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Mayor Vetoes Contract Bill
November 4th, 2011

As expected, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has vetoed the Outsourcing Accountability Act. The measure, passed by the City Council last month, would subject city contracts to a kind of cost-benefit analysis and require agencies to publicly disclose what services they plan to contract out in the coming year.

The veto represents the latest in an escalating fight over the city’s growing contract budget between the Bloomberg administration on the one hand and City Council members and municipal employee unions on the other. As city spending on the contracts has increased, a number of scandals have erupted, particularly with technology contracts.

The mayor, however, has said contracts help cut costs and reduce government efficiency. “To put impediments to us getting the best deal for the taxpayers particularly during this economy is something we can not tolerate. We are just not going to have this bill,” Bloomberg said after it passed.

In her statement on the veto, though, Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the measure would save money. “The council simply wants city agencies to consider costs and thoughtfully review decisions to outsource,” she said. “These tough economic times demand nothing less.”

Since the bill passed unanimously, the council has the votes to override the veto. Bloomberg, though, has said he thinks the measure could be unconstitutional, meaning the whole issue could end up in the courts.

By Gail Robinson on November 4, 2011, 4:16 pm
In category: City Hall, Public Finance | No Comments »

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Change for the Homeless
November 4th, 2011

Advocates for the homeless and some City Council members are reacting with alarm to reports that the city will institute a policy later this month that will make it more difficult for single adults to gain admission to city shelters.

According to WNBC, which first
reported on the move, workers will subject people applying to stay in shelters to more questions about where they have lived recently and whether they have another place to stay. This could create a problem for someone who, say, lost her apartment, doubled up with a sister for a short time and then was asked to leave.

The move – apparently an effort to save money – has been in the works for a while but needed state approval. City officials told NBC they received the OK yesterday. The city already conducts similar reviews for homeless families.

Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond told Reuters that many people applying to shelters these days may have other options. They include, he said, “a lot of people who are working or capable of work, who may have gone through a little bit of a rough time — their employer may have reduced their hours, or they may have lost their jobs.”

But advocates dispute such arguments. “The city is playing with fire by implementing this policy, particularly in the winter,” Steven Banks of the Legal Aid Society told WNBC. “It’s certainly going to result in vulnerable New Yorkers ending up on the streets.” He said the society would go to court to try and block the change.

Earlier today, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and General Welfare Committee chair Annabel Palma. Issued a statement condemning the move. “This policy is cruel, risky, unacceptable and will not reduce homelessness in the city of New York. Denying people shelter because they have found another option for some period of time is punishing people for trying to do the right thing,” they said.

The council will hold an emergency oversight hearing on the policy at 1 p.m. Wednesday.
By Gail Robinson on November 4, 2011, 3:28 pm
In category: City Hall, Gotham City, Housing, Social Services | 3 Comments »

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City Council Takes to the Streets
November 4th, 2011

On the same day, it tackled the issue of undocumented immigrants (for that story, go here), the City Council took on something really controversial: the battle for spaces on the city’s crowded streets.

At its stated meeting Thursday, members enacted two measures.

One reflected concerns that the Bloomberg administration, in its zeal for bike lanes, has sometimes ignored wishes of local residents. Intro 412, which passed unanimously, would require that the city Department of Transportation provide community boards with at least 90 days notification of any planned bike lanes in their area, allowing the board to hold hearings. If the board wanted, transportation officials would have to make presentations to the affected boards.

This does not mean the board could veto bike lanes, but simply that it be informed and consulted.

More on the bike law bill and residential parking permits after the jump.
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By Gail Robinson on November 4, 2011, 1:20 pm
In category: City Hall, Gotham City, Transportation | 1 Comment »

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The Union on School Cuts
November 1st, 2011

With the city facing a multibillion dollar shortfall – and the Bloomberg administration demanding further cuts, the United Federation of Teachers went on the offense today, with a study it says shows that fiscal constraints already have taken a toll on the city’s more than 1.1 million students.

A survey of union chapter leaders (perhaps not the most objective of sources) found, the UFT reports, that 74 percent of elementary schools have seen class size increase this year. The number of students in a class rose at 61 percent of the middle schools reporting and 59 percent of the high schools.

More than half of elementary schools responding have scaled back services to help academically struggling students, and almost two thirds cited reductions in supplies. In general, the chapter leaders at high schools cited fewer effects from cuts than those in elementary schools. And despite Chancellor Dennis Walcott’s pledge to focus on improving middle schools, 63 percent saw their afterschool programs curtailed and 59 percent lost extracurricular activities.

While the administration enthusiastically supports charters schools, which often offer after school and or weekend programs, it has ramped back efforts to expand instructional time for students in its conventional public schools, according to the report. About 60 percent of schools at all levels reported cuts in afterschool programs, and about 40 said weekend programs had been reduced.

In a statement on his union’s report UFT president Michael Mulgrew said, “Based on our survey, an estimated 91 percent of our school population — nearly 1 million children — are in schools where budget cuts are having a direct and immediate effect on their education.”

By Gail Robinson on November 1, 2011, 2:09 pm
In category: City Hall, Education, Gotham City, Public Finance | No Comments »

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Former Bloomberg Aide Found Guilty of Larceny
October 21st, 2011

John Haggerty, the political consultant charged with stealing millions from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign, was found guilty of grand larceny in the second degree and his company was found guilty of money laundering in the second degree.

Haggerty avoided the more serious charge of larceny in the first degree. Haggerty was accused of funneling $1.2 million of campaign cash through the Independence Party to strengthen ballot security but instead used $1.1 million of the money to buy a house.

Bloomberg had to testify on the stand and Haggerty’s lawyers claimed Bloomberg lied and that Haggerty was paid for the work he had completed. Haggerty could face 15 years in prison.

The case is seen as a major victory for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance whose office has suffered major public defeats this year.

By David King on October 21, 2011, 2:01 pm
In category: City Hall, Crime & Safety, Electoral Politics, Governing | 8 Comments »

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Quinn Ducks and Parries
October 6th, 2011

Yesterday, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn presided over the passage of a bill that Mayor Michael Bloomberg adamantly opposes. Will she do it again?

This issue yesterday was the city’s increasing reliance on outside contractors. The City Council — obviously with strong backing from Quinn or else it wouldn’t have happened — unanimously passed a bill requiring a kind of cost-benefit analysis of proposed contracts.

Bloomberg later, according to WNYC’s Bob Hennelly blasted the measure. “To put impediments to us getting the best deal for the taxpayers particularly during this economy is something we can not tolerate. We are just not going to have this bill,” Bloomberg said.

The next issue could be the so-called Living Wage bill, a measure that would require businesses that get a city subsidy to pay their workers, not just the minimum wage but a living wage of $10 to $11.50 an hour, depending upon benefits.

The administration opposes that one too — usually trying to obscure the fact that it would only apply to employers getting city money. Yesterday Bloomberg somehow linked it to the Soviet Union.

Quinn wants the mayor’s business supporter and backing for her mayoral quest. She’s also probably like at least some unions on her side and a stamp of approval from the many council members who are for the living wage. And so despite repeated questioning from reporters who phrased and rephrased the question yesterday, Quinn would not be pinned down.

The verbal dueling after the jump.
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By Gail Robinson on October 6, 2011, 3:55 pm
In category: City Hall, Economy, Gotham City, Health, Work and Labor | 3 Comments »

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Education Councils: Weak by Design
October 3rd, 2011

Whatever else it has and has not done, the system of mayoral control of schools as practiced in New York City must have set some kind of record for the creation of toothless bodies.

The chief one of course is the Panel for Educational Policy, which as Patrick Sullivan, a member, wrote on New York Public School Parents, routinely rubber stamps Department of Education contracts – even ones dripping with corruption such as the agreement with Future Technology Associates.

The impotence of the PEP is hardly surprising – Bloomberg always vowed the body would not do anything. But committed parents across the five borough hoped the Community Education Councils, heirs to the former Community School Board – might function a bit better. They were, alas, wrong.

A report released by four of the five borough presidents (all but Staten Island James Molinaro), Pubic Advocate Bill de Blasio and parent leaders, tells some of the sad history of the councils under this administration, focusing to a large extent on the repeatedly botched election for members in 2011.

To remedy this and other ills, the report calls for major changes in the current two-tier voting system, where parents first cast an advisory vote and then leaders of parent organizations in the respective area make the final choice. The borough presidents et al would replace that with an actual election among parents. They would also improve training for council members, call for the councils to do more outreach and revise the council’s responsibilities. (Now the most meaningful thing they do is approve school zones within the district, influencing which neighborhood sends its children to what school.)

Perhaps most notably, the report’s writers would take the responsibility for the councils away from the Department of Education and give it to an independent nonprofit or government body.
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By Gail Robinson on October 3, 2011, 3:20 pm
In category: City Hall, Education, Electoral Politics | 2 Comments »

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Bloomberg's Technology Pit
September 29th, 2011

Another day, another disturbing revelation about the city’s handling of its technology contracts.

This time it’s the latest chapter in the scandal involving computers at the Department of Education. The company the department paid $75 million to do technical work on its purchasing, payroll and finance systems – Future Technology Associatesbilked the city out of at least $6.5 million, according to a report by Richard Condon, the city’s special commissioner of investigation.

Among other things, Future Tech set up shell companies and then vastly inflated its claims of how much those companies charged. So the Department of Education was being charged between $55 and $110 an hour for work that actually cost Future Tec $10 to $14 an hour.

Concerns about Future Technology have been circulating for some time.

According to a letter-report from the city comptroller’s Bureau of Audit, given to Gotham Gazette today (posted here), in 2005 the department submitted a request that Future Tech get a no-bid contract. (No-bid contracts at the Department of Education have raised concerns in the past.) “This request appears to have contained inaccurate and misleading statements from FTA, which, if DOE had known, should have precluded FTA from being awarded this contract,” says the report from the comptroller’s office, which went to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott and Condon’s office.
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By Gail Robinson on September 29, 2011, 4:24 pm
In category: City Hall, Crime & Safety, Education, Gotham City, Governing, Tech | 3 Comments »

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What Happens in Bermuda Stays in Bermuda
September 28th, 2011

In case there ever was any doubt, the City Council will not require that Mayor Michael Bloomberg reveal his personal travels, the Wall Street Journal reports. And once again the mayor has City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to thank.

City Councilmember Peter Vallone has told the Journal’s Michael Howard Saul that Quinn will not allow a hearing to be held on his bill that would require travel disclosure. Vallone proposed the measure after the botched city response to the December blizzard. It later became known that, as snow pelted the city, Bloomberg was in Bermuda, then Deputy Mayor of Operation Stephen Goldsmith was in Washington, D.C. and Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris was – somewhere.

Quinn, of course, has frequently pushed bill the mayor likes and blocked ones he doesn’t — though not usually ones where he has such a personal stake. Last year, for example she essentially killed a measure that would require paid sick leave for city workers.

And last week, Vallone, who seems to have an increasingly prickly relationship with Quinn, and the speaker clashed over a bill on homeless animals. With the city facing a lawsuit for not complying with city law on services for animals, the council bill, supported by Quinn (or else, of course, it never would have passed) was seen by Vallone and others as removing those laws and so letting the city renege on its obligations.

“I don’t think you have to be smarter than Bonzo the chimp to figure out what’s going on,” Vallone said at the time.

By Gail Robinson on September 28, 2011, 6:06 pm
In category: City Hall, Gotham City | 5 Comments »

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A Change on Marijuana Arrests
September 26th, 2011

With little fanfare, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has issued an “operation order” that could dramatically reduce the number of marijuana arrests in the city. The order, which appears on WNYC’s web site, says people can be charged with criminal possession of marijuana if they display the drug of their own volition.

Going black at least to 2005, many thousands of New Yorkers have been arrested for criminal possession of marijuana only after the drug was found during a police search. Under the law, people cannot be arrested for possessing small amounts of marijuana — less than 25 grams — unless they publicly display it. Possession of such small quantities is punishable buy a fine – of no more than $100. By all accounts, many people – particularly young black and Latino men –- publicly displayed a joint or two only after police asked them to empty their pockets or otherwise searched them. They then found themselves arrested, with a criminal record, and facing punishment or a rehab program they may not need.

This order would seem to end, or at least curtail, that. “A crime will not be charged to an individual who is requested or compelled to engage in the behavior that results in the public display of marijuana,” the order states.

Although the order is written almost as a clarification, the widespread marijuana arrests have almost certainly been a matter of city policy under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his police commissioner, Ray Kelly.
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By Gail Robinson on September 26, 2011, 3:37 pm
In category: City Hall, Civil Rights, Crime & Safety, Gotham City, Law | 4 Comments »

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Council and the Court
September 13th, 2011

Whatever his legal problems, Ruben Wills will remain on the City Council. Elected last year to fill the seat from the 28th district in south Queens after the death of Thomas White, the law requires Wills to go back to the voters this year. By a resounding margin, they let him keep the seat.

With almost all precincts reporting, Wills had 69 percent of the vote, compared to17 percent for former Councilmember Alan Jennings, 8 percent for Michael Duvalle and 6 percent for Clifton Stanley Diaz.

Since his election last year, the press unearthed some legal difficulties for Wills, including an unresolved misdemeanor case dating back to 1996 and open warrants for failing to pay more than $25,000 in child support payments.

That, though, may well have paled in voters’ eyes when compared with Jennings’ record. Accused of sexual harassment, he was censured by the City Council when he served on it, threw a metal object at a reporter and generally engaged in some fairly bizarre behavior.

In the two court contests yesterday — both for Civil Court — Sharen Hudson, reportedly the candidate of the party organization, holds a substantial edge over Cheryl Gonzalez, who was endorsed by the Times and some insurgent Democrats. In a Manhattan Civil Court contest, Tony Cannataro appears to have defeated Sabrina Kraus.

By Gail Robinson on September 13, 2011, 11:55 pm
In category: City Hall, Electoral Politics, Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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Beer with Bloomberg
September 8th, 2011

Maybe Mayor Michael Bloomberg should not try folksy. His offer to sit down over a brew or two with the City Council member and political aide detained by police on Monday seems to have generated as much enthusiasm as a flat, warm mug of Keystone — or as President Barack Obama’s often ridiculed beer summit with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and a Cambridge, Mass., police officer

On Wednesday, Bloomberg described the police stopping and handcuffing of the councilmember, Juamaane Williams, and Kirsten John Foy, an aide to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, as probably “just a misunderstanding.” And he told reporters, “Hopefully every once in a while if there’s a misunderstanding, you have a beer together and work it out.”

Williams apparently does not drink beer. But the council member and Foy have more substantive problems with the mayor’s invite. While saying they appreciated the gesture, “this is bigger than the three of us over a beer,” the two men said in a statement. Instead they suggested a meeting with Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly “where young African American and Latino New Yorkers can talk openly and directly about their experiences with stop and frisk and other police interactions.”

Reactions from other City Council members after the jump.
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By Gail Robinson on September 8, 2011, 4:52 pm
In category: City Hall, Civil Rights, Crime & Safety, Gotham City | No Comments »

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Jumaane Williams and the Police
September 6th, 2011

Anger and dismay over the police handcuffing of a City Council member and a top political aide following yesterday’s West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn today morphed into a call for changes in police stop and frisk polices and other procedures that target young black and Latino men.

At a crowded press conference on the City Hall steps the council member, Jumaane Williams of East Flatbush, and the aide to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Kristen John Foy, described their being stopped, handcuffed and briefly taken into custody as they tried to go to the Brooklyn museum yesterday afternoon.

By all accounts, the two men were attempting to enter a restricted – or frozen zone – after the parade. Both had identification and Williams was wearing a lapel pin indicating his membership on the City Council. They reached two checkpoints and the officers at them — probably senior, given that they were wearing white shirts –- allowed them to go through. But, Williams said, police stopped them at a third checkpoint, despite their credential.

“I was actually handcuffed while on then phone with the chief of police telling him what was going on,” Williams recounted.

Both were taken across the street to a synagogue where they were held for about 30 minutes until police established their identities and let them go. Neither man was charged with any wrongdoing.

Police have maintained that during the incident, someone punched a police officer, an account Williams vehemently disputed.

“I defy the NYPD to find one shred of evidence of any police officer being punched in the face,” he said, adding that report was “a bald-faced lie.”

While not criticizing overall police policies, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn echoed Williams on his conduct. “There is nothing, nothing, to indicate the Council member or Mr. Foy did anything wrong, ” she said.

Foy said he was shoved down and cuffed because “in retreat, they [police] decided I wasn’t moving fast enough, in retreat, I wasn’t complying enough.” The reports of the punch, Foy said, showed the police “making up a story to cover themselves.”

The police department has said it is investigating the incident, and, according to Williams, Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologized for it.

Putting this incident in a larger context — after the jump
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By Gail Robinson on September 6, 2011, 1:38 pm
In category: City Hall, Civil Rights, Crime & Safety, Gotham City | No Comments »

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A Precedent for the Mayor
September 2nd, 2011

As Mayor Michael Bloomberg reportedly dodges venues where he might face questions abut his handling of the resignation of former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, Bloomberg might be wondering how he might have done things differently. Well, given the mayor’s reluctance to doubt himself, maybe not.

But if he does have second thoughts, he might want to consider his own handling of a previous problematic resignation.

In 2008, the city’s then commissioner for the aging Edwin Mendez-Santiago, abruptly resigned. His departure came amid a heated debated over plans to revamp the city’s services for the elderly, and some wondered if that explained his sudden resignation.

But it soon emerged that, like Goldsmith, Santiago-Mendez had left under a cloud. About a week later, Mendez-Santiago’s former secretary filed suit against him, charging the former commissioner with sexual harassment and discrimination.

While the mayor and his staff did not address this explicitly in announcing Mendez-Santiago’s departure, they also did not say anything that was out and out deceptive. Mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser told reporters only that Mendez-Santiago was leaving for personal reasons.

In his release, Bloomberg thanked Mendez-Santiago for his services, said he had served the city’s older resident well and gave no explanation for the departure.

Later he showed a bit of the legendary Bloomberg loyalty, but still did not seem to stray from the truth: Mendez-Santiago “left for totally personal reasons, and it had nothing to do with any policy whatsoever of the Department for the Aging,” Bloomberg said days later when he announced Mendez-Santiago’s successor. “Never even came up. He did a good job. I’m sorry he chose for personal reasons to resign.”

Now contrast that with the comments on Goldsmith, who it now turns out resigned after he was arrested in the District of Columbia on a domestic violence complaint.
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By Gail Robinson on September 2, 2011, 12:52 pm
In category: City Hall, Crime & Safety, Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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The Goldsmith Fallout
September 1st, 2011

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s handling of the hurricane/tropical storm last week gave him a respite from the media criticism that has plagued much of his third term.

That probably came to an abrupt end this morning when the New York Post reported that Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith suddenly resigned last month not because he saw tempting opportunities in the private sector and not because of his botched handling of the last big storm – you remember, the blizzard – but because he spent two nights in a Washington, D.C. jail arising from a domestic violence complaint.

The Bloomberg administration knew the former mayor of Indianapolis, darling of the privatization crowd and high-level city official had spent time in jail. And, as the Wall Street Journal wrote today, “Goldsmith’s arrest precipitated his sudden departure from City Hall.”

Charges were dropped. In a statement released today, Goldsmith said he was innocent, and a statement by his wife seems to support that, calling the arrest “a big mistake.” (That may well be true, but it also is true that that many battered women later deny the violence ever took place.) Despite all that, Goldsmith said he resigned so as “not to be a distraction to the mayor and his important agenda for the city.”
At the press conference announcing Goldsmith’s departure, neither Bloomberg nor Goldsmith breathed a word about Goldsmith’s domestic travails. Instead Bloomberg praised his former right-hand man, saying, “As New Yorkers, we were extraordinarily lucky to have Steve Goldsmith make our city government more innovative and efficient.”

The way Bloomberg handled Goldsmith’s departure is now coming under criticism.

Who and what they’re saying after the jump.
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By Gail Robinson on September 1, 2011, 1:16 pm
In category: City Hall, Crime & Safety, Gotham City | 2 Comments »

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Food Stamps for Soda
August 19th, 2011

The federal Department of Agriculture has rejected the Bloomberg administration’s bid to bar New Yorkers from using food stamps to purchase soda sweetened with sugar.

The city made its request last fall, proposing a two-year test to see how effective a ban might be. The move – part of the administration’s campaign against obesity — came after the state legislature rejected efforts to put a tax on the sugary beverage.

While soda lobbyists, of course, objected to the restriction on food stamp use, even many public health experts questioned it from the get-go, fearing that it unfairly singled out people who receive food stamp. The agriculture department always seemed unlikely to approve the ban, and some questioned whether it even had the authority to do so without congressional approval.

Rather than a ban, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reportedly said in a letter, the department prefers to promote ” incentive-based solutions that are better suited for the working families, elderly and other low-income individuals” who get food stamps.

In a statement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed disappointment with the decision. “We think our innovative pilot would have done more to protect people from the crippling effects of preventable illnesses like diabetes and obesity than anything being proposed anywhere else in this country – and at little or no cost to taxpayers,” the statement said.

By Gail Robinson on August 19, 2011, 5:49 pm
In category: City Hall, Gotham City, Health, Social Services | 4 Comments »

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Quinn and ICE
August 17th, 2011

Council Speaker Christine Quinn introduced legislation today that would prohibit New York City’s department of corrections from subsidizing the work of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Make the Road New York issued this statement supporting the move:

“The announcement by Speaker Quinn and Council Members Mark-Viverito and Daniel Dromm that the New York City Council will prohibit New York City’s Department of Corrections from subsidizing and supporting the deportation of thousands of non-criminal New Yorkers each year is fantastic news.

Every day New York City benefits from the energy, initiative and hard-work of immigrants. In a city where forty percent of all New Yorkers are immigrants, and for the City to do its job, New York City government must not burn bridges to immigrant communities. Today, New York City is taking a clear stand that it refuses to be in the business of tearing apart of immigrant families and subsidizing the deportation of non-criminal New Yorkers.”

Quinn’s legislation follows Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to pull out of the federal Secure Communities Program and the US government’s insistence that New York legally must take part in the program. Read the rest of this entry »

By David King on August 17, 2011, 1:12 pm
In category: Albany, City Hall, Civil Rights, Crime & Safety, Demographics, Eye on Albany, Immigrants, Work and Labor | 3 Comments »

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Recommendations on Lobbying
August 10th, 2011

The city Lobbying Commission, chaired by former City Councilmember Herbert Berman has issued its preliminary report, available here. The recommendations essentially reflect the likely changes Jane Timm reported on for Gotham Gazette last week.

In particular, the commission recommends expanding the definition of lobbying to include efforts to influence legislation before a bill is introduced – the law now covers only proposed legislation – or to keep a bill from being introduced. It also would extend to efforts to shape or stop executive orders by the mayor.

The commission also seeks to have the city raise the threshold at which one must register as a lobbyist from $2,000 to $5,000. The increase, the commission anticipates, would reduce the number of lobbyists in the city by about 40 but would still cover around 99 percent of the money spent on lobbying here.

The report notes that some groups had hoped to raise the threshold still further. The commission said it will consider recommending a rise to $10,000 on its final report – but only for organizations that spend that money lobbying only on their own behalf.

In the report, the commission also describes some suggestions it heard and rejected, such as moving regulation of lobbying from the city clerk’s office to another agency.

The report still needs to become final. When that happens, it will go to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council who, if they agree with the recommendation, can propose bills incorporating the suggestions for passage by the council.

By Gail Robinson on August 10, 2011, 5:27 pm
In category: City Hall, Governing | 1 Comment »

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Challenging the Census
August 10th, 2011

As expected the city has filed a formal challenge of the Census Bureau’s 2010 count of New York City residents. In its filing, the Bloomberg administration contends the census incorrectly counted as vacant a number of homes in Astoria, Jackson Heights, Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst, which it says “are among the most vibrant areas in New York City.”

In his letter to Census Bureau director Robert Groves, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “It is our expectation that the city’s population could increase by tens of thousands of New Yorkers if the errors … were corrected.” The city does not anticipate a correction would have a major effect on redistricting – or save on of the state’s two lost congressional seats – but it does think a recount could increase the amount of money the city would receive from various aid programs.

Various New York officials issued statements in support of the administration’s effort. Sen. Charles Schumer, for one, called the federal government’s numbers “dead wrong.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand noted that the census found only very modest population growth in Brooklyn and Queens and expressed concern “that this inaccuracy may be the result of the difficulty in ascertaining accurate counts in immigrants communities such as Jackson Heights, Astoria and Sunset Park.”

As Andrew Beveridge wrote in Gotham Gazette this spring, the census found some 246,0000 fewer city residents than the administration had anticipated, and grew by 2.1 percent, not 5.2 percent. The numbers cast cold water on the mayor’s prediction that 9 million people would call New York City home by 2030. In his column Beveridge wrote that, while the mayor’s disappointment is understandable, evidence exists to support the Census Bureau’s count.

By Gail Robinson on August 10, 2011, 3:42 pm
In category: City Hall, Demographics, Gotham City | 1 Comment »

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Bloomberg: S&P Got It Right
August 8th, 2011

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Standard& Poor’s got it “righto the nose” when it condemned dysfunction in Washington and downgraded the U.S. credit rating. “Don’t blame the messenger,” the mayor said at a press conference this afternoon, saying the ratings agency had delivered “a demining indictment of how bad things have gotten in Washington.”

“We’ve gotten a two-month civics lesson in how to talk the economy down,” he said

As he has done in the past, the mayor excoriated Washington for not doing more to put the nation’s fiscal house in order and for coming so close to default earlier this month, but did not volunteer whether he blames everyone in Washington equally or, like the American people, holds some more responsible than others.

By Gail Robinson on August 8, 2011, 3:56 pm
In category: City Hall, Economy | 1 Comment »

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