This Week's Stories
GG's quick takes on recent NYC news


Week of 11 October 1999:

Franklin Avenue Shuttle...
The Franklin Avenue Shuttle was re-opened by the MTA this week, well ahead of schedule. The line in the heart of Brooklyn connects the A/C at Franklin Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant with the D/Q at Prospect Park. The renovation of the shuttle is pertinent to current discussions about the 2000 - 2004 MTA Capital Plan because it is a direct result of a political intervention into the last MTA Capital Plan. Five years ago the NYS Assembly imposed on an unexcited MTA an $80 million commitment to fix the deteriorated line. Many of the only-locals-know-about-this ridership were skeptical that the service would ever re-open, but the MTA came through handsomely Brooklyn Navy Yard...
The facility that produced more ship tonnage in 1942 - 1945 than the entire Third Reich is definitely going Hollywood. Yesterday the Mayor announced that the City had come to terms with the New Jersey-based Steiner Corporation on a 70-year lease of the Brooklyn Navy Yard to convert the site to film and television production. The Steiner group includes Louis Madigan and Cary Hart, local media entrepreneurs who had made the first bid on the facility and who were threatening to sue the City if they were passed over. New plans call for 11 sound stages costing $90 million to $120 million. The Mayor said that the financing for the Steiner bid was considerably stronger than the package put together by the high-profile team of Robert De Niro and Harvey and Bob Weinstein of Miramax Films. The losers complained ("The mayor told us we had a deal"), amidst talk of mayoral bias against the Hillary-tainted Weinsteins, but on paper, at least, the Steiners seemed to have been willing to put down more and ask for less.

Charter Revision Non-Story...
For the second day in a row, the Times gives prominent coverage to a story big among good-government groups, near-invisible for everyone else. Yesterday it was Jonathan Hicks writing on the great game of political musical chairs occasioned by the term limits imposed on Mayor, Comptroller, Public Advocate, borough presidents, and City Council members. Political consultants report booming trade in prospective candidacies for the 35 non-incumbent-held Council seats to be decided in 2001 and for the many offices on which soon-to-be-unemployed current Council members cast a covetous eye. Today's civics story is filed by Elisabeth Bumiller, who reports that nothing much is happening on the once-heated issue of charter revision since the Mastro Commission decided to remove Mark Green from its line of fire. The question on the ballot on 2 November will include a proposal to hold a special election 60 days after a late-in-the-term mayoral resignation, but not to take effect until 2002. As a result, it appears that some unsuspectedly important proposed constitutional changes regarding fiscal policy powers will go to the voters virtually undebated. In hardball terms, it may come down to a contest between union leaders' determination to turn out the troops in an off-year election versus City Hall's promised eleventh-hour "public education campaign." [What-Are-We-Chopped-Liver? Department: Venerable government watchdog Citizens Union has turned out extensive studies and summaries and internet features on both term limits and charter revision. Neither Times story mentions any of them. Hicks spurns hometown wisdom and finds his only cited expert on term limits from the faculty at Rice University in Houston. We're not bitter!]

Schuyler Chapin Awaits Word...
According to this morning's Daily News, Mayor Giuliani says that the continued tenure of Cultural Commissioner Schuyler Chapin is "under review." Last week Chapin, reportedly in consultation with City Hall,broke his previous silence on the Brooklyn Museum controversy with a letter to the Mayor gently disagreeing with the withholding of the museum's $495,000 monthly check. Chapin took pains to salute the Mayor's generosity in arts funding, but noted that the City check was intended to provide operating support for the building and care for the permanent collection. The Mayor said that Chapin was "entitled to his opinion, but I think he's wrong." The exhibit in question, he said, was "perverted and disgusting... People who believe they're intellectuals can't make sensible distinctions of taste and morals any longer." Chapin said yesterday that he had not been contacted by any official since submitting his letter.

School Funding Litigation...
Opening statements will be made tomorrow in Manhattan Supreme Court in the case of Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York. The stakes are significant. According to the Educational Priorities Panel, an umbrella organization of public school advocacy groups, CFE will charge that the current NYS distribution of aid-to-education dollars violates the rights of NYC children to receive the constitutionally-required "sound basic education." CFE attorneys will cite evidence that the average NYS district spends $9,321 per pupil while NYC spends only $8,171. Metro suburban districts average about $12,600. The discrepency is exacerbated by special needs of NYC students, CFE will claim. Attorney General Spitzer will defend vigorously, and has enlisted an Atlanta law firm experienced in school funding cases as co-counsel. Should CFE prevail in the end (an appeal by whomever loses is near-certain), NYS might be compelled to adopt a Vermont-style policy mandating more-or-less-equal spending per child.

Last week's stories...


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