Hizzoner The Beast Starver

On the one hand, they just announced another chintzy $400 rebate ($250 million a year) while on the other they want to implement draconian-sounding “hiring freezes”:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, responding to shrinking revenues from a cooling economy, imposed a hiring freeze for all agencies yesterday and directed commissioners to devise spending reductions of 2.5 percent this fiscal year and 5 percent in the next.

It is the first time officials have resorted to a citywide plan to make cuts since October 2002, when the budget was still reeling from the aftershocks of the Sept. 11 terror attack. Since then, the city’s superheated real estate market and fat payouts on Wall Street have led to surpluses, including a record $4.4 billion in the last fiscal year, which allowed the mayor to increase spending and services while cutting taxes and offering rebates.

. . .

Commissioners are to submit their plans for budget cuts by Nov. 19, and will not be permitted to fill any positions other than those directly related to public health or safety at least until the mayor decides which cuts to make. If they find they have additional expenses, Mr. Page wrote in bold type, “you should reprioritize your existing budget.”

Although the reductions would yield an estimated $500 million for this year and $1 billion for the next, Mr. Page wrote that the numbers were targets and did not mean that final decisions had been made about how much each particular agency would need to cut.

Part Twelve Of Why Bloomberg Really Won’t Be Running For President . . .

“A hurricane is much more likely than something, a terrible tragedy like 9/11” will come in handy for the Clinton campaign should Bloomberg run for President, which is not to say that tapping into everyone’s deepest fears about Manhattan hurricanes is not a smart move:

A set of booklets designed to prepare the city’s students for a range of natural and manmade disasters is missing one obvious crisis scenario: a terrorist attack.

The Bloomberg administration is distributing 1.3 million children’s safety guides that make no mention of the attacks of September 11, 2001, or the possibility of a future terrorist attack. The city has produced a booklet for elementary school students and another for middle school and high school students.

The city’s guide for older students depicts a range of troubles on its cover, including a heat wave, power outage, hurricane, flood, fire, and explosion. “These Things Happen Here, Too,” it says. “New York, It’s Time To Get Ready.”

. . .

Speaking at P.S. 29 in Brooklyn yesterday to announce the new emergency preparedness campaign, Mayor Bloomberg said the city’s Office of Emergency Management, which worked to put out the booklets, should be preparing New Yorkers “for those things that are most likely.”

Referring to the photographs of six disaster scenarios on the pamphlet cover, Mr. Bloomberg said that all the situations are so likely that nearly all of them have happened during his time in office.

“A hurricane is much more likely than something, a terrible tragedy like 9/11,” he said. “When it really gets to be that scale, what you can count on is a bunch of dedicated people who have been training all the time, but you can’t plan for something like that.”

In case you were wondering, the last hurricane to hit the city was in 1938, and is generally considered to be a once-every-75-years occurrence, which isn’t to say that it’s not scary, just that Hizzoner is ridiculously (purposely?) tone deaf (hope that works out for you, Sheekey!).

That’s Not What The Captain Meant When He Said To “Look Busy”

Something that only seems to occur in the sticks with psychotic underemployed part-timers is happening here:

Two firefighters were arraigned yesterday on arson and reckless endangerment charges for allegedly torching a Hell’s Kitchen firehouse over the weekend.

Michael Izzo, 30, of Staten Island, and Richard Capece, 31, of Brooklyn, were arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on felony charges of second- and third-degree arson and reckless endangerment. Judge Abraham Clott set bail for both men at $20,000 cash or $30,000 bond and ordered them to return to court on Friday.

According to a criminal complaint, a surveillance camera captured Izzo and Capece buying a gallon of gasoline and a cigarette lighter at a gas station on 38th Street and Tenth Avenue, about two blocks from Engine 34/Ladder 21. Capece allegedly paid for the merchandise with his MasterCard debit card and then accompanied Izzo in a 2001 black Chevrolet Suburban to the firehouse at 440 W. 38th St., where its main door was doused with gasoline and set ablaze at 2:30 a.m. Saturday. No one was injured in the fire, which was quickly extinguished by five firefighters at the firehouse.

It’s Not Unpatriotic To Ask If This Is Even Worth It . . .

Because you know the (not $1 billion but $500 million) World Trade Center Sept. 11 memorial costs way to much money when the foundation funding it becomes one of the nation’s top nonprofits:

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has joined the annual honor roll of American nonprofits that received the most private support last year.

The organization, which raised $115 million in 2006, ranked no. 158 on a list of 400 entities compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The list is published in the Chronicle’s November 1 issue.

At the top of the list was United Way of America in Alexandria, Va., with $4.1 billion raised. No. 400 was the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in the midst of a $200 million capital campaign, with $42 million raised.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which began operations in May 2005, in 2006 reported donations totaling $115 million. By June 1 of this year, it had raised $300 million of its $350 million goal for the building of a memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site. The fund-raising feat is impressive, as the foundation’s president quit in May 2006 after criticism for rising costs and delays. Mayor Bloomberg then stepped in as chairman of the foundation.

“It is a big deal that it raised enough money to get on the list,” the editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stacy Palmer, said of the new entrant from New York. “They put a lot of effort into bringing in a lot of very big gifts and saying, ‘We need to go ahead and move forward on this.'”

By way of contrast, the Staten Island Postcards memorial, a very nice memorial, only cost $2 million.

No, I Think The Birds Know What’s Up

It’s the Metropolitan Diary editors who are a few weeks early. And the city’s haiku writers are jumping the gun:

This Daylight Saving

This hour gained, but empty, hushed

No one told the birds