Via Village Voice
The unexamined world of Mike Bloomberg
One reason for the remarkably charmed life of Mike Bloomberg's administration as he sails toward re-election has been the waning of the city's news business. This is an odd blessing for a man who made his fortune as a media mogul. But just ask Rudy Giuliani, or David Dinkins, or Ed Koch, and they'll painfully explain.
When this city enjoyed four fat daily newspapers, editors clamored for strong, tough copy to fill them. Whenever scandal hit--make that even a mini-scandal--each one scrambled after the story. Local TV news, which gets its morning bearings from the dailies, gleefully joined the hunt as well. This happy combination produced many full-strength media pile-ons and visible shivers in City Hall.
There was a keen reminder of this changed world when a man named Raymond Harding put himself back in the news this month by pleading guilty to fraud at the state's pension fund. Back in 1997, Harding, the boss of something called the Liberal Party, was the city's top lobbyist, his law firm raking in millions from clients seeking favors from Giuliani's City Hall. These were easy for Harding to arrange since he had personally invented Giuliani as a political player.
It took a while for the dailies to catch on to this scheme, but when they did, the effect was viral: They became a four-man tag team, taking turns serving up tales of greed and insider trading. Giuliani was then at the top of his game and delighted in telling off reporters. But he knew disaster when he saw it. Claiming ignorance that his mentor was making a fortune off his administration, he publicly chided his aides and ordered his pal to lay low.
These days, the papers are onion-skin thin, and exposés are catch as catch can. Newsday, which once gave rival editors panic attacks every morning, doesn't even have a city edition anymore. When Dinkins was in office, the Long Island tabloid investigated even the type of fertilizer he used on the Gracie Mansion lawn. Nowadays, to fill their meager space, editors prefer colorful yarns to investigations. Until this month, one newspaper carried an entire column about empty rooms. We have the Web, with all of its many hardworking blogs, but most of these spend their energies keeping political scorecards with all the obsession of fantasy baseball addicts: Who's on first, and what coaches are in the dugout? The business of government and its many failings goes largely unexamined.
Poor Ed Koch: He was trashed as a miserable miser in multiple front-page stories because he had some 2,000 homeless families sleeping in shelters. Mike Bloomberg has five times as many, and no one even knows about it.
It's not that there's no investigative spadework being done. What's missing is critical mass. Last week, the Daily News's Juan González delivered some excellent fodder for a full-scale media assault in City Hall's Blue Room. He reported that the mayor's billion-dollar plan to relocate the city's emergency 911 call system has become a fiasco. Not only has Bloomberg's team blown its budget and deadlines, but it has also ignored the findings of its own consultant, which found the project was mired in mismanagement. Rather than dump its lead contractor, as the consultant recommended, Bloomberg's top aides insisted that the plan go ahead as is--defects be damned.
This type of project is supposed to be smack in the mayor's sweet spot since it involves computers and communications, the business that made him the city's richest man. It should also be one of those instances where he runs rings around old-school politicians because of his keen business acumen. Instead, here he is, tripped up by the same cost overruns and bureaucrats that plague ordinary humans. Another mayor in another time might have suffered many tough questions the day after such information surfaced. Instead, only the News chased its own story.
The same thing happened this summer, when the Voice reported a scandal at the city's NYC-TV operation, where the top executive was fired and his deputy arrested ("Inside the Mayor's Studio: NYC-TV's Secrets of New York," August 4). Unlike the perennially tainted buildings department that has plagued every mayor, the problems at NYC-TV came from Bloomberg's own supporters. He had repeatedly hailed the station as an example of his innovative approach to government. But instead of minding the store, his aides had traipsed around the world, making their own private movie. This tale also failed to trip the press alarm that scrambles the media into action.
The big story late last week was the stunning court ruling on the illegal Stuyvesant Town rent hikes. But you'd never know from the coverage that Bloomberg had praised the original deal cut by landlord Tishman-Speyer (headed by one of his strongest allies). Or that his top aides had scotched a plan to keep Stuy Town affordable. Or that a hefty chunk of the financing for the deal came from Merrill Lynch, the late investment firm that was a top Bloomberg LP client and which the mayor was barred from dealing with under a Conflicts of Interest Board ruling. That story--told here in detail by Wayne Barrett just last month--also died an orphan.
The unexamined world of Mike Bloomberg
One reason for the remarkably charmed life of Mike Bloomberg's administration as he sails toward re-election has been the waning of the city's news business. This is an odd blessing for a man who made his fortune as a media mogul. But just ask Rudy Giuliani, or David Dinkins, or Ed Koch, and they'll painfully explain.
When this city enjoyed four fat daily newspapers, editors clamored for strong, tough copy to fill them. Whenever scandal hit--make that even a mini-scandal--each one scrambled after the story. Local TV news, which gets its morning bearings from the dailies, gleefully joined the hunt as well. This happy combination produced many full-strength media pile-ons and visible shivers in City Hall.
There was a keen reminder of this changed world when a man named Raymond Harding put himself back in the news this month by pleading guilty to fraud at the state's pension fund. Back in 1997, Harding, the boss of something called the Liberal Party, was the city's top lobbyist, his law firm raking in millions from clients seeking favors from Giuliani's City Hall. These were easy for Harding to arrange since he had personally invented Giuliani as a political player.
It took a while for the dailies to catch on to this scheme, but when they did, the effect was viral: They became a four-man tag team, taking turns serving up tales of greed and insider trading. Giuliani was then at the top of his game and delighted in telling off reporters. But he knew disaster when he saw it. Claiming ignorance that his mentor was making a fortune off his administration, he publicly chided his aides and ordered his pal to lay low.
These days, the papers are onion-skin thin, and exposés are catch as catch can. Newsday, which once gave rival editors panic attacks every morning, doesn't even have a city edition anymore. When Dinkins was in office, the Long Island tabloid investigated even the type of fertilizer he used on the Gracie Mansion lawn. Nowadays, to fill their meager space, editors prefer colorful yarns to investigations. Until this month, one newspaper carried an entire column about empty rooms. We have the Web, with all of its many hardworking blogs, but most of these spend their energies keeping political scorecards with all the obsession of fantasy baseball addicts: Who's on first, and what coaches are in the dugout? The business of government and its many failings goes largely unexamined.
Poor Ed Koch: He was trashed as a miserable miser in multiple front-page stories because he had some 2,000 homeless families sleeping in shelters. Mike Bloomberg has five times as many, and no one even knows about it.
It's not that there's no investigative spadework being done. What's missing is critical mass. Last week, the Daily News's Juan González delivered some excellent fodder for a full-scale media assault in City Hall's Blue Room. He reported that the mayor's billion-dollar plan to relocate the city's emergency 911 call system has become a fiasco. Not only has Bloomberg's team blown its budget and deadlines, but it has also ignored the findings of its own consultant, which found the project was mired in mismanagement. Rather than dump its lead contractor, as the consultant recommended, Bloomberg's top aides insisted that the plan go ahead as is--defects be damned.
This type of project is supposed to be smack in the mayor's sweet spot since it involves computers and communications, the business that made him the city's richest man. It should also be one of those instances where he runs rings around old-school politicians because of his keen business acumen. Instead, here he is, tripped up by the same cost overruns and bureaucrats that plague ordinary humans. Another mayor in another time might have suffered many tough questions the day after such information surfaced. Instead, only the News chased its own story.
The same thing happened this summer, when the Voice reported a scandal at the city's NYC-TV operation, where the top executive was fired and his deputy arrested ("Inside the Mayor's Studio: NYC-TV's Secrets of New York," August 4). Unlike the perennially tainted buildings department that has plagued every mayor, the problems at NYC-TV came from Bloomberg's own supporters. He had repeatedly hailed the station as an example of his innovative approach to government. But instead of minding the store, his aides had traipsed around the world, making their own private movie. This tale also failed to trip the press alarm that scrambles the media into action.
The big story late last week was the stunning court ruling on the illegal Stuyvesant Town rent hikes. But you'd never know from the coverage that Bloomberg had praised the original deal cut by landlord Tishman-Speyer (headed by one of his strongest allies). Or that his top aides had scotched a plan to keep Stuy Town affordable. Or that a hefty chunk of the financing for the deal came from Merrill Lynch, the late investment firm that was a top Bloomberg LP client and which the mayor was barred from dealing with under a Conflicts of Interest Board ruling. That story--told here in detail by Wayne Barrett just last month--also died an orphan.
Bloomberg's biggest claim to mayoral fame as he grabs for the third term that he used to insist he would never seek is his success at the business of education. This is a debate worth having. But Bloomberg consistently wins by default because the other side never fully shows up. As the legislature was considering the renewal of Bloomberg's mayoral control law this year, Brooklyn Assemblyman Jim Brennan issued six lengthy reports on the law's impact on the schools. They were detailed and thoughtful critiques on student achievement, school organization, and contracting. Asked recently how much press he received about them, Brennan paused. "I'm not sure there was any," he said.
There have been scattered stories about instances of grade inflation and test-score manipulations (again, with the News in the lead). The startlingly poor results of national student tests this month prompted even the Post, whose news pages have steadily cheered Bloomberg's education policies, to suggest that fraud was afoot somewhere. But the big picture still escapes us, along with whatever role was played by the education bureaucrats at the Tweed Courthouse.
At the mayor's annual Gracie Mansion Christmas party for the press last year, those in attendance report that Bloomberg took the stage to offer his idea of a joke. "I see that my three best friends in the media--Mort, Rupert, and Arthur--aren't here," he quipped. Then he walked out, right past the grunts who cover him all year.
Actually, the joke's on us. Even as newspaper fortunes sank in recent years, Bloomberg diligently courted media barons like Zuckerman, Murdoch, and Sulzberger, who he understood could make his life difficult if they so chose. Minus their support, as Joyce Purnick's new Bloomberg biography proves, he would have never risked his end run around term limits. But he knew he had little to fear. As Purnick's book also tells us, even his weekend disappearing act to go to his mansion in Bermuda has gone unchallenged.
"He does his radio show Friday morning," a former aide told her. "At 11:05, the latest, he's in his car. At 11:30 he is at the airport. His plane is in the air at 11:40, he's in Bermuda at 2:10. He's on the golf course by 2:30. . . . Almost every weekend, spring and fall."
There's a photo op that's been even more closely guarded than military caskets arriving at Dover Air Force Base: Mayor Mike, golf bags over his shoulder, striding across the tarmac toward Air Bloomberg.
The Mayor's Press Pass [Village Voice]
There have been scattered stories about instances of grade inflation and test-score manipulations (again, with the News in the lead). The startlingly poor results of national student tests this month prompted even the Post, whose news pages have steadily cheered Bloomberg's education policies, to suggest that fraud was afoot somewhere. But the big picture still escapes us, along with whatever role was played by the education bureaucrats at the Tweed Courthouse.
At the mayor's annual Gracie Mansion Christmas party for the press last year, those in attendance report that Bloomberg took the stage to offer his idea of a joke. "I see that my three best friends in the media--Mort, Rupert, and Arthur--aren't here," he quipped. Then he walked out, right past the grunts who cover him all year.
Actually, the joke's on us. Even as newspaper fortunes sank in recent years, Bloomberg diligently courted media barons like Zuckerman, Murdoch, and Sulzberger, who he understood could make his life difficult if they so chose. Minus their support, as Joyce Purnick's new Bloomberg biography proves, he would have never risked his end run around term limits. But he knew he had little to fear. As Purnick's book also tells us, even his weekend disappearing act to go to his mansion in Bermuda has gone unchallenged.
"He does his radio show Friday morning," a former aide told her. "At 11:05, the latest, he's in his car. At 11:30 he is at the airport. His plane is in the air at 11:40, he's in Bermuda at 2:10. He's on the golf course by 2:30. . . . Almost every weekend, spring and fall."
There's a photo op that's been even more closely guarded than military caskets arriving at Dover Air Force Base: Mayor Mike, golf bags over his shoulder, striding across the tarmac toward Air Bloomberg.
The Mayor's Press Pass [Village Voice]
Thompson for Mayor!
Mike is worth $20 billion fucking dollars. If I had $20 billion fucking dollars I sure as shit wouldn't be hanging out at the Oval on weekends. I'd be in Bermuda right next to him. Can't play golf to save my life but I'm sure I could find something to do to pass the time.
As for the NYC schools, I spent 12 years in the NYC public school system. It SUCKED when I did my time. Crumbling buildings. The asbestos was falling out of the walls! Crappy old textbooks. Sleeping teachers (sorry Mrs. Altshculer). And I actually went to some of the best--including our own PS 40 and 104 (kevlar vests hadn't been invented yet so we just wore layers....).
Decades later, my nephew is in those same schools. Smaller classes. Real education. Better teachers. Air fucking conditioning! I can't believe it. No comparison.
Mike disappointed on the whole PCV/ST lawsuit. That is for sure. No doubt about it. Someone should smack him in the face and ask him what the fuck he was thinking. Beyond that, this city is a hell of a lot better than when he got here. And it still sucks....
"(kevlar vests hadn't been invented yet so we just wore layers....)"
ROFL!
Artistic license....
I urge everyone to vote for Thompson for Mayor.
My support for Thompson is more a function of my DISGUST for Emperor Bloomberg. Forget Bloomberg's trampling of the term limits law, forget his arrogance and condescension towards the working and middle-class, forget his holier than thou, I know what's best for you attitude...do not forget your own self-interest...do not forget to vote to protect your homes and apartments...remember that Bloomberg is VIRULENTLY anti-tenant and pro-landlord. He has described Tishman-Speyer as a "great NewYork City landlord".
Hahaha...if you believe that one I have a bridge to sell you!
Anyone but Bloomberg...PLEASE!
You know..
It's hard to keep a sense of humor with all this stuff going on.
I feel manipulated by Bloomberg now.
You know, if it were a one issue race, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. Bloomberg has been a disgrace to the working class, RS tenants of NYC. A complete disgrace.
I would love to vote against him for this reason alone! I just can't.
Thompson just seems like too much of a putz. The courts stopped Bloomberg, thank god. The courts can't run the city on a day-to-day. That's the problem.
We're stuck with two bad choices (sounds familiar?!?)
Bill just doesn't bring anything to the table IMO and that doesn't cut it.
I would like to submit a three page list of the people I feel have manipulated me. Where should I go about doing that?!?
Does ANYBODY trust politicians? Did they ever?? Please.
I have a sense that Gorodnick is pretty clean. He'd doing right by us, right now. Will that last? Doubtful. They all get tarnished at some point and time.
But for now, we should stand behind him.
Hey...how did this become a Gorodnick commercial. Never mind.....
Totally agree, lifer.
Don't get me started. The whole 'party' system is a farce. I think anyone who votes the 'party line' needs to have their head examined.
No....wait. I think the headshrinks are crazy, too!
Regardless, people need to listen and think for themselves. Radical concept. Not nearly enuf do, though.
It's funny because my parents live several hours upstate and read and see news tidbits re: Mike, then call me weekly and say 'Wow, it looks like this guy really has shaped up New York! He's doing such a great job!' Poor guys, have new idea. I think if you ask any 'real' New Yorker their opinion, and it will probably be mixed, with a slight lean away from him on a lot of issues.
I agree with 'lifer', though. It's gonna be a real 'pick your poison' event.
Can you think of any mayor in the past 40 years that gets 100% thumbs up?
I can't.
I say let's resurrect Fiorello!
(anybody who doesn't know who Fiorello is, need not reply....)
I was't around during the LaGuardia era; but hey, if he has a statue at NYU, a street, a high school, AND an airport all named after him, he must have done SOMEthing right, right?
I say we need the return of Boss Tweed
In a way, isn't Mayor Mike a modern version?
minus the perported mob ties...
true. but with some of the strong-hold tactics, i wonder ;)
Tired of Bloomberg throwing his money in my face. Mail/Calls/Radio. How fucking desperate for love is he?
I'm for voting ALL incumbents out, especially at the higher levels. Let's start from scratch.
Yeah, we should go back to the age of duels.
A step in the right direction?!?
I haven't had one single call from Bloomberg. Got one from Koch on his behalf. That's about it.
Get tons of crap in the mail from all of them. I think they got stock in a paper company. It's disgusting. By weight, I'd say it's an even race.
I recycle the whole pile of this shit. Along with the menus that get slid under my door.
Anyone else sick of getting this crap under your door? Forget about the waste of paper (not that I have), how long before someone doesn't see it on the floor and takes a slide as they come home? Who's gonna pay the medical bills? Taco Bueno? China Palace? Doubtful....
I say that no one should patronize any establishment that markets in this fashion. It's irresponsible.
A la Seinfeld, we should gather all of this stuff up and dump it back on their respective doorsteps. In a perfect world....
I've bitched about menus under doors at ST for a while on this blog, much to the distaste of others. I can't agree more: how irritating coming home and having to deal with the pile of shit under your door. Who the hell lets these people in? I'd like to be home one day and catch someone in the action then nail 'em with a trespass charge, and fuck it add loitering on there, too. Of course they aren't supposed to leave anything if there's a notice advising against it (No Menus Please sound familiar?).
I haven't seen that Seinfeld, and yet I was thinking the same thing.
I should have said Thompson for Mayor with some reservations. Still I'll vote for him.
The menus are placed by guys delivering food in the buildings. I've often caught the culprits and asked that they pick up the menu. It pisses me off, but then the poor souls who are working as delivery people seem to get my sympathy. What really burns my ass, however, aside from the unbelievable numbers of phone calls from candidates beginning before the primary election and still going on, is the amount of mail I get from Verizon. I have a Verizon cell and land line and still they harass about Fios and internet. I've called and asked them to stop sending me mail but that hasn't been successful. I find the amount of mail from this vile corporate entity most offensive. As for the political calls, I'm a registered Democrat and clearly my phone number has been sold or passed along.
My son lives in Penn South where there is a hamper-like receptacle where you can throw out innocuous mail like Bloomberg ads etc right at the mail boxes. Here, you have to take out your key to open the door to the recycling area which is really awkward if you have packages etc. Otherwise the junk mail ends up being taken into your apartment.
About pizza boxes, what is the correct way to get rid of them? They often have stuck-on stuff so they're really not appropriate for the paper recycling. What I usually do is fold them and throw them down the chute.
Go low carb - that will take care of the pizza boxes!
Also, our recycling area hasn't been locked for months - is it just our building that is unlocked? Try it without the key and see if yours is unlocked too...
Verizon- HUGE junkmail culprit. It's not even addressed to me, rather the Alzheimer's elderly woman who used to live in my place pre-reno. FIOS this, FIOS that, bla bla. RCN and TWC aren't innocent, either. Since I've never had RCN, I'm convinced TS sells our names to them among others.
And what you do with the pizza boxes is probably the best way, imho. At least you throw it away and don't leave it on the floor of your hall :)
Maybe Thompson will clean and recycle my pizza boxes. THEN he would get my vote.
Hey, any of you folks been here long enuf to remember the Frapposa Pizzeria which was located in what is now the Post Luminaria or whatever the fuck they call that concrete monstrosity? Now THAT was pizza. There was a little fat guy and a big fat guy and they both made the best pizza I've had in this neighborhood in years. Long gone now. Used to have lunch there all the time.
As for Verizon, you are right on target. What an unbelievable waste. How stupid can they be? Let's see...if I send you the same bad offer day after day, week after week, eventually you will take it. NOT!
Meanwhile, we're gonna waste forest after forest and keep armies of grey uniformed men and women employed to deliver this shit? I guess that's the only upside here. Somebody gets a job.
Speaking of Verizon, anyone else here 'bout ready to dump their Verizon line and go with one of the many unlimited wireless plans out there? It's just a matter of time. Costs about the same as the basic phone service. Same business model as TS & PCV/ST......
I have a bundle from RCN which includes phone and have never had a problem.
How is their pizza?!?
i am voting for Thompson because who the eff does he think he is overturning term limits they way he did? what an asshole. who in their right mind would reward his autocratic behavior with their vote? this annoys me to no end!
The correct way to get rid of dirty pizza boxes (and other recyclables) is to throw them down the chute, as you're doing. Only things that are too big should be brought downstairs. If your garbage bag is too big to cram down the chute, use a smaller bag. (That was a general statement--not directed at you personally.)
"cram down" being the key phrase here as it is what is going to happen to the most of the investors in this little TS nightmare.
A little bankruptcy humor.
Sorry for interrupting....
Those of us who were here when the apartments were rewired are pretty sure that Mismanagement and RCN cut a deal. That's why all apartments have an RCN connection in the front closet (at least in PCV) even if you use another cable provider. We used to be bombarded with mail from RCN. Now it's Verizon. I have FiOS, so they keep trying to get me to add the TV component. I note the date received on every envelope and someday when I get around to it I'm going to mail it all back to the head of the company. All this junk keeps the price of the product absurdly high.
Oops--meant to say "other nonrecyclables."
The rewiring was a nightmare. They took over my home for a whole day and made a mess of the whole thing.
The RCN scam was another crime that was never prosecuted. They piggybacked on the rewiring and gave kickbacks to Met and no one ever paid the price for that besides the tenants. Of course, RCN did go bankrupt shortly thereafter. Still, I feel they have suffered more!
Don't do business with any of these companies if you can avoid it at all.
Okay, don't send me hate mail. But I have FIOS and I love it! The installation was horrible but since then, everything has been perfect. I have TV/Internet/Land Line. Also have a Verizon cell phone and they recently reduced the cost of that as well since I have the 3 other services. All in all, the quality is great and it's much less expensive and much more reliable than other services I have had in the past(RCN/AT&T). Totally agree with you about the junk mail, however. It's ridiculous, but the same can be said of Time Warner and RCN (not to mention Bloomberg.)
Did anyone (everyone?!?) get the latest barrage of junk mail from Mayor Mike?
This is a good one:
Mike Bloomberg: Fighting For Quality, Affordable Housing.
Mike Says: "All New Yorkers should have access to quality, affordable housing, safe living conditions, and freedom from harassing landlords."
What Mike does not say is that all New Yorkers that want that access have to move to NJ to get it!
What a joke. What a joke.
Lifer
Bloomberg is bad for a whole host of reasons, not just his lousy record on affordable housing. Nevermind that he's the first mayor in modern history who has refused to lobby Albany on behalf of tenants or that in 2008 his RGB approved the highest rent increases in nearly 20 years and this year, in the middle of a brutal recession (and in an election year!) refused to support a rent freeze. Nevermind that historically bad third terms generally are. Here are a few other reasons to reconsider Thompson:
• Why Bloomberg's gotten all those union endorsements: He's given politically powerful unionized city workers raises at 3 times the rate of inflation. The city's tax-funded pension contributions could double or triple over the next five years.
• Under Bloomberg, city expenditures have grown at 40 times the rate of inflation.
• How to pay for the above? He's imposed record-breaking property tax increases that are killing the city's small businesses. Thanks to Bloomberg, the flower district is mostly gone, as is the fish market, meat market, and garment district. The diamond district is headed in the same direction.
• Small business complain about Bloomberg's regulatory onslaught too. City inspectors generate huge revenue by drowning small businesses in a sea of fines. The city estimates that the city will collect $900 million in revenues from fines and fees on small business in 2009. That's up $110 million from 2008. Add Bloomberg's parking ticketing blitzes to their woes also. Small business owners now say some suppliers won't deliver to NYC any more because of them.
• Bloomberg's scandal-ridden stadium deals. He's spent a $ half billion of city $$$ on new baseball stadiums (in addition to tapping its own supply of tax-exempt bonds -- to the tune of $1.9 billion -- that were supposed to be used on things like hospitals). He's also proposed a basketball arena in Brooklyn. The much reviled Atlantic Yards boondoggle will cost us $350 million and and $678 million in state tax-exempt bonds. The IBO estimates that the arena will ultimately lose at least $40 million over the life of the deal. That's based on the most optimistic projections.
• The costs of housing, electricity, and water jumped sharply under Mayor Bloomberg. According to the Center for the Urban Future, more residents of the five boroughs bolted the city between 2002 and 2006 than in 1993 when the NYC was notorious for job losses and high crime.
• He's put himself above the law. He endorsed the sale of ST-PCV, despite that one of the buyers, Merrill Lynch, was a 20% partner in his firm, Bloomberg LP. As mayor, he was not legally allowed to do anything to aid Merrill.
I would think the lesser of 2 evil's would be everyone circle the wagon's and Vote for Thompson- He has he faults- But it would be worth it's weight in gold to see Lord Mayor For Life Bloomberg be defeated.
Coming from a family that has 5 immediate members in the NYC NYPD- It's a scary reality that they are being "told" in no uncertain terms to vote for Bloomberg- as The PC is A Bloomberg puppet- And at least 50% are voting for Thompson Hoping for a new PC that will not eliminate overtime and have insane quota's for writing ticket's or having vacation day's docked.
If Bloomberg wins The city will be back to the day's of Boss Tweed.
Dissolution of term limits is like eating away at the essence of a democracy. This should be made an even bigger issue than what it is even now. To take them away is to tear at the very fabric of democracy and Thpmson could and should be going to town with this issue alone.
Wasn't the socialist Fidel Castro installed as 'president for life'? and didn't Huge Chavez within the last 2 years try to dissolve term limits (and almost starting a civil war in doing so)?
there are currently 38,000 homeless people in the city if NY. a big chunk of them are CHILDREN. children should not be homeless. why is Bloomberg building sports stadiums when children are homeless? he is despicable! and voting for him is unconscionable! i heard recently that under Mayor Koch there were only 2000 homeless New Yorkers. now under Bloomberg there are 38,000.
Looks to me like the homeless population has been on the rise steadily for 25 years according to the Coalition for the Homeless. That would cover Koch, Dinkins, Guiliani and Bloomberg.
http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/FileLib/PDFs/Briefing%20Paper%20--%20Record%20Number%20of%20NYC%20Homeless%20Families%2012-23-2008.pdf
Looks to me that, whenever the economy is in recession, the population of homeless grows. It contracts somewhat during good times but, basically, it has been rising for decades. If you're going to blame Bloomberg, you're going to have to blame his predecessors as well.
Lifer
For 25 years, the Coalition for the Homeless used a city-published monthly report called "Emergency Family Services for Homeless Families" to keep track of where homeless families are sheltered and for how long. Then last year in November, the Coalition announced that the number of families sleeping in city shelters had hit an all-time high (5 times higher than when Ed Koch was mayor in 1983). That got big press coverage and since them, the Coalition has had to file Freedom of Information requests to get that info from the Bloomberg Admin.
I guess that's one way to make the problem go away.
Pizza boxes (no food scraps) are to be recycled per the NYC Department of Sanitation.
You may find a poster about what items (including pizza boxes)are to be recycled here:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dsny/downloads/pdf/contact/requests/decal_request/res_recy/rchecklist_english.pdf
anyone think that Bloomberg's mission is to reduce the number of homeless and significantly increase affordable housing in NYC? given his cozy relationship with the greedy, profit-at-any-cost real estate industry, I DOUBT IT. i repeat, Bloomberg's despicable. and voting for him signals to the culture at large, and those homeless children, that certain people have no value. and if you don't think that creates a pathological society, you're kidding yourself.
I was shocked to see the full-page pro-Bloomberg ad in todays T&V signed by many ST/PCV residents. Who would vote for someone who is in bed with Jerry Speyer given everything that's been happening here?
I know! Especially when the bed is over crowed with Robbie and his hooved hunnies!
Mrs. Speyer?!?
You'd think they'd have a clue, right?
The fact that Bloomberg couldn't even bring himself to send a frigging representative from his office to our J-51 celebration/press conference says it all. If at some point during the foreclosure process we need an intervention from the city, we already know who can be counted on to help and who can't. Some people have to have it all taken away before they wise up.