinal Egan plans to raze the entire building.

How ironic that a church built to express the jubilant survival of a faith suppressed in Ireland should, in America, be swept away by the Catholic Church, Lowe says. In the fifth century, St. Brigid, founder of Irelands first religious community for women, performed miracles. Now it will take a 21st century version of a miracle to save the church Lowe calls a monument of Irish faith and pluck.

By Gail Robinson on March 16, 2007, 7:45 am
In category: Community Development, Gotham City, Immigrants, Land Use | No Comments »

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Dunleavys Shillelagh
March 15th, 2007

New York City is hardly a stranger to parade politics but the latest brouhaha over the St. Patricks Day parade seems weird even for this city. After years of banning gays from marching in the
parade prompting Council Speaker Christine Quinn to decide to do her marching in Dublin this year (see previous post), the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which runs the annual event, decided to go after firefighters. New Yorks bravest ordinarily march third in the parade, but this year they will move back in the line of march some 40 minutes behind the parade leader. The Hibernians’ John Dunleavy issued his order because last year a group of firefighters from New Orleans joined the parade and unfurled an unauthorized banner thanking their Big Apple colleagues for their help during the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, writes FirefightingNews.com.

Then, Dunleavy poured gas on the fire, reportedly telling the Irish Examiner that the firefighters skipped parade planning meetings and have shown up intoxicated to the parade. “I don’t have a problem with the Fire Department,” Dunleavy was quoted as saying. “What I have a problem with is members of the uniformed services showing up on the parade route intoxicated at 12 o’clock.”

But Dunleavy has won little support. Dunleavy seems to think his authority extends to dishonoring tradition at whim and offending at will, writes the Daily News. Dunleavy owes the FDNY a huge apology, and he must restore the department to its rightful place.

And the Post quotes Dunleavy saying, “I’ve been telling them for years that the parade should only be for firefighters from New York, and when the New Orleans firefighters came up, that was the straw that broke
the camel’s back.”

So, the editorial says, a demonstration of compassion and unity with their brothers from New Orleans gets the FDNY punished this year? This decision, the paper
continues, isn’t about firefighters – or New York. It’s about Dunleavy’s overweening need to show who’s boss.

By Gail Robinson on March 15, 2007, 1:20 pm
In category: Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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Controlling Issues
March 15th, 2007

Will mayoral control of schools go the way of community control, a centralized Board of Education and other education schemes of the past? It is too soon to tell, but indications continue that support for the current system pushed through by Michael Bloomberg shortly after he became mayor is slipping and the state could try another structure when it has to renew, repeal or change the current system in 2009.

According to a Qunnipiac poll released today, Bloomberg gets mixed marks on education. While the New Yorkers polled approve by a 50 to 39 percent margin of Bloombergs handling of the public schools, 39 percent consider mayoral control a success, 34 percent see it as a failure and 27 percent are undecided. And 58 percent would rather see an independent board of education control the public schools – not the mayor.
One problem maybe the man Bloomberg has chosen to run the schools, Chancellor Joel Klein; by a 43 to 33 percent edge New Yorkers disapprove of the job Klein is doing.

The poll comes during a week when City Comptroller William Thompson, a likely mayoral candidate in 2009, stepped up his criticisms of the Department of Education. While Thompson told the News Michael Goodwin that he still favors mayoral control, Goodwin writes, the more he talked about his concerns with how the Bloomberg team is managing schools, the more it seemed control is in play, and could become a key issue in the 2009 mayoral race. After all, Goodwin writes, It’s no secret there is much unhappiness over
schools.

By Gail Robinson on March 15, 2007, 1:09 pm
In category: Albany, Education, Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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Budget Season: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times
March 15th, 2007

Jim Tallon of the United Hospital Fund writes about the health care issues at stake in Albany’s budget battle.

“The budget is the worst time to debate essential reforms, because of the polarizing nature of that process and the limited impact of changes in any 12-month cycle,” writes Tallon. “Yet we are also reminded that the budget often presents the only opportunity for a significant change in direction because it forces a focus on fundamental issues.”

By Joshua Brustein on March 15, 2007, 10:42 am
In category: Albany, Health, Public Finance | No Comments »

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Batty Over Bats
March 14th, 2007

Update: Ignoring the urging of the two papers, the City Council voted today to ban the metal bats. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not said whether he will sign the bill or veto it, but the vote in the council — 40 to 6 with two abstentions — would be sufficient to override a veto by the mayor.

The City Council today should strike out an effort to ban metal bats in high school baseball, the Post and News urge. Both papers argue that no evidence exists to support claims by the bills sponsor, James Oddo, that metal bats pose any greater to players than the old fashioned Louisville sluggers. Instead, the News notes, Moms and dads are willing to let kids use metal, as are high school leagues across the county. College teams use metal, too.

While a serious injury and one death in the last 10 years have been linked to metal bats,
the Post writes, Tens of thousands of young people play countless innings of baseball and softball every year – and emerge unscathed. Metal bats, the editorial concludes, are a non-issue, except in the minds of busybodies like Oddo and his colleagues on the council.

By Gail Robinson on March 14, 2007, 7:37 am
In category: Education, Gotham City, Health | No Comments »

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Social Worker Shortage
March 14th, 2007

New York City needs more Latino social workers, El Diario says in an editorial today. The paper cites a report by the Latino Social Work Task Force, which found that only 12 percent of students in city graduate schools of social work are Latino and there is no guarantee that all of those students will work in the city after graduating. To remedy a shortage that threatens to undermine how well our families can overcome challenges like mental illness and substance abuse, the paper recommends scholarships and forgiving loans to encourage more young people to pursue careers in social work.

By Gail Robinson on March 14, 2007, 7:20 am
In category: Education, Gotham City, Social Services | 2 Comments »

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Central Park's Free Speech Debate Heads to Court
March 12th, 2007

A federal judge has called for a trial to determine whether the Bloomberg administration violated the first amendment by denying a permit from protesters during the 2004 Republican National Convention for a rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park.

The Times editorial page hopes City Hall loses, and says Bloomberg’s “wild fixation on saving every blade of the Grade Lawn” is not justification for keeping protesters out of the only place in Manhattan where a large rally can be held. Likewise, liberal blog Daily Gotham said that the ruling was a “victory for free speech.”

The Daily News, though, says that officials did open some areas for protest, and therefore the assertion that Bloomberg was supressing dissent is “paranoia.”

By Joshua Brustein on March 12, 2007, 7:14 am
In category: Civil Rights, Gotham City, Law, Parks | 1 Comment »

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A New York Tragedy, A Mayor's Absence
March 9th, 2007

Both the Daily News and the New York Post publish editorials today lamenting the loss of nine lives in a fire in a building in the Bronx.

The New York Post adds a second editorial criticizing Bloomberg for traveling to Miami instead of visiting the fire scene or meeting with survivors:
Time and again over the last five-plus years, Bloomberg has demonstrated an appalling inability to connect with the people of New York in times of crisis.. Last month, it was his refusal to lift alternate side of the street parking after a brutal ice storm. Whether it was last summer’s Con Ed power outage, the Staten Island Ferry tragedy – or even last month’s school-bus fiasco – Mike has come across as aloof and arrogant. Indeed, it took Bloomberg nearly six weeks after taking office to attend his first 9/11 funeral. Yesterday, he jetted off to Miami, leaving an exemplary family to cope with grievous loss all alone. New York noticed.

By Jonathan Mandell on March 9, 2007, 6:04 am
In category: Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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The Citys Most Famous Irish-American Parade Minus The Citys Most Powerful Irish-American Politician
March 9th, 2007

An editorial in the New York Times criticizes the Ancient Order of Hibernians for excluding gay people from the St. Patricks Day Parade (which this year is a week from tomorrow), and points out with some relish how City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the citys most powerful Irish-American politicianwho is a lesbian, plans to show them up in style. Quinn has accepted an invitation to march in the St. Patricks Day Parade in Dublin. The speaker says she will wear an apple pin in homage to her home city, a pin with American and Irish flags, and a sticker with a pink triangle and a shamrock, a symbol of gay and ethnic pride.

By Jonathan Mandell on March 9, 2007, 5:44 am
In category: Civil Rights, Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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Too New York?
March 8th, 2007

The Times runs a piece today questioning whether Rudy Giuliani is too New York to be president, saying that the rest of the country won’t want someone who seems to be the prototype of the rude, brash New Yorker of middle America’s imagination.

Gotham Gazette recently looked at why New Yorkers haven’t done well in national politics in recent years, and why a New Yorker as president no longer seems so far off.

But Matt Browner Hamlin says New York isn’t the issue here — Giuliani is.

The Times piece “provides cover for Giulianis negative character traits by unfairly extending them to the entire city,” argues Browner Hamlin on The Right’s Field, a blog about the 2008 Republican primary:

Dont let Giuliani hide behind New York and stereotypes of New Yorkers for his character flaws.”

By Joshua Brustein on March 8, 2007, 11:49 am
In category: Gotham City | No Comments »

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Residency Rules
March 7th, 2007

With the City Council and Speaker Christine Quinn mulling whether to seat Mathieu Eugene the person elected to the City Council last month without apparently bothering to live in the district he sought to represent forces are lining up for and against the doctor, who hopes to be the first Haitian on the council.

Like it or not, Mathieu should not be allowed to take his seat, the Daily News has written. Council members must live in their districts on Election Day, That leaves out Mathieu Eugene.

And today Citizens Union (the sister organization of Citizens Union Foundation which publishes Gotham Gazette) did not take an explicit stand on Eugene but addressed the overall issue of candidates seeking to represent districts they dont even want to live in. It is in the best interest of voters for there to be a clear record of residency established at the very least by Election Day, and quite possibly sooner, the organization says. And it urges to Campaign Finance Board, which currently does not get involved in questions of residency to clarify that candidates must meet the legal requirements to represent the district for which they are running or forfeit eligibility to participate in the public campaign financing program.

But Eugenes backers are not standing idly by. A rally is scheduled for tomorrow at City Hall to demand that Eugene get his seat. The announcement, according to The Daily Politics, was sent out apparently by Uma Clarke, who once held the Council seat now in contention and along with her daughter, Representative Yvette Clarke, endorsed Eugene. This historic victory is being threatened by legal and political maneuverings that places at risk the WILL OF THE VOTERS of the 40the District, the email said. We believe that there is no reason to DENY the immediate seating of our elected representative.

(Later perhaps to refute charges that Clarke is running the whole show, Friends of Mathieu Eugene reportedly sent out a correction saying that they were responsible for the email.

And The Politicker reports that dozens of activists received another email urging recipients to call Christine Quinn and urge her to seat Eugene and to make that easier, it included Quinns cell phone number. The email has rapidly circulated among politically active Haitian New Yorkers unhappy that questions about Eugene’s residency have prevented him from being sworn in, the blog says.

Blog comments indicate feelings are running pretty high in some circles about all this. Some have called Quinn a political thug who is trying to deny Haitian their rights. The Haitians traveled across the ocean in rinky dinky boats to have the right to vote and be free. Now this loudmouth Christine Quinn is trying to say GO HOME, Petro wrote to the Politicker Others charges, like it or not, Eugene has broken the law and so doesnt deserve the serve first Haitian or not.

What happens if Eugene doesnt get his seat? There will be another election. And, Ben Smith writes in
Room Eight
, It’s pretty clear that Mathieu will win again, probably in even more of a walk, if the 10-way race is simply re-run. So there are quiet talks already underway to present a unified opposition candidate.

By Gail Robinson on March 7, 2007, 6:30 pm
In category: Gotham City, Immigrants | 4 Comments »

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Does an $80 Million Computer Adding Up?
March 7th, 2007

Teachers union president Randi Weingarten does not like the Department of Educations plan to buy an $80 million computer database from IBM to keep track of how the citys schools and students are performing. And if Weingarten does not like something, the odds are that the New York Post will. No wonder Weingarten is so exercised. Accountability is not exactly her thing,” the paper says in an editorial today, continuing ARIS will make an ideal complement to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s broader plan to give principals greater autonomy in setting curriculum and running their schools – so long as the schools that those principals run meet student-performance standards. Nearly 15 years after the NYPD revolutionized crime fighting with CompStat, the country’s largest school system is introducing a similar approach to assessing student and school achievement.”

But others question whether the $80 million computer system, called ARIS, is really the best use of funds for a system still strapped for money.

It does seem extravagant to invest in an $80 million computer system when many teachers must buy supplies with their own money, but we suppose that’s how the Bloomberg-Klein Department of Education rolls, wrote Gothamist.

Stroller Derby agrees: The money would be better served increasing teacher salaries or building new schools to avoid overcrowding. Heck, this is a school system where … creative classes (like art & music) continue to be dropped from the curriculum! And the teacher who blogs in Pissed Off complains that, while the city has $80 million to spend with IBM, My kids don’t even have a classroom with a door that closes. At least if the room gets too hot, we can enjoy the natural air conditioning. It’s great having that fresh air on a morning with temperatures near zero degrees.”

Writing in NYC Public School Parents, Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters picks up on the mayors comment that the computer system is worth it because “Every child in this city deserves a quality education and we will spare no expense.” Despite such rhetoric, Haimson writes, the mayor does not spend money on smaller classes, uncrowded schools, experienced teachers, arts programs or the joy of learning for its own sake even though his own kids (and Klein’s) attended private schools that provided all of the above and more. No, for the public schools, where the children of all those other people go, a quality education means a super-computer to crunch their test scores — and their souls.

By Gail Robinson on March 7, 2007, 9:00 am
In category: Education, Gotham City, Tech | 2 Comments »

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Editorialists Target Teachers Unions
March 6th, 2007

An editorial in the New York Sun attacks the New York State United Teachers for its ad campaign against charter schools: It looks like Governor Spitzer’s next big fight is going to be with the teachers union known as New York State United Teachersthis newspaper is firmly in the governor’s corner The very fact that [teachers] feel threatened by the percentage of students who might end up in charter schools is in and of itself a sign that they have been failing in their monopoly, union-controlled operations, and a recognition that more charter schools would only increase accountability.

Daily News columnist Bill Hammond also criticizes the ad campaign, giving it an A for chutzpah and an F for accuracy.

An editorial in the Daily News attacks the United Federation of Teachers, and especially its president Randi Weingarten (a terrific propagandist), for its vocal, visible campaign that casts Bloomberg’s reforms as the work of inept bureaucrats. The editorial, by contrast, approves of such proposals as putting an end to automatic teacher tenure. It especially praises the new computer system, Achievement Reporting and Innovation System, or ARIS, which when its implemented in the fall should let teachers view, with a mouse click, whether students are learning under their tutelage. Principals should be able to do the same for entire classes. And the chancellor should be able to measure the success of whole schools.

By Jonathan Mandell on March 6, 2007, 9:10 am
In category: Education, Gotham City | No Comments »

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Subway Set-Up
March 6th, 2007

In an editorial entitled Manufacturing Misdemeanors, the New York Times calls for an end to the New York Police Departments subway sting, Operation Lucky Bag, in which unattended bags have been left in subway stations deliberately in order to arrest passersby who take them; 220 New Yorkers have been arrested so far. People wandering off with lost property ranks far down the list of law enforcement priorities, the Times writes, and among its negative effects might be to discourage Good Samaritans who would take the property in order to find its rightful owner.

By Jonathan Mandell on March 6, 2007, 8:35 am
In category: Crime & Safety, Gotham City, Transportation | 1 Comment »

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After The Rats: Overreaction?
March 6th, 2007

Following up on its previous editorial that
mocked and criticized Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden
, the New York Post, in a new editorial entitled Friedens Follies, argues that the health department is shutting down restaurants left and right (though it just mentions Johns Pizzeria in the Village) as reaction to the endlessly repeated video of rats at the Village Taco Bell, which were discovered right after that restaurant got the O.K. from one of the departments inspectors. Fact is, there isn’t a restaurant in New York City – hell, in the world – that could stand up to a rule-book inspection conducted by someone with an embarrassed and angry boss.

By Jonathan Mandell on March 6, 2007, 8:23 am
In category: Gotham City, Health | 1 Comment »

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Welcome to the Back Room, Eliot
March 5th, 2007

Is Eliot Spitzer changing Albany? The Daily News and the Times both say no.

Michael Goodwin describes the new governor as “the latest ‘reformer’ to fall victim to secrecy’s sway.” There have been no public hearings on the major bills that Spitzer and the legislature have agreed on, he writes. “The secret process can be defending only if one dares claim there are no good ideas in New York other than those advanced by three white men who have vested interests in the outcome,” he adds. (Goodwin ends his piece by recounting a testy exchange he had with Spitzer over the process.)

Albany may be running more smoothly, the Times writes, but Spitzer’s successes don’t automatically mean the end of business as usual.

“These reforms were largely worked out the old-fashioned way in the back rooms of the State Capitol. It makes sense that Mr. Spitzer wanted to push through some early victories, but if he plans to succeed over time, he should be doing more to bring the public into the discussion,” it writes in an editorial this morning.

The Times also ran an Op-Ed yesterday by Assemblymember Richard Brodsky defending the legislature against Spitzer’s (and, it seems everyone else’s) attacks as a complacent supporter of the status quo. Sure, the legislature has not been as effective as it should have been in passing laws, Brodsky argues, but it has fared significantly better in its other responsibilities. The most important of these, according to Brodsky, is to “check abuse of executive power.”

Brodsky does believe that Spitzer is “mostly right” when he talks about cleaning up Albany.

“But hes also created the dangerous possibility that, in the name of reform, the constitutional centers of power intended to limit executive power will be damaged. Changing the system from three men in a room to one man in a room is not reform.”

By Joshua Brustein on March 5, 2007, 12:19 pm
In category: Albany, Electoral Politics, Gotham City | No Comments »

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Death on the Streets
March 5th, 2007

On a weekend when cars killed four pedestrians in the city and as Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall prepares to leave office — many commentators are looking at the citys streets and don’t like what they see.

Last year, 163 pedestrians died, a 4 percent increase over 2005, and just this past weekend, four pedestrians were killed by vehicles, Gothamist noted. The Department of Transportation claims it recognizes the problem. “More needs to be done, and DOT is committed to taking further steps to make the streets as safe as possible,” it said in a statement.

But the deaths fuel criticisms that the department is more concerned about speeding auto traffic than protecting lives. Pedestrians have died so that cars could move more efficiently through our neighborhoods,” Rachael Myers, whose fianc, Peter Hornbeck, was killed in a 2004 hit-and-run by told a City Hall rally yesterday. Across from where she spoke, Streetsblog noted, the city’s effort to combat pedestrian fatalities is on display: a DOT-sponsored ad campaign reminding pedestrians to not get run over.

Many want the Bloomberg administration to do more. At the rally, Karla Quintero of Transportation Alternatives urged that the city fix its most dangerous streets and intersection, put a higher priority on pedestrian safety, and make killing pedestrians a crime and prosecute the drivers who do it.

In an editorial largely praising Weinshalls tenure at the transportation department, the New York Times said, Overall, pedestrian deaths fell on Ms. Weinshalls watch. But recent fatalities among them, an accompanied four-year-old hit by a sports utility vehicle on a Brooklyn crosswalk are reminders that more safety measures are needed, especially near schools. (The editorial also urged that any new transportation secretary do something about congestion an area in which critics charge Weinshall has done little.)

In the Daily News,
Errol Louis, who said Weinshall, has run the department capably, nonetheless urged that her replacement be an innovative and nationally recognized leader in making streets safe for people.

In today’s New York, drivers snuff out a life, get a ticket, Louis writes. In addition to significantly increasing fines for killing someone while breaking traffic rules, the city should create an expedited way for citizens to flag dangerous intersections and traffic patterns before people get killed – not just after. And there must be hell to pay when the city promises to fix dangerous conditions and then fails to do so.

In 2004, two boys were killed by a truck on Brooklyn Third Avenue on their way home from school. The city government promised to remedy the situation but, activists say, did little. On Valentine’s Day, a three-year-old named James Jacaricce, trying to cross the street, with his aunt, was struck and killed by an SUV. He died on Third Avenue in Brooklyn.

By Gail Robinson on March 5, 2007, 11:56 am
In category: Environment, Gotham City, Health, Transportation | No Comments »

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Beginning of the End?
March 2nd, 2007

Adding to the growing chorus of criticism (see earlier post) of the Bloomberg/Klein school regime, Andrew Wolf predicts in today’s Sun that some day people will write that the beginning of the end of New York’s grand experiment with mayoral control of the schools came at 6:30 a.m. on January 29, 2007. That was the moment when the citys ill-fated effort to change city school bus routes went into effect, leaving many children quite literally out in the cold.

While bus routes may not be the most important problem gripping the schools, Wolf writes, the outrage over the change re-energized parent activists. And he finds anger at Department of Education actions throughout the city from the South Bronx to Forest Hills. The mayor and Mr. Klein are being graded by the public here, Wolf writes, and the public is concluding that unfettered mayoral control has failed.”

By Gail Robinson on March 2, 2007, 9:10 am
In category: Education, Gotham City | No Comments »

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Frieden and the Rats
March 2nd, 2007

“How many of you folks were affected by the big stock market plunge yesterday?” David Letterman asked after the market plunged 400 points. Big corporations were really, really affected by it. As a matter of fact, Taco Bell had to lay off 300 rats.”

Not so funny, says todays Post, which may have a point. It’s not the quality of humor that troubles the paper’s editorial writers but the quality of the citys health department. While the rats were running wild, city health commissioner Tom Frieden has been hard at work redefining what constitutes public health – think Nanny State on steroids,” write the Post, “unveiling New York City-brand condoms, lecturing new mothers on breastfeeding and warning of the danger secondhand smoke poses to pets.

By Gail Robinson on March 2, 2007, 9:03 am
In category: Gotham City, Health | 2 Comments »

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