Bloomberg Aide to Head DOITT

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has tapped Carole Wallace Post, a 43-year-old lawyer who is director of agency services in the Mayor's Office of Operations, to head the city's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT).

Post, DOITT's first female commissioner, says she will continue consolidating the city's IT infrastructure, putting city services online and consolidating services across agencies.

In the statistics-driven Bloomberg admistration, Post has been involved in the design and implementation of front-facing databases like Stimulus Tracker, which tracks how the city spends funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; the Citywide Performance Reporting System; the Street Conditions Observation Unit (SCOUT); and NYCStat, an aggregation of data, reports and statistics.

Post's first order of business will be a 30-day performance audit of DOITT -- with an eye to its procurement "partners".

DOITT, which operates the city's 311 call center and is in the process of overhauling the city's 911 call centers, has more than 1,200 employees and a $375 million budget.

Bloomberg, who calls DOITT's potential "mind-boggling", sees it as having more impact than perhaps any other city agency going forward over the next several decades.

Post seems an unlikely CIO.  Hired at the Department of Buildings in 2001, she moved to the Mayor's Office in 2006.  Before coming to work for the DOB, the Seton Hall Law School graduate was a city attorney for Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. and a special counsel at a private law firm.

Post will replace DOITT commissioner Paul Cosgrave, who is resigning under fire as a result of the city's ruinous 911 overhaul (a/k/a the Emergency Communications Transformation Project) on his watch.

The article from Gov Tech.

Perkins Takes on Eminent Domain

Democratic State Senator Bill Perkins, in a recent speech at a Harlem church, called eminent domain "a corruption of democracy" and a "gun to the community's head".

The event featured an eminent domain panel that included attorney Norman Siegel, Daniel Goldstein of DDDB and Amy Lavine of Albany Law School.

They were preaching to the choir:  the people who came out are fighting Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, the Willets Point redevelopment in Queens and the Columbia takeover of Manhattanville.

Perkins went into action a couple of weeks ago after the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court delivered a win to Manhattanville property owners who held out against the Empire State Development Corporation, which had condemned their land for a new Columbia campus.

Perkins has called for a moratorium on eminent domain on behalf of private developers pending the appointment of a commission to review eminent domain law, calling eminent domain reform a "very, very important movement".

Perkins's website features a tongue-in-cheek petition seeking to have Michael Bloomberg's Upper East Side mansion declared "blighted".  The community, the petition says, has conducted its own study and found Mayor Michael Bloomberg's mansion "blighted, underutilized, of limited public purpose and very, very old".  It seeks to have the New York State Empire State Development Corporation take the mansion to provide 500 units of affordable housing.

Perkins, coming off of a successful effort to impose stricter oversight of public authorities, has scheduled a hearing on eminent domain in Harlem on January 5 and plans other hearings around the state.

Governor David Paterson said he thought that the EDC and Columbia had done Manhattanville the right way.

The article from the New York Observer.

More from the New York Post.

Bannerman Castle Collapsing

If you've ever taken an Amtrak train to Albany, you've seen Bannerman Castle, built by Francis Bannerman VI on an island in the Hudson River to house his collection of military relics.

Bannerman is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

The state has owned Bannerman Island (also known as Pollepel Island) since the 1960s.

This past weekend, Metro-North railroad employees observed from the Hudson's eastern shore that about a third of the castle's front wall and about half of its east wall had collapsed.

The Bannerman Castle Trust has been trying to raise money to stabilize the ruins.

The article from Staten Island Live.

More from Gothamist.

It Ain't Over

In a series of exit interviews, legendary Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, retiring this week after 35 years in office, saved his special sauce for "chickenshit" nemesis Michael Bloomberg.

Morgenthau's feud with Bloomberg dates back to 2007, when Morgenthau's office began an investigation into the city's negligence in the Deutsche Bank fire, which took the lives of 2 city firefighters.

According to Morgenthau, a Bloomberg "minion" called to tell him that the mayor was "surprised" that Morgenthau was investigating the Deutsche Bank case.  Replied Morgenthau, "You tell the mayor that I'm surprised that he's surprised."

Morgenthau told the Wall Street Journal that Bloomberg "thinks all lawyers work for him" and "doesn't want anybody around who doesn't kiss his ring -- or other parts of his body."

The 90-year-old Morgenthau is Manhattan's longest-serving district attorney.

The post from Gothamist.

FDNY Commissioner Nick Scoppetta, on whose watch the Deutche Bank fire happened, is also retiring.

More from the Daily News.

The Bloomy/Morgy feud cost the city millions, from Gothamist.

Florida

Link Roundup

The Fort Hamilton Branch of the New York Public Library is still closed.

Two Bay Ridge churches close.

Bay Ridge post office ranks highest in new Brooklyn survey.

Aggressive driving in Bay Ridge.

NIMBYs vs. food cart vendors at Fort Hamilton High School.

Fort Hamilton to get federal anti-terror money.

"Bay Ridge Bernie Madoff" Phillip Barry indicted in $40 million fraud.

Praises for outgoing CB 10 chair Dean Rasinya.

Bay Ridge karaoke club finally gets a liquor license.

Liquor license self-certification is coming, and predictably, CB 10 hates that idea.

A hawk takes a liking to the vacant lot where the Green Church stood for more than a century.

Simone Dinnerstein at PS 321

Chart-topping classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein has founded a concert series, Neighborhood Concerts, at her son's school, PS 321, at 180 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.

Simone, also a graduate of P.S. 321, will appear there with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) on Sunday, January 10 at 2 PM.

The program will include Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in F minor, Dvorak’s Piano Quintet, and selections from Phil Kline’s The Blue Room and Other Stories.

Ticket sales go to benefit the PTA.

For more information, visit the school's website.

On Vacation

I'll be vacationing in Florida until December 28. What better place to spend Christmas than at the beach?

Have a happy Christmas -- and thanks for reading.

Rudy Jumps Ship

It looks like New York State's struggling GOP is going to have to find a new savior.  Former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani, who toyed with a run for governor against incumbent Democrat David Paterson, and a run for the U.S. Senate against freshman Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, has dropped out, leaving the field wide open.

Giuliani cited his "significant commitments" to his lucrative law and consulting businesses as having ruled out a run for office in 2010 -- his firm has won a contract with the city of Rio de Janeiro to provide security for the 2016 Olympics.

Guiliani has refused to say that this political career is over, however.

Republican State Chairman Ed Cox said that Guiliani's exit will give second-tier candidates like Rick Lazio, George Pataki and Pete King the chance to step up.

The state GOP lost its last power base, the State Senate, in 2008.

Republican leaders feel a sense of urgency in Guiliani's wake:  they need name recognition and millions of dollars in fundraising in order to have a shot at the 2010 elections.

The article from Yahoo News.

Keeping Food on the Table

The Daily News reports that 165,503 Brooklyn residents have been added to the food stamp rolls since January 2008.

According to the city's Human Resources Administration (HRA), the number of Brooklynites who get food stamps has jumped by more than half a million -- or 34% -- in the last 22 months.

There are thousands of new food stamp users in every Brooklyn neighborhood.  In Carroll Gardens, the number of new users has gone up 24% since January 2008;  in Park Slope, the number has spiked by 44%;  in Dyker Heights, the number is up by 57%.

In historically poor neighborhoods like East Williamsburg/Bushwick, the increases are more dramatic:  9,000 new food stamp recipients added over the past 22 months.  In East Flatbush, the number of new enrollees grew by 68%.

Neighborhoods like Bay Ridge, Bergen Beach and downtown Brooklyn, which had only a few thousand food stamp recipients before last year, have seen the number of first-time enrollees go up by as much as 59%.

The root cause:  joblessness.  More young people, more elderly people, more single people are applying.

While first-time food stamp users in Brooklyn include increasing numbers of white-collar middle-class professionals, most new enrollees are still working class -- and cash-strapped.

The article from the Daily News.

Rob Peter, Pay Paul

Would it be so wrong to save the Metropolitan Transit Authority from itself -- and the city's commuters from disastrous service cuts -- by dipping into the MTA's capital budget to plug the deficit?

Some city councilmembers and the Straphangers Campaign think that the MTA should take capital funds normally be used to maintain and expand the transportation infrastructure and use them for critical operating expenses like salaries and fuel.

The idea is to postpone the service cuts for a year while the MTA comes up with a long-term solution.

The Straphangers Campaign says that cutting service now will push the city's transit system to the brink and destroy what credibility the MTA has left  -- commuters, who have been paying higher fares since June, were promised there would be no service cuts.

MTA officials, haunted by memories of the hell into which the MTA descended in the 1980s, are leery about the proposed fix, seeing it as the proverbial "slippery slope".

Some transit wonks and congressional representative Michael McMahon advocate using federal stimulus money meant for capital costs to plug the MTA budget gap -- as a last resort.

In the short run, the only good news is delay:  the proposed MTA cuts would not take place until the summer of 2010, after public hearings and another MTA vote.

The article from Gotham Gazette.

Vincent Gentile's solution:  a commuter tax.

Hyperlocal Gifts

A couple of last-minute gift suggestions from the Bay Ridge Food Co-op: 

The Guild for Exceptional Children (GEC) operates a greenhouse, which is open to the public Monday through Friday, from 10:00 AM until 3:00 PM.

GEC built its first greenhouse in 1979 to provide horticultural therapy for developmentally-disabled children and adults. The program was one of the first of its kind in the Greater New York area.

The Guild's Greenhouse Program offers not only traditional Christmas plants like poinsettias and Christmas cacti, but a variety of other houseplants and herbs, all at reasonable prices.

The Guild is at 260 68th Street at Third Avenue.

For more information about the Greenhouse Program, call Program Coordinator Shelley Wine at 718-833-6633.

The Bay Ridge Food Co-op will be selling t-shirts for men, women and youth at its next meeting on Monday, December 21, 2009 at Bay Ridge Prep's Lower School, on Ridge Boulevard at 81st Street.

Stop by anytime between 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM.

T-shirts cost $15.00 and come in sizes small through extra-large. (The double extra-large costs $18.)

The Co-op also offers a BRFC tote bag and other items for sale.

Snowy Day

The Dyker Lights

Looking for extravagant Christmas light displays?  I got two words for you:  Dyker Heights.

How seriously do they take their light displays in Dyker?  Let's just say that many of the displays are done by professionals -- guys who make a living doing Christmas lights.

The Dyker Lights are an ever-evolving phenomenon, with new innovations each year -- driven by an unspoken rivalry between neighbors seeking to outdo each other.

Kitchy, but magical, the Dyker Lights have become a part of my Christmas celebration.

How to get to the Lights:

• By car:  the zone is from 11th Avenue to 13th Avenue and from 83rd to 86th Street in Dyker Heights;
• By subway: the D or the M train to 18th Ave or the R train to 86th Street -- and walk to the zone.
  

Viewing tips:

• Weekends are better than weeknights for viewing;
• Visit between 7-9 PM, before people turn off their lights for the evening.

Take the Noshwalks Dyker Lights Tour:  Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. The tour meets at the Caffe Mona Lisa, 1476 86th Street in Bay Ridge. Call (212) 222-2243. For further information, visit the website.  The cost is $45 or $40 for subscribers, and $16 for children.

Local news coverage of the Dyker Lights.

Link Roundup

Shop Coney Island for Christmas.  More Coney Island gifts here.

More Brooklyn-centric gift ideas.

New Year's Eve fireworks at Prospect Park.

More suggestions for those spending New Year's Eve in Brooklyn, from Yelp.

City Council rejects Bloomberg administration's Kingsbridge Armory Plan...Bloomberg promptly vetos the City Council vote.

Is the City Council's Kingsbridge vote the sign of a fundamental shift in its relationship with Bloomberg?

Gay rights advocates stage a protest at Carl Kruger's house in Mill Basin, accuse him of being "a closet case".

The latest threat in the Williamsburg bike lane war:  naked hipsters.

Advice on cycling in winter.

Local pols react to the latest round of MTA service cuts...DDDB blames the MTA budget cuts on a sweetheart deal with that archdemon of the Brooklyn Blogosphere Bruce Ratner.

Ratner sells $511 million in tax-free bonds to build his Atlantic Yards stadium.

Joanne Seminara handily defeats Ron Gross to replace Dean Rasinya as chair of Community Board 10 in Bay Ridge.

Fatal hit and run on 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge...The driver turned herself in and is charged with leaving the scene.

Thirty-three-year-old cyclist killed by truck at McGuinness and Nassau in Greenpoint.

St. Petersburg Men's Ensemble

The St. Petersburg Men's Ensemble, back this year for the third time by popular demand, will perform a variety of Christmas music, from traditional to modern, on Saturday, December 19 and Sunday, December 20 at 1:30 PM, at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, 7420 Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge.

Take the B37, B63 and B4 buses, or the R train to 77th Street.

A $5 donation is recommended.

For further information, contact Ellen at 718-745-8520.

Bikes in Buildings

The city's Bicycle Access to Office Buildings Law, which went into effect on December 11, 2009, supports commuting by bicycle by allowing cyclists who work in commercial office buildings that have least one freight elevator to park their bicycles inside the building.

The Law does not apply to residential buildings.

The process begins with a commercial tenant/subtenant deciding how many bikes it wants to accommodate in its office space, then filling out a tenant request and sending it to the building owner or manager by USPS certified mail, return receipt requested.

The building owner or manager must either implement and post a bicycle access plan allowing the tenant's employees to bring their bikes into the tenant's office space within 30 days after receiving the request, or ask for an exception within 15 days, based on the existence of alternate bicycle parking facilities or safety concerns about the building's freight elevators.

If the building owner or manager asks for an exception, the tenant/subtenant should be notified within 30 days after their request is received.

If the owner or manager does not request an exception, it must post a bicycle access plan in the lobby within 35 days after receiving the request from the tenant.

Read the press release.
 
Forms and more information are available here:

Office Building Tenants/Subtenants

Office Building Owners/Managers

Employees Who Work in Office Buildings

Download a factsheet (pdf)

Download a presentation on the program (ppt)

Read the FAQ

Address questions or concerns to the Bikes in Buildings Program by email or 311.

Second Annual Sirens of Brooklyn Benefit

The Sirens of Brooklyn -- female indie rockers Courtney Kaiser (of Kaiser Cartel), Cat Martino, Liz Tormes, Greta Gertler, Julia Frodahl, Rachelle Garniez, Lauren Bathrop, Erin Flannery, Joy Askew, Katie Eastburn, and friends -- will perform their second annual holiday benefit concert at First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn Heights on Thursday, December 17 at 8:00 PM. 

The Sirens first concert last year benefited the New York organization Vibe, an after-school music and theater program for at-risk high school girls. The concert was such a success that the Sirens decided to perform again this year. 

All of the proceeds of this year's concert will go to Women For Women International, an international non-profit organization helping women who have lost everything as a result of war and armed conflict. 

The Sirens generally perform solo or as a part of a larger rock ensemble, but on Thursday, they will perform a wide variety of holiday music, from traditional carols to Benjamin Brittain to Yoko Ono, as a choir.  

The First Unitarian Church is at 50 Monroe Place in Brooklyn. 

Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door.  

You can buy tickets here.

Are Community Boards Doomed?

According to Boro Politics, community boards, a New York City institution since 1975, may be as doomed as the city's school boards.

Brian Gottlieb, a member of Community Board 13 in Coney Island who served on School Board 21 for 5 years before the Bloomberg administration eliminated the school boards in 2004, sees the city's disempowering the school boards and defunding the community boards as the "same situation".

After the New Year, the Bloomberg administration will seat a new charter revision commission, and when that happens, community board members like Gottlieb fear the commission will try to eliminate not only the community boards, but also the public advocate and the borough presidents.

Theresa Scabo of Sheepshead Bay’s Community Board 15 thinks the commission's argument will be that the community boards have no real power and that they offer services that duplicate 311 and 511.

Borough President Marty Markowitz said that he would call for the borough presidents to have a voice on the charter review commission. He sees the operations budgets of the community boards, the borough presidents and the public advocate being funded independently through a formula determined each year in the same way that the borough presidents' budgets are calculated.

Markowitz wants the borough presidents to have more of a say in -- you guessed it -- land use.

The post from Boro Politics.

Grinch Shows up at GOP Holiday Party

Pseudonymous blogger "Dagny Taggert", of Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn, was among the 350 people at the Bay Ridge Manor for the Brooklyn GOP's annual holiday party this year.

Taggert's bitterly satirical post describes a warm and cozy room full of sweet old ladies from the Board of Elections, there to collect their kisses from State Senator Marty "the Prince" Golden.

Also there were Brooklyn GOP Chair Craig "the Duke" Eaton and State GOP Chair Ed Cox, along with a handful of the Republican candidates who lost last fall's election.

The party can't afford the cost of the dinner, said Taggert, who called the event a "smokescreen" to hide the failures of the Brooklyn GOP leadership.

With an historic election looming, Taggert said, Marty Golden has failed to deliver on his promise to end the rift within the local party.

Taggert pointed to the Brooklyn GOP's "embarrassing" website as evidence of the fact that Golden and Eaton aren't taking their leadership roles seriously.  The website, to Taggert, symbolizes the local party's lack of vision.

Because the Brooklyn GOP is unable, in Taggert's opinion, to otherwise mobilize its base, it has turned to parties out of "desperation", ignoring the need for a political platform and fundraising.

Holiday functions, said Taggert, will do nothing to help win the 13^th Congressional District -- and superficial fun is no substitute for a plan.

The post from Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn.

Elsewhere in the borough, the Brooklyn Young Republican Club is hosting its annual holiday party.

State Unprepared to Monitor Hydrofracking

According to Environmental Advocates of New York, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) lacks sufficient staff to monitor the impact of hydraulic fracturing -- "hydrofracking" -- for natural gas in New York City's watershed.

For this and other reasons, Environmental Advocates and a coalition of groups that includes the Natural Resources Defense Council have called on Governor Paterson to prohibit hydrofracking for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale until he can be sure that New York City's drinking water will not be contaminated.

The DEC is unprepared to take on the permitting challenges posed by hydrofracking, a water-intensive process that uses up to 8 million gallons of water per well and produces salt-laden, toxic wastewater that our water treatment plants are not equipped to handle.

Unless the DEC’s Water Division gets more staff and resources -- highly unlikely, given the state's current budgetary woes -- it will be unable to effectively oversee the safe handling and disposal of the by-products of hydrofracking.

By 2008, the DEC's capacity to test effluent samples had fallen by 94% since 1990 due to staff shortages.  Seventy-two jobs have been cut at the DEC's Water Division since 1990, while the size of the state's job of protecting drinking water, fisheries and aquatic habitat has nearly doubled.

Over the past 2 years, the DEC has been downsized by a hiring freeze and retirement incentives.   By the end of the 2009-10 state fiscal year, the Water Division will have lost an additional 30 staffers.  And the state legislature's recently-enacted Deficit Reduction Plan will impose an across-the-board 11% cut to the DEC’s budget.

The DEC is supposed to protect water quality by setting dam safety standards, regulating water pollution from factories and sewage plants and controlling storm water runoff from construction sites and factory farms.  But currently, it has only 9 employees to oversee the safety of 5,663 dams.

Staff shortages have caused the state to fall short of federal requirements for overseeing water pollution. The Clean Water Act tasks the state, through the State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program, with protecting its water from industrial polluters, sewage treatment plants and runoff. But, due to a shortage of staff and resources, the state's permitting process has allowed more than 1,000 polluters to bypass their federally-mandated 5-year permit reviews for more than 10 years.  Some permits have not been reviewed in more than 20 years.

If the state now lacks the staff to inspect industrial, municipal, construction and farm water discharges, it will certainly fail to meet the challenges that hydrofracking poses to New York's waters.

In order for the state to adequately monitor and protect its waters from new sources of contamination caused by hydrofracking for natural gas, it will need to allocate additional resources to the DEC and the critical task of environmental protection. 

Defending Drinking Water  is the third in a series of briefs that takes a detailed look at DEC operations, appropriations and staff levels.

Click here to read more, and listen here.

Comment Period Ends.  On December 31^st, the public comment period on draft regulations for what may be New York State's  greatest environmental threat in decades—natural gas drilling in the Southern Tier and the Catskills—will close. Send your comments to Governor Paterson and Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis. Click here to read the draft guide.

An earlier post on this blog contains the contact information for Pete Grannis.

More from Pete Mantius at Odessa Files Marcellus Watch.

More from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

More from NY1.

 

Adelphi's Troubles

One hundred and forty-six-year-old private school Adelphi Academy, at 8515 Ridge Boulevard in Bay Ridge, is besieged by red ink and bad press.

In June, 2008, the Daily News reported that Adelphi had been battling foreclosure since March, and was facing the loss of its real estate to rival Bay Ridge Prep.

Ten-year-old Bay Ridge Prep, founded by an Adelphi splinter faction, denied that it had any interest in taking over the Adelphi campus.

Adelphi, according to its mortgage lender, defaulted on a $5.2 million mortgage in May, 2007 by allowing its reserve balance to drop below the level required to guarantee the loan, a fact the school disputes.

Adelphi has continued to operate despite the foreclosure threat.

Adelphi's financial problems were first disclosed in 2005 when a former dean reported that he had been fired to cover up the financial misdeeds of Albert Corhan, the son of a long-time board member who was hired as director in 1999 -- despite a prior drug conviction and the lack of a college degree.

Corhan's sister, Suzanne, who is chief of the Major Narcotics Investigations Bureau under Brooklyn District Attorney Charlie Hynes, has also served on the board.

Adelphi ended 2006 $2.1 million in debt.

Fast-forwarding to November 12, 2009, Adelphi lawyer Keith Gutstein sent a letter to John Malloy, webmaster of local message board Bay Ridge Talk, directing Malloy to remove every message thread that mentioned Adelphi, including much-read posts criticizing everything about the school from the quality of its teachers to the state of its finances.

According to Gutstein, the posts were riddled with "misleading, false [and] defamatory claims" and the threads were damaging to both the "finances and reputation" of Adelphi.

Malloy, to avoid a legal showdown, took down all of the posts, including an angry thread containing 500 messages.

A Daily News article on Sunday, December 13, ostensibly about Michael Liquori, a disabled 11-year-old Staten Island boy expelled from Adelphi in September, charged that the boy's expulsion was in retaliation for his parents having cooperated in a state investigation of the school.

School administrators countered that Michael was expelled because his parents, Sebastian Bongiovanni and Danielle Liquori, hadn't paid their tuition bills for the past 3 years.  But the parents said the school hadn't contacted the family about the unpaid bills, and that, in past years, they had been allowed to work out a payment plan.

Bongiovanni said his problems with Adelphi began in the spring of 2008, when he and his wife were appointed to the school's board of trustees during an investigation into charges that director Albert Corhan had mismanaged the school's finances, among other improprieties.

In February, 2008, according to the Daily News, the state Department of Education and the office of the Attorney General threatened to revoke the school's charter unless Corhan and his family were removed.

Bongiovanni and Liquori said that in July, 2008, just as the school's board was ready to approve a hefty severance package for Corhan, school officials brought on 4 new board members who were Corhan allies, after which the board voted to kick the couple off and keep Corhan -- who is still there.

Corhan has disputed all of the couple's allegations -- even denying that they were ever members of the Adelphi board.

But according to correspondence from the school's attorney and an interview with longtime former board member Artie Maresca, who left in 2008, the couple was on the board.

On Wednesday, December 16, the Daily News reported that, according to court records, 30-year-old Ernest Cappello was appointed to Adelphi's board of trustees while facing assault charges stemming from an attack, in April, 2008, on 73-year-old Maris Veyberman of Midwood.

Cappello told cops he punched Veyberman in the face because he thought Veyberman had groped his girlfriend.

Cappello pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to anger management.  Too late for Veyberman, who was knocked unconscious in the attack and died a week later.

It is unclear whether Cappello remains on the board, but he was apparently its treasurer in May of this year.

The school's administration has refused to provide the Daily News with the names of the current members of the board of trustees or to comment on Cappello.

AY Bond Protest at S and P

Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn reports that a protest and press conference will be held at noon on Monday, December 14 to highlight the "fraudulent bond ratings" issued by Standard and Poor's and Moody's for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards, at Standard and Poor's, 55 Water Street in Downtown Manhattan.

According to DDDB, the tax-exempt bonds were rated a notch above junk without "normal due diligence" and create enormous risks for the state, taxpayers and investors.

Organizers are calling on the state attorney general and state comptroller to investigate the process by which the bonds were rated and marketed.

More from Queens Crap.

Stranded

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports that, based on complaints relayed by the Arab-American Association and a resulting investigation by the Brooklyn DA, travel agent Fatma Aly, of Fatma Travel, 480 73rd Street in Bay Ridge, is facing a possible 7 years in jail.

According to the indictment, Aly defrauded her clients of about $14,000 in cash for airline tickets she never bought. Her clients would find out when they got to the airport that they had no tickets, or find out at their destination that they had no return tickets.

Aly blames it on her husband.

The investigation is ongoing.

The article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

What's up with 911?

The City Council held a hearing this week to find out why the Bloomberg administration and the city's unionized firefighters have locked horns over the city's new 911 system.

The system, called "unified call-taking", is supposed to streamline the dispatch process, but union spokesmen say it sometimes gives firefighters incomplete and inaccurate information.

The Bloomberg adminstration counters that the new system has lowered response times, a fact which, according to Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, is "unassailable".

A union official called faster response times a "snow job".

When you reported a fire under the old  911 system, you got a Police Department operator, who transferred you a Fire Department dispatcher, who questioned you before dispatching firefighters. The new 911 system eliminates the Fire Department dispatcher.  The 911 operator answers the call, collects the information and dispatches firefighters.

In several instances, 911 operators have sent firefighters to the wrong address.  City officials said that could have happened under the old system, and that it is faster and more efficient to have only one operator.

Some city council members questioned whether 911 operators, who are not trained as fire department dispatchers, might take longer to get the necessary information.

Union officials challenged the way the city calculates response times, saying that, before the new system, response times included the period when the caller was on the phone to the fire dispatcher. Under the new system, the statistics have been "sculpted" to exclude the the time the 911 operator spends questioning the caller about the fire.

A Fire Department spokesman countered that there was too much duplication of effort under the old system.

The article from the New York Times. 

Lost Landmarks

Lost City has compiled a list of New York City landmarks lost in 2009, noting that, had the recession not interrupted the Bloomberg-Burden-DOB development juggernaut, the list would have been longer.

Trunzo Brothers Meat Market and Salumeria in Bensonhurst, which closed after a 33-year run and has now been replaced by a 99-cent store, is on the list.

Not yet lost, but critically endangered, are Coney Island icon Nathan's Famous, which has not been landmarked, and the Brooklyn-side view of the Brooklyn Bridge, soon to be blotted out by a 17-story residential tower in DUMBO.

The complete list, from Lost City.

Hipster Bikers Dog Bloomberg to Copenhagen

Via Gothamist, Williamsburg cycling advocates have taken the Bedford Avenue bike lane removal controversy to Copenhagen, where they will be waiting for Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he arrives at the international climate change conference there next week.

Baruch Herzfeld, the unofficial spokesperson for the cyclists, told Gothamist Bloomberg was a "hypocrite" to pose as a "green mayor", and that the bike lane removal was a political favor to the local Hasidic rabbis, with no community input.

The cyclists who repainted the Bedford Avenue bike lane in South Williamsburg last weekend have been charged with criminal mischief.

The article from Gothamist.

Paterson to Withhold Payments

In a speech to a Wall Street audience this week, Governor David Paterson said that he would delay payments to localities and schools funded under the current  budget  in order to keep the state from ending this month in the red, even if he gets sued for it  -- as in fact he has.

The state's main operating fund will have a negative balance of $1 billion by December 31, even if the state exhausts its  $1.5 billion in cash reserves and delays a $1 billion payment to the state pension fund.

State Sen. Eric Schneiderman, (D-Manhattan), said it would be "unconstitutional" for Paterson to unilaterally withhold the payments rather than look to the state legislature for budget concessions.

But the legislature's $2.7 billion deficit reduction package fell short of the $3.2 billion Paterson said is needed to balance the budget by the end of the fiscal year -- and cannot produce the savings Paterson is looking for in the short haul.

Among the unfunded items: $2.5 billion in property tax rebates, $1.6 billion to schools, $800 million to transit authorities, $500 million to nonprofit service providers and $500 million to local governments.

State legislators are hoping that Wall Street bonuses in January will yield income taxes that will pump up the state's cash flow.

The article from Crain's New York. 

Bloomberg Vetos Parking Grace Period

In a move that will resonate in parking-hungry Bay Ridge, Mayor Michael Bloomberg did what he called "what's right" this week by vetoing a bill that would give drivers a 5-minute enforcement grace period after meters or alternate-side parking expire.

Bloomberg said the grace period would make enforcement more contentious.

But the City Council, which passed the bill by a 47-2 vote last month, is expected to easily override the Mayor's veto on Dec. 21.

The grace period would apply to Muni-Meters but not coin meters.

Many Bay Ridge residents see overzealous parking enforcement as part of a push by the city to squeeze revenues from all available sources to plug a budget deficit.

The article from the New York Times.

The veto is overridden and the grace period goes into effect [Vincent Gentile's Blog.]

Landmark Controversy in Carroll Gardens

In a controversy that echoes the fight to save the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church, preservationists seeking to expand the tiny, two-block-long Carroll Gardens Landmark District have encountered strong opposition from local property and business owners who see their private property rights trumping the city's regulatory powers.

The fight pits long-time Carroll Gardens residents, many of them Italian, who assert their right to do whatever they want with their property, against relative newcomers who seek the advantages of landmarking.

Opponents of landmarking say it costs too much to comply with the Landmarks Preservation Commission's guidelines for replacing windows, staircases and front gates.  Advocates say landmarking is the best way to preserve property values in their brownstone neighborhood.

The preservation debate is part of a bigger argument about over-development in Carroll Gardens. Zoning regulations adopted in October cap new construction at 5 stories on most blocks in the neighborhood, but preservation advocates say that new zoning alone won't thwart unsightly modifications.  Opponents say the costs of landmarking will only drive out more of Carroll Gardens' old blue-collar Italian families.

Census data confirm that the Italian population of Carroll Gardens has dropped by nearly 16% since 1990.

The article from the New York Daily News.