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


Week of 4 September 2000:

In And Out
Nicholas Scoppetta, the head of the Administration of Children's Services since Mayor Rudolph Giuliani created the agency in 1996, announced he would be stepping down at the end of the year. Spurred by the 1995 murder of six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo by her mother, the agency took over all city services to protect abused or neglected children and oversee foster care and adoptions. Advocates for children give so much credit to Scoppetta for improving these services that one standard question they have had for mayoral candidates is whether they would reappoint him. William Bratton, Mayor Giuliani's first police commissioner until he was forced out and the one credited with a strategy that helped reduce the crime rate, told the Daily News that he would like to return to his old job. Bratton has endorsed Mark Green, who has made no commitment to reappoint him.

New York Votes For information on the primary races, see our special election coverage on Gotham Gazette's Searchlight On Campaign 2001, especially our Guide For The Last-Minute Voter.

And, starting today, you can read interviews with election officials, poll workers, critics, and complaints about the electoral process from fellow Gotham Gazette readers - and complain, ask questions or make comments yourself -- in New York Votes: An Interactive Diary. First Q and A with the head of the Board of Elections and other election experts: Will New York Be Another Florida?

Appeal Denied
Federal judge Eugene Nickerson rejected Police Officer Charles Schwarz's bid to win a new trial in the Abner Louima case yesterday. A former police sergeant had appeared in court last month to challenge the testimony of the chief witness against Schwarz, who has twice been convicted for his role in the 1997 police torture case. But Nickerson said that former sergeant, Patrick Walsh£s, testimony was riddled with misperceptions and inaccuracies.

Schwarz now has only a federal appeals court to turn to in his two-year campaign to reverse his conviction. His lawyers said they were not surprised by yesterday£s decision and would press before the appeals court.

In the Spotlight
With the mayoral campaign in its final days, the media focuses on Fernando Ferrer, whose rise in the polls sparked news coverage and speculation as to whether he can preserve his black-Latino coalition without scaring away many white voters.

Suburban Exodus
The city lost more than 3,000 teachers to the suburbs in the last three years as they seek higher pay and better working conditions, according to a report from the United Federation of Teachers. Mayor Giuliani said the number was normal, represented just a small percentage of the total workforce, and that there will be "more teachers this year than ever before." The greatest number of teachers left for Nassau and Westchester counties where the median incomes are more than $68,000 and $70,000 respectively. The median income for teachers in New York City is $49,000. City teachers have been working without a contract for the last 10 months and are seeking help from the state in negotiations.

A new Quinnipiac poll released yesterday showed Fernando Ferrer in a statistical tie with Mark Green for the Democratic nomination for mayor. For more campaign coverage see Searchlight on Campaign 2001.

One More Week
There is exactly a week left until the September 11th primary. According to several polls, Mark Green, who has been the front-runner in the Democratic race for mayor, remains in front, but it is not clear that he will garner the 40 percent of the vote needed to avoid a runoff. If not, the polls are indicating that Fernando Ferrer may be in second place, and will thus face him in a runoff September 25. Green was endorsed by the New York Times this weekend (see the September 2nd entry in Campaign Trail for the details); the Daily News and the New York Post earlier endorsed Peter Vallone. In the West Indian American Day Carnival and Parade yesterday, Green was accompanied by former Mayor David Dinkins, who has endorsed him; Ferrer marched with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who recently announced his support for the Bronx borough president. The labor unions are splitting their endorsements, some labor leaders saying it is because any of the four leading Democratic candidates would be acceptable to them. The teachers' union is backing Alan Hevesi, law enforcement unions and the largest municipal union is going for Vallone, though the largest union local within the municipal union, representing 25,000 cafeteria workers and crossing guards, is endorsing Ferrer. Mark Green has the support of the largest apparel workers' union, a 70,000-member janitors' union and the United Auto Workers.

For more on the primary races (and there are many more than just the race for mayor), and on the electoral process itself (i.e. will there be a Florida-style mess at the polls?), see our special election coverage on Gotham Gazette and Gotham Gazette's Searchlight On Campaign 2001 , especially our Guide For The Last-Minute Voter.

Back to School
Public school begins this week with unusual attention, thanks to an electoral season where most candidates have made the improvement of education their first priority, and a budget process that leaves the New York City Board of Education with $242 million less to spend than it had last year, according to an analysis by the Independent Budget Office. Many school districts throughout the state are reducing pre-kindergarten and after-school programs, jettisoning plans to reduce class sizes, holding off on filling teacher vacancies and even raising tax bills. But school superintendents and union officials in New York City said that the budget cuts ordered by Schools Chancellor Harold Levy would not require layoffs and will not affect most day-to-day activities in regular classrooms. Money is not the only problem. For example, with some 8,000 new teachers recruited to replace those retiring or leaving for better jobs elsewhere, school principals fear that many will not measure up, and, in particular, that the 700 recruited from abroad will have an insufficient grasp of the English language.

Last week's stories...


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