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Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday that the city would rethink evacuation zones, electrical infrastructure, telecommunications networks, hospitals and transportations systems after Superstorm Sandy caused billions of dollars in damage, paralyzed communities and killed dozens of people.

But Bloomberg said that his administration would not abandon the waterfront and dismissed the possibility of building sea walls to hold back the ocean. Instead, he said the city would look at "coastline protections" such as berms, dunes, jetties and levies.

"No matter how much we do to make homes and businesses more resilient, the fact of the matter is we live next to the ocean, and the ocean comes with risks that we just cannot eliminate," the mayor said.

Bloomberg outlined the post-Sandy plan, his first major address since the storm, at a Lower Manhattan event, where former Vice President Al Gore also made an appearance and praised the mayor's previous efforts to respond to the effects of climate change.

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Members of the City Council have called for an overhaul of how the Board of Elections administers elections following the chaos at the polls seen this past November during the general election.

The Council announced the following recommendations during a committee hearing today on the BOE's performance during the election, which was complicated by Superstorm Sandy:

  • Early voting at poll sites
  • Easier access to absentee ballots
  • End the use of voter cards
  • Begin using electronic poll books
  • Better training for poll workers
  • More oversight of poll workers
  • Split shifts for poll workers
  • Larger polling locations
  • Hire an executive editor for the Board
  • Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act

Here is Speaker Christine Quinn's statement, sent by the Council's press office:

The New York City Board of Elections must take responsibility for systemic problems and fix them immediately. Poorly trained poll workers and chaotic polling place procedures have been recurring issues, election after election. Implementing the reforms we are announcing today is a step towards bringing about the change voters expect and deserve.

 

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On November 6th, voters elected a majority of Democrats in the Senate, because of the failure of the Senate Republicans to reform our legislative process and advance the progressive agenda that most New Yorkers support. It would be tragic if a ‘coalition’ of Republicans, party-switchers and ‘independent’ past failed leaders thwarted that agenda. Right now, it all just looks like another Albany backroom deal to empower a select few Democrats while forestalling the Senate Republicans’ inevitable fall from power . We know what the coalition members got for making this deal, but it remains to be seen what, if anything, New Yorkers will get.

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In an effort to regulate how pedicabs set fares, the City Council passed legislation today that would require pedicab drivers to set their rates based on the duration of rides. 

If the bill becomes law, drivers of pedicabs, popular in tourists spots like Central Park and Times Square, would be required to use a timer during all rides.

The timer would have to be fastened within clear view of the passengers, along with rates charged.

“Our legislation will bring increased legitimacy to the pedicab industry and will ensure customers know what they’re paying to go on a ride – without being taken for a ride," Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a statement.

Intro. 0597 - 2011 was championed by Councilman Dan Garodnick, the chair of the committee on consumer affairs.

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Fairway Market in Red Hook, Brooklyn, was flooded during Hurricane Sandy two weeks ago. The store's general manager gives a tour of the space now that the floodwaters are gone, and talks about future plans for the store.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the city would begin rationing gas for the first time since the 1970s, in response to fuel shortages caused by Hurricane Sandy. Drivers with cars with license plates ending in odd numbers or that end in a letter or other character will be able to fill up on odd-numbered days. Cars with plates ending in even numbers get their turn on even-numbered days. The odd-even rationing system begins today, Nov. 9, with odd-numbered plates. "Drivers are still facing long lines. Frustrations are only growing," Bloomberg said at a news conference at City Hall yesterday.

More stories:

Sandy Troubles Won't Stop Con Ed From Seeking Rate Hike (Associated Press)

Gov Says Sandy Could Cost NY $33 Billion (Associated Press)

Coney Island Group Launches With Focus On Sandy Cleanup (NY Post)

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Gas Shortages As Recovery Continues

The slow, heart-wrenching reveal of Hurricane Sandy's devastating impact on the city continued yesterday.

So far, there were 40 confirmed deaths in the city related to Sandy, according to The New York Times. The bodies of two young boys, who had been swept from their mother's arms during flooding on Staten Island, were among those found yesterday.

A half-million residents were still without power in their homes, though city officials were saying that electricity likely would be restored in lower Manhattan by Saturday.

And residents relying on gas-powered generators found no relief at the pumps, where fuel was running short at stations and long lines left many frustrated. Gas stations also reported their own power problems.

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This is a map of the post-storm subway service, released by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority:

Service is estimated to resume at 6 a.m. tomorrow.

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A civil rights organization is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to monitor the general election in Queens County after the city announced it would not provide Bengali-language ballots as required under federal law.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund announced today that it had submitted a letter to the DOJ requesting that monitors be deployed to oversee voting in six states, including New York.

AALDEF has been at the forefront of underscoring the failure of the city's Board of Election to adhere to federal law requiring language assistance for Asian voters in Queens.

The BOE says it has a plan to provide translators and some materials in Bengali for the general election on Nov. 6. But it blames technical problems with the voting machines for being unable to provide ballots translated into Bengali.

"Although the Board of Elections has offered to provide translated sample ballots, comparing a Bengali ballot to an English ballot is cumbersome for voters," AALDEF attorney Glenn D. Magpantay said in his letter to the DOJ.  "The use of translated sample ballots is a new and completely untested procedure in New York City. Moreover, there is little assurance that such translated sample ballots will even be at poll sites for Bengali-speaking voters to access."

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After witnessing historic flooding and coastal surges caused by superstorm Sandy, Gov. Andrew Cuomo says it is time for New Yorkers to examine how to adapt to more destructive weather events associated with climate change. 

“Going forward we are going to have to anticipate these types of extreme weather patterns,” Cuomo said at a news conference earlier today. “And we have to think about how we redesign the system so that this doesn’t happen again.”

And on Albany's Talk 1300 AM radio show, he said this: "The construction of the city did not anticipate these kinds of situations ... We are only a few feet above sea level. You now have a whole infrastructure under the city that fills. The subway system, the foundations of buildings."

But, as reporter Peter Moskowitz points out in his story for Gotham Gazette this week, there are few public policies creating incentives for public or private developers to invest money in adapting buildings for extreme weather events that could become more frequent with climate change.

Of course, it's unclear how much climate change can be blamed for Sandy or even Irene, or any particular extreme weather event — as The New York Times' Andrew Revkin says on his Dot Earth blog:

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At least one union cares enough about the low-profile special election for Larry Seabrook's former City Council seat in the Bronx to weigh in with its own cash.

1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East has spent over $4,500 in the race, with most of the money going to pay for a full-color mailer backing candidate Andrew King, a former community organizer for the union.

King "knows that working families and the elderly face real obstacles, especially right now, and we need strong leadership," reads the flier.

The expenditure was the first disclosed under a city Campaign Finance Board rule that went into effect in May requiring any group that spends money on behalf of an unaffiliated candidate to disclose its support.

Under the rule, expenditures over $1,000 must be disclosed; expenditures over $5,000 require groups to disclose contributors.

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The New York Islanders will leave its suburban home in Nassau County and move to Brooklyn's Barclays Center in 2015. "Not very long ago, I think it's fair to say the idea of a big-league team coming to Brooklyn would have been considered little more than a pipe dream," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference yesterday announcing the news. But some residents were unhappy about the announcement, wondering whether fans of the professional hockey team would exacerbate traffic problems caused by the new arena. “They are a Long Island team and there are more drivers,” Peter Krashes of the Dean St. Block Association/Atlantic Yards Watch told the Daily News. “Things are likely to get worse, not better.”

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Michael Bloomberg's 2009 mayoral campaign worked to conceal $1.2 million in donations made in the days before voters headed to the polls, regulators say. But the New York City Campaign Finance Board found that while the Bloomberg campaign's actions "contravened the spirit of disclosure," it could find no violation.

In the Press...

Cuomo Calls For More Transparent Public Records Following Lopez Scandal (NY Post)

Visions of a Transformed Grand Central Terminal (Wall Street Journal)

Bloomberg to Announce Intitiative to Upgrade Companies' Fiber (Daily News)

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It took just 40 years to get it done, but now the city has a new park, dedicated to no less than President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined former President Bill Clinton and Gov. Andrew Cuomo at today's dedication of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, which looks out at the United Nations from the East River.

Bloomberg said the state park, designed by American architect Louis I. Kahn, "will stand forever as a monument to the man who brought us through the Great Depression and brought us victory over great evil."

Roosevelt famously delivered a speech on Jan. 6, 1941, as the country was on the precipice of entering World War II, envisioning a world based on four freedoms: freedom of speech and expression; freedom of worship; freedom from want; and freedom of fear.

The park at Roosevelt Island was announced in 1973, but the project languished for years following the city's financial meltdown. It was picked up 30 years later by former Ambassador to the United Nations William vanden Heuvel and the Four Freedoms Park Conservancy.

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Former state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., who was convicted of stealing $400,000 from his healthcare clinic, is expected to plead guilty to the remaining charges against him, newspapersreported. His son is also expected to plead guilty during an apppearance by the pair in Brooklyn Federal District Court later today. The senior Espada already faces prison time for his earlier conviction. Espada, who represented parts of the Bronx while he was in office, gained some notoriety for participating in a coup against his own party during his political career.
 

In the Press...

Councilman Vallone bill would make parking free for motorycles (Daily News)

Orthodox Jewish groups sue to block circumcision regulations (The Jewish Forward)

Indian Point nuclear plant to get hearing on bid to renew license (NY Times)

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The City Council wants to force businesses to mind the safety of employees who use bikes for their jobs.

Speaker Christine Quinn announced earlier today that the Council would pass a package of legislation aimed at the commercial bicycling sector.

Transportation committe chairman James Vacca, who championed the bills, told Gotham Gazette last month following a hearing on the legislation that commercial bicyclists — pizza deliverers, messengers — sometimes endanger pedestrians and themselves in their effort to make a buck.

"I think that even the most enthusiastic of workers has to understand that life and limb is the priority," he said. "We can't have any pedestrians endangered. Many of them are elderly, many of them are children."

Streetsblog, which has avidly covered the subject, describes the legislation and what's being done so far:

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The deadline to register to vote for next month's general election is tomorrow.

It's also the last day to declare a party affiliation to be eligible to vote in the 2013 primaries that will be crucial for the city as it picks a new mayor, City Council, comptroller, public advocate and more.

The city's Board of Elections website has basic information on how to register.

For those who have a state driver's license or identification card, one new way to go about registering is through the the state Department of Motor Vehicles website — though the process isn't immediately clear.

Perhaps sensing this, the Minkwon Center for Community Development, a civic organization with a mission of  increasing participation in the election process by Korean Americans, has put together a handy step-by-step guide to using the DMV site.

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A nonpartisan civic organization envisions a future where transit riders, and motorists who use tunnels and bridges, pay more to help finance the city's public transportation system.

The Citizens Budget Commission recommends that the financing of mass transit be divided using a 25-50-25 formula among the major sources of revenue that include fares, tolls, tax subsidies and other fees.

If each category of funder – driver, transit rider and general taxpayer – contributes to the cost of the region’s mass transit system in accordance with these principles, it will get the MTA off the wrong track and chart a better route for the region’s economic future. By 2016 the 25-50-25 policy would provide nearly $2.6 billion in additional annual revenue without new taxes.

The 25-50-25 policy would mean that mass transit riders would pay higher – but still reasonable – fares. The cost of a single ride ticket would increase to at least $2.75 by 2016 but in constant dollars a subway ride would cost at most three cents more than it did in 1996. Motorists would face increased costs for the use of their vehicles, in the range of $167 to $293 more annually, but the charges would be consistent with those in other global metropolises and related to the benefits drivers derive from a well-functioning transportation system.

The complete report, "A Better Way to Pay for the MTA," can be downloaded here.

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Crime in New York City is going up in all categories except homicide, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. told the Queens Campaigner in an interview published today.

“I’ve been warning that this crime increase would occur,” said the chair of the Council's public safety committee. 

He indicated that the size of the police force could be linked to the uptick in crime, telling reporter Rebecca Henley that the "Safe Cities, Safe Streets" program in the early 1990s increased the number of police officers in the city from 31,000 to 41,000. But now he said that number is less than 35,000.

Vallone also defended stop-and-frisk, saying the police tactic had successfully gotten 800 firearms off the streets.

“I think they’re making an effort to do things the right way,” he said of the New York Police Department.

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