Have You Heard About The Mayor’s Five Borough Economic Plan?

You know, the one you keep getting phone calls about? It’s even got a 450-foot-long pedestrian bridge:

“For decades, residents of the South Bronx have sought rail service to increase their transportation options and limit the number of people who drive to Yankee’s games,” said Bloomberg. “Today, it has finally arrived. The new Yankee-E. 153rd Street MTA Metro-North Railroad station is the first railroad station open anywhere in the Bronx in decades.”

The new addition to the Hudson Line, a $ 91 million dollar project, began service to the public on Saturday, May 23, and will remain in operation 365 days a year.

A 450-foot-long, 25-foot-wide bridge will connect Bronxites and visitors to the new Yankee Stadium and parks currently under construction along the waterfront, being built as part of the City’s Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan.

The Tax May Not Be In The Bag

The big bold plastic bag tax (the one whose yearly windfall inexplicably jumped from $16 million in early discussions to somewhere around $100 million) seems to be blowing in the wind like something out of Alan Ball’s head*:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has decreed the nickel-a-bag proposal “is off the table,” according to City Council sources.

Aides to Quinn privately confirmed the development, which could add to the mayor’s woes of filling a $1 billion revenue gap in the new budget due July 1.

“We’re not going to go negotiate a budget here,” the mayor said when asked about the development.

“And Christine Quinn is certainly pro-environmental. I think that happens to be an environmental thing as well as a revenue-raising thing.”

The mayor warned the budget will have to be balanced, either through “fees and taxes, which nobody likes, or you reduce your expenses, which means less services, which nobody likes.”

*And if Bloomberg has his way, such scenes may be lost forever.

That’s How You Play The Library Card

Find a 9 year-old, hope her penmanship is halfway legible and leak it to the press:

A 9-year-old Canarsie girl has penned an impassioned plea to Mayor Bloomberg to save the Brooklyn Public Library as the latest round of budget cuts threatens to reduce service to just 25 hours a week — the lowest level since the city’s fiscal crisis in the 1970s.

The mayor’s budget would slash the Brooklyn Public Library’s budget by $17.5 million — or 21% — and give borough residents the fewest library hours in the city.

. . .

“I thought I should probably write a letter to the mayor. It’s not good that he should be doing this,” she told the Daily News.

. . .

“If the library closes, where are we supposed to go?” she wrote in her two-page letter to Bloomberg.

“The only thing we will have to do is go home. And home is not as fun as the library. Home doesn’t have games, programs and books everywhere.

“Please keep my library open is all I say. Please keep it open everyday,” she went on. “If the library closes it will be all your fault.”

Dis-Graceful

Which is more “disgraceful” — a mayor that suspends term limits, spends $18 million before Memorial Day* and thus knocks out a major contender or a reporter who is doing his job by asking a simple question about what the mayor’s rationale for running again is given that the economy has apparently “turned a corner”?

*Point of comparison: By October 1997, Mayor Giuliani had only spent $9 million, way back in the days when billionaires didn’t spend their way into office**.

**And what has this rugged independence gotten us? A whole lot of lawn chairs. Keep tweaking him, Azi.

The Axis Of Evil Has Zeroed In On Carroll Park

A cabal consisting of the City and Mister Softee is conspiring to obesify our children. Parents are defenseless against the large sums of money flying around:

As Mayor Bloomberg takes on trans fat and calorie-laden fast food, some Brooklyn parents are outraged the city rakes in thousands of dollars a year from ice cream trucks parking right next to playgrounds and schools.

“It’s very frustrating that they’re here every day,” said Carroll Gardens mom Meryl Allison, who picks up her son Ben at Public School 58 and has to take him past a Mister Softee truck to go to Carroll Park across the street. “You’re a trapped audience. It’s hard to say no to your kids.”

The Parks Department auctioned off the prime Carroll Park spot on Carroll St. — between the entrance to the playground and PS 58 — for $6,500 a year.