Tell me why — again — people think it’s OK to have dogs in apartments, because I really don’t get it:
The Marders had Nestlé’s vocal cords cut by a veterinary surgeon after a neighbor in the family’s apartment building on the Upper East Side threatened to complain to the co-op board about the noisy dog.
New York’s Bravest seem to spend a lot of time cleaning up insurance scams:
From the time he purchased the American Diner in 2006 to the moment his Norwood-area restaurant went up in smoke six weeks ago, Mohammed Quadir tried everything to keep his business afloat. He changed the name, focused on cleanliness, tweaked the menu and introduced new specials and discounts. He even hosted play readings and a gothic-style wedding.
He often solicited his customers’ advice, looking for any way to bring back the crowds that once packed the East 204th Street diner, a popular neighborhood gathering spot since it was the Chariot Diner under different owners in the 1990s.
Nothing seemed to work.
This winter, according to city fire marshals and the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, in a final attempt to recoup something from his flailing business venture, Quadir hired a man to set fire to the American Diner — a fire that destroyed not only the restaurant but also the sole neighborhood supermarket and a dentist’s office — and then filed a hefty insurance claim.
They smell a “rat” down in the subway tunnels:
Subway worker Juan de los Santos suffered a broken nose, broken teeth and a gash that needed eight stitches when he slammed into the tracks at the Wilson Ave. station on the L line early Wednesday, he told the Daily News.
. . .
De los Santos said word spread among track workers that he was a whistleblower.
“No matter where I go, always someone says, ‘This is the guy. This is the rat,’ ” de los Santos said. “All the time, I have felt threatened.”
Michael Terry, 40, said he invited three neighborhood drug dealers to his Belmont Ave. apartment to smoke pot, drink beer and watch the Giants beat the Patriots on Feb. 3, 2008.
The Giants won, the four toasted the victory, and his guests refused to leave. They stayed for three days and began selling drugs out of his living room, Terry told a Bronx Supreme Court jury.
What was once a perfectly good closed circuit feed of boring city council meetings somehow turned into a flashy taxpayer-supported media empire and now it’s all coming down . . . more Bloomberg legacy:
In fact, city investigators only tumbled to Scotland’s thefts after they launched an inquiry last year into complaints by employees at NYC-TV. The wide-ranging gripes included charges that Wierson and other top officials were often absent and appeared to be using city staff and resources for their own private projects.
The results of that inquiry were assembled in a memo that was presented to City Hall shortly before Scotland’s arrest. Since then, in addition to Wierson, at least four other high-ranking aides at the network have also quietly resigned. Asked last week if they’d been fired, a City Hall spokesperson declined comment.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the money and drugs appeared to have been what the robbers were after when they burst into Special Moments Daycare in East Flatbush on Friday afternoon — while a dozen or so children were napping.
Three men were arrested at the scene, including a suspect who was shot by the police.
“It now appears the day care center was a drug haven, or where drugs in significant quantities were kept, primarily marijuana,” Mr. Kelly said . . .
. . . er, or productivity goals — is to ticket a dead man’s car, maybe even with him in it:
The daughter of a man whose badly decomposed body was found inside a minivan said Thursday traffic cops should have noticed her father over the several weeks they covered the vehicle in parking tickets.
“He was my only family,” said Jennifer Morales, 29, about her father, whom she believes died from a heart attack while sitting in the family’s 2000 Chevrolet Ventura in Queens.
“The window was cracked open. I don’t understand how no one noticed him. They just gave him tickets,” she told the Daily News last night.
And in a time when there is much confusion about what’s real and what’s not you can’t be too sure what you’re seeing:
A movie chase scene got too realistic early today when a car jumped a curb during a film shoot and smashed into the entrance of a Times Square restaurant, injuring two people, police and witnesses said.
The action scene gone awry unfolded at the Sbarro at 47th Street and Seventh Avenue shortly before 1 a.m.
Street closing notices posted by the police indicated the shoot was for the Nicholas Cage film, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
. . .
Mark Watkins, a tourist from Birmingham, England, watched the live action chase from the top of the new TKTS booth.
“A black Ferrari and a silver Mercedes were chasing each other,” he said.
“The Ferrari took a route down the center of the road, swerving between cars. The Mercedes took the outside lanes.
“The Ferrari took a sharp right to the left and lost it, swerving across the lanes, taking out a lamppost and a news stand.
“One lady was knocked to the ground and a lamppost landed directly on top of a chap.”
Horrifying video at link.
But in the end, threatening to torture your landlord can only get you so far:
Manhattan prosecutors described yesterday how two Greenwich Village restaurateurs allegedly set the stage for extortion this past January — kidnapping their landlord’s agent, taking him to a nearby apartment, and showing him some hardware decidedly not meant for a home-improvement project, they said.
The unidentified victim took one look at the tarp and the wicker chair on it — alongside a table full of sinister-seeming tools — and agreed to forgive $250,000 in back rent, prosecutors said.
“They showed him a chair, placed on top of a tarp with a table holding pliers, a hammer, a screwdriver, and a candle,” said prosecutor James Meadows. “A burning candle.”
It hadn’t helped that one of the suspects, Vasileios Giamagas, 35, bragged he was a former mercenary and an accomplished killer who’d slain his own brother.
“He told the managing agent that he was in the Chechen army and had blown up a building with more than 80 people in it,” said Eric Seidel, chief of the DA’s rackets bureau.
Giamagas, an illegal alien from Greece, and co-defendant Ekkehart Schwartz, a 70-year-old German architect here on a green card, had fallen behind on their rent at their never-opened bar and nightclub, Restaulounge-Bar De’Vill, at 68 W. 3rd St.
I thought stuff like this only happened in Philly:
A convicted child molester was found naked and bleeding behind a Brooklyn building — a victim of sexual self-mutilation, police sources said.
“How he did it? Limber, I guess. Not the work of a sane mind,” a police source said.
Sources said that Damiene Iriarte, 26, was found in Fort Greene with the tip of his penis bitten off. He was taken to Brooklyn Hospital Center.
Iriarte was arrested in Suffolk County in 2003 and charged with raping a 13-year-old girl, according to court records.
Mayor Bloomberg wants $45 million to retrain employees who are probably the least likely to trust government job training programs:
Just as Michigan is scrambling to retrain laid-off auto workers, New York City officials have come up with a plan to find new work for the unemployed from one of its core industries: financial services.
Under a program unveiled on Wednesday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the city wants to invest $45 million in government money to retrain investment bankers, traders and others who have lost jobs on Wall Street, as well as provide seed capital and office space for new businesses those laid-off bankers might create.
The plan is intended to stem a potential exodus of banking professionals from the city during the restructuring of the financial services industry, which has been the city’s economic engine for decades, and to speed the industry’s recovery, which will take at least several years, officials said.
. . .
The mayor announced the 11-part program at a building at 160 Varick Street that will house an incubator for start-up companies that might employ laid-off professionals. Trinity Real Estate donated the space for three years and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University will select the entrepreneurs who will occupy the space, beginning in April. A second business incubator is scheduled to open in Lower Manhattan later in the year, said Seth W. Pinsky, the president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
The agency plans to put $3 million into funds to make small investments in start-up companies, Mr. Pinsky said. He said that he hoped to attract twice as much money from private investors and that $9 million would be enough to help start hundreds of new businesses.
All told, city officials plan to spend about $15 million on the program, in addition to the $30 million of federal money. They estimate that over 10 years, it could stimulate the creation of at least 25,000 jobs and contribute $750 million to the local economy, but Mr. Bloomberg referred to those projections as a “guess.”
*And think of how many housing project roofs or elevators that could be fixed with $45 million . . .
Richard Meier’s new glass-facade building next to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is killing birds midflight:
“An all-glass building adjacent to the park is a deathtrap for birds,” said Glenn Phillips, executive director of NYC Audubon.
“The design is a set-up. It’s putting huge, uninterrupted, solid panes of glass adjacent to a landscape, and that’s a recipe for disaster.”
The delivery van driver who left his vehicle in gear while double parked on East Broadway has not been charged in an accident that killed two small children:
Chao Fu, 52, was driving the van for the China Chalet restaurant and catering service and double-parked the vehicle on the east side of E. Broadway near Catherine St., police said.
Fu thought the van was in park when he stepped out to make a delivery, he told cops, but it was actually in reverse and began to creep backwards on the busy street lined with shops and restaurants, police said.
The children, gathered on the sidewalk with two chaperones outside the Chatham Square branch of the New York Public Library, were about to walk back to the nearby Red Apple Day Care on Market St.
They were lined up against the wall, their arms linked, when the 9,400-pound van hit them, surveillance video shows.
Fu, who had a clean driving record and valid license, was not charged, police said.
. . . but they bring down large aircraft as well:
Boats are converging on a USAirways plane that is mostly submerged in the Hudson River off the West 50’s of Manhattan.
According to Channel 4 television news, the plane, USAirways flight 1549, took off from LaGuardia Airport at 3:26 p.m. was bound for Charlotte, N.C. and had 146 passengers and 5 crew members. The plane, according to the news report, may have hit a flock of birds. The pilot tried to return to the airport when the plane fell into the Hudson.
Television reports show several boats around where the plane, an Airbus A320, was in the water. New York Police Department divers dove into the water to assist with the rescue as plane floated southbound on the river, possibly due to the tidal direction.
Seriously — this is a recurring problem . . . let’s shoot them.
Actual blood, and not figurative blood:
Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, a founder of the hedge fund Access International Advisors, was found dead Tuesday in his office in Manhattan. His fund reportedly lost as much as $1.4 billion that had been invested with Bernard L. Madoff, the money manager accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Mr. de la Villehuchet, 65, was pronounced dead Tuesday morning, and a New York City Police spokesman, Paul Browne, told DealBook that he had apparently committed suicide. He was found with wounds to his arms, with one leg propped up on the desk and a trash can nearby to catch blood.
. . . because everyone on that street knows they only take them on Thursdays:
Police were searching for a killer Monday night after making a shocking find in the Bronx.
A building superintendent found a body stuffed in a plastic bag. He had been stabbed to death. It appears he was put out with the garbage.
And “think of all the fellows I haven’t kissed” just doesn’t cut it this time, mister:
For decades of Christmases, it had been a gratifying way to function as a substitute Santa Claus. Every holiday season, thousands of New Yorkers trooped to Manhattan’s main post office and sifted through heaps of dream-encased letters that children had scribbled to the big guy at the North Pole. They picked out the ones that tickled the heart and responded with gifts for otherwise empty stockings.
Then came Thursday.
Gift-giving souls who reported to Operation Santa Claus at the post office on Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street, looking for the familiar cardboard boxes bursting with letters, were instead greeted with no boxes, no letters and no explanation.
The United States Postal Service abruptly shut down public participation in all the Operation Santa programs — in New York and other major cities across the country — at 1 p.m. Wednesday, without offering post offices or letter-seeking citizens any understanding of why.
A Postal Service official in Washington, after an initial, limited acknowledgment of a “privacy breach,” said that at one of the programs, not New York’s, a man whom a letter carrier recognized as a registered sex offender had “adopted” a letter. When postal officials confronted the man, the official said, he said he was sincerely trying to do a good deed, but postal inspectors nonetheless retrieved the letter and notified the family of the child.
The Postal Service, indicating that the closing down of all of Operation Santa might be temporary, said that it felt it was wise to take the precaution.
A New York City patrolman used his baton to sodomize a man in a subway station, and two complicit colleagues helped him cover it up, the Brooklyn district attorney charged on Tuesday as he unsealed indictments against three police officers.
Using graphic detail, the district attorney described an attack that he said left the man, Michael Mineo, with a gashed anus and blood on his hands.
If there are rats and roaches on city buses, does that mean there are other things to worry about as well? It’s concerning:
Some Brooklyn buses are roach coaches with creepy crawlies joining riders — and one driver had a run-in with a rat.
Drivers and riders said they’re bugged out about conditions on the big rigs pulling out of the East New York depot and urged NYC Transit, which is planning a fare hike next summer, to do something.
“It would bother anyone,” one driver said.
A B45 driver said she had a rodent encounter on her bus Nov. 12 at Livingston and Court Sts. in downtown Brooklyn.
She said she had completed a run and was about to turn around and start picking up passengers in the opposite direction when the cat-sized vermin charged.
“He came from the back of the bus and ran straight at me,” the driver said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I got out of there as fast as I could. He got so close I’m still jumpy about it.”
The roaches are much more prevalent and just as bold, drivers and riders said.
“It’s not uncommon to see roaches on the buses,” another driver said. “It seems like they’re attracted to the warmth of the engine. I’ve had them crawl on my shoes. It can freak you out.”
. . . first must gin up the numbers to make his case. Suggested protest placard — “Bloomberg Lied, Democracy Died”:
On Oct. 21, two days before the City Council voted by a thin margin to allow Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek a third term, the mayor sounded an alarm on the city’s economy.
New York City’s annual budget deficit, he said, would swell by $500 million during the current fiscal year because of weakening tax revenues.
At the time, the worsening picture seemed to strengthen his central argument for changing term limits — a vulnerable city needed his steady hand and business background for four more years.
But some of those inside and outside the administration say that Mr. Bloomberg’s remarks were inaccurate and may have painted a more dire financial situation than was warranted. Interviews with these people show that the city does not expect any budget deficit in the current fiscal year, which began July 1.
In fact, data that was provided to the city about the same time the mayor was speaking showed the city’s tax revenue grew at an unexpectedly brisk pace during July, August and September.
During that time, the city took in at least $200 million more than it had planned for, data and interviews show. Much of the unexpected revenue stemmed from sales, personal income and property transfer taxes.
Of course, the city could face deficits reaching into the billions in 2010 and beyond as a result of the global financial crisis, as layoffs mount, consumer spending falls and tourism slows.
But several economists said they were mystified by Mr. Bloomberg’s statement. Marcia Van Wagner, a deputy in the New York City comptroller’s office who focuses on budget issues, said that “it is extremely unlikely that the city would end the year in deficit.”
She said that tax revenue would certainly fall later this year, but that surplus funds now slated to be used in the 2010 fiscal year could offset any shortfall this year, “as can other reserves that are normally freed up during the year,” she said.
Ms. Van Wagner also noted that the mayor has already requested $500 million worth of spending cuts from city agencies this year, which could be used to close any budget gaps.
Asked why the mayor said the city faces a deficit this year, aides said that Mr. Bloomberg may have been referring instead to his expectation that revenues would be lower than the city forecast. But even if the mayor were referring to a potential falloff in this year’s tax receipts, the $500 million number is a greater decline than what many city officials and economists predict.
Mr. Bloomberg’s Oct. 21 remarks carried significant weight, and prompted articles in The Daily News and The New York Post about the city’s worsening economy.
Both articles reported that the city’s budget deficit would swell by $500 million, and mayoral aides never sought to correct those stories.
“I can tell you,” the mayor said, “that our deficit — we originally had ‘09 balanced. Now we’ve got a $500 million hole in it.”
Because obviously it’s easier to do that to handful of the 29 councilmembers who voted yes than actually make a case to the public:
Less than two weeks ago, City Councilwoman Darlene Mealy stood on the steps of City Hall, along with Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. and a group of ministers who opposed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to extend term limits.
In fact, it was that very day that Ms. Mealy, a Democrat who represents the Brownsville and Ocean Hill sections of Brooklyn, announced that she would vote against the bill.
“People are telling me that they like Bloomberg, but that we should not take the power away from the people, where it belongs,” said Ms. Mealy, speaking loudly at that press conference. We shouldn’t be held hostage by anyone. Imagine if President Bush said he wanted four more years.”
However, when her name was called to vote on Mr. Bloomberg’s bill in the City Council chamber on Thursday, Ms. Mealy votes yes, and with a decidedly more somber tone to her voice.
What could have transpired in such a short time to convert one of the strong voices of the opposition to a supporter the mayor’s bill?
Some of her colleagues have charged that Ms. Mealy was the subject of a high-pressure effort from either the speaker of the mayor. In fact one Council member reported seeing Ms. Mealy emerge from City Hall late last week in tears, saying that she was the subject of intense pressure.
“They put unbelievable pressure on her in a way that may have been unethical,” said City Councilman Charles Barron, who represents an adjoining district to Ms. Mealy in Brooklyn and who was a strong opponent of the mayor’s bill.
“She has said that she was under intense, intense pressure,” Mr. Barron said. “I think it merits some kind of investigation, to be quite honest.”
In an interview, Ms. Mealy was asked whether she had been threatened in any from either City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn or Mr. Bloomberg.
“I don’t want to discuss it,” she said.
. . .
Maria Alvarado, a spokeswoman for Ms. Quinn, repeated the speaker’s comments from a press conference early in the day, insisting that accusations of “horse-trading, arm twisting, anything of that nature, is just quite frankly false and untrue.”
Ms. Alverado said: “Council member Mealy made up her own mind, and said she believed in this.”
Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, said that Mr. Bloomberg never met with Ms. Mealy in the weeks leading up to the vote, nor had there been any meetings between the Councilwoman and any senior administration officials.
“The mayor has made his case to the Council and he did it appropriately,” Mr. Post said.
After a spirited, emotional and at times raucous debate, the New York City Council voted, 29 to 22, on Thursday afternoon to extend term limits, allowing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek re-election next year and undoing the result of two voter referendums that had imposed a limit of two four-year terms.
And now that you know, vote accordingly next November:
Roll Call, 4:35 p.m., on Introduction 845-A, to extend term limits for New York City elected officials to three terms from two.
29 yes, 22 no.
Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. of Queens, no; Maria del Carmen Arroyo of the Bronx, yes; Tony Avella of Queens, no; Maria Baez of the Bronx, yes; Charles Barron of Brooklyn, no; Gale A. Brewer of Manhattan, no; Anthony Como of Queens, no; Leroy G. Comrie Jr. of Queens, yes; Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn, no; Inez E. Dickens of Manhattan, yes; Erik Martin Dilan of Brooklyn, yes; Mathieu Eugene of Brooklyn, no; Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, yes; Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn, yes; Helen D. Foster of the Bronx, yes; Daniel R. Garodnick of Manhattan, no; James F. Gennaro of Queens, no; Vincent J. Gentile of Brooklyn, no; Alan J. Gerson of Manhattan, yes; Eric N. Gioia of Queens, no; Sara M. Gonzalez of Brooklyn, yes; Vincent M. Ignizio of Staten Island, no; Robert Jackson of Manhattan, yes; Letitia James of Brooklyn, no; Melinda R. Katz of Queens, yes; G. Oliver Koppell of the Bronx, yes; Jessica S. Lappin of Manhattan, no; John C. Liu of Queens, no; Melissa Mark-Viverito of Manhattan, no; Miguel Martinez of Manhattan, yes; Michael E. McMahon of Staten Island, no; Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, yes; Rosie Mendez of Manhattan, no; Hiram Monserrate of Queens, no; Michael C. Nelson of Brooklyn, yes; James S. Oddo of Staten Island, no; Annabel Palma of the Bronx, no; Christine C. Quinn of Manhattan; yes; Domenic M. Recchia Jr. of Brooklyn, yes; Diana Reyna of Brooklyn, yes; Joel Rivera of the Bronx, yes; James Sanders Jr. of Queens, yes; Larry B. Seabrook of the Bronx, yes; Helen Sears of Queens, yes; Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn, yes; James Vacca of the Bronx, yes; Peter F. Vallone, Jr. of Queens, yes; Albert Vann of Brooklyn, yes; David I. Weprin of Queens, no; Thomas White Jr. of Queens, yes; David Yassky of Brooklyn, yes.
Setting up a showdown over one of the most divisive issues in recent political memory, Speaker Christine C. Quinn announced Tuesday that the City Council would vote Thursday on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to revise the term limits law so he can pursue four more years in office.
Supporters of the change said the move reflected Mr. Bloomberg’s and Ms. Quinn’s confidence that they have gathered the 26 Council votes needed to pass the legislation.
There are also signs that public opinion is tilting against the change, and privately some allies of Ms. Quinn say she is anxious, if not desperate, to hold the vote before an advertising campaign opposing the change takes hold.
“If it’s not on Thursday, they’re in trouble,” said one council member who supports the bill, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to upset the mayor or the speaker.
. . . but crapping on park benches . . . now you’ve got my attention:
At Lindower Park in Mill Basin, the grass and the trees are being uprooted by the birds and the bees.
But underage sex is just the tip of the iceberg at this park, located on Strickland Avenue, Mill Road, and East 60th Street, according to those who are familiar with the situation.
Teens aged 13-17 have allegedly been congregating at all hours in groups of up to 30, drinking — and later, driving — smoking, and using drugs.
Used condoms are becoming a more routine sight, and some kids even defecate on the park benches, according to a person whose relative is among the youthful congregants.
One of the casualties of Michael Bloomberg’s move to run for a third term, it seems, is next year’s Democratic primary.
Yes, it’s still 11 months away, and the mayor has only just finished announcing his intention to overturn term limits, but the prospect of Mr. Bloomberg — and his billions of dollars — running again may have ended the contest before it even took shape.
Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Bloomberg ally who was the favorite of much of the city’s business establishment, reacted immediately by announcing that she would abandon a planned run if the mayor went for reelection.
City Comptroller Bill Thompson, the only minority candidate in the prospective Democratic field, says that he’s running, but doesn’t sound incredibly convincing. For now, his game plan consists entirely of trying to block the mayor from running by casting public doubt on the idea of changing term limits without a referendum.
. . .
“No one believes Thompson stays in,” said George Arzt, a Democratic consultant. (Mr. Arzt, a former City Hall bureau chief for the New York Post and aide to Mayor Ed Koch, said that he had “spoken with” more than one potential mayoral campaign, but that he won’t work for any of them against Mr. Bloomberg if the mayor runs.)
. . .
“People do believe that, at least initially, Weiner will be in there, but if he sees he’s going to get crushed that he would back out, rather than suffer two different losses in two different elections,” said Mr. Arzt, referring to Mr. Weiner’s run for mayor in 2005 in which he narrowly missed making a runoff against the eventual Democratic nominee, Fernando Ferrer.
Consultant Jerry Skurnik was more hopeful about the chances of having some sort of primary contest, but only slightly: “The odds are two of the three will run, and that we’ll have a primary,” said Mr. Skurnik, referring to Mr. Thompson, Mr. Weiner and Mr. Avella. “But it’s possible that we won’t have a primary — that only one of them will run. I don’t know.”
Of course, there’s one more scenario — perhaps the least appealing of all for the Democrats: that Bloomberg, instead of destroying their primary, joins it.
Mr. Arzt said that an employee in his consulting firm already received a call as part of a telephone survey asking whether the employee would support Mr. Bloomberg if he ran as a Democrat in next year’s primary.
Remnants of the Gambino crime family have been reduced to shaking down hot dog vendors:
Three men — two of them Gambino crime-family associates — have been charged with shaking down a Bronx hot-dog vendor and beating him, cops said yesterday.
The men — also suspected of torching his truck — allegedly demanded $200 a week in “protection” money from the vendor and attacked him when he refused to pay.
Reputed Gambino associates Robert “Bobby Fingers” Francella, 49, and Patrick Lombardo, 47, along with Gregory Monzeglio, 44, met with the victim several times in a restaurant.
When they couldn’t collect, they beat him with a hammer on Aug. 14, and assaulted him again on Sept. 8, cops said. The vendor suffered cuts and lacerations.
The truck, parked in a vacant lot near the restaurant, was burned on Sept. 28.
No, not this mayor. “The Mayor’s Dangerous Idea” was the title of a Times editorial in 2001 that argued against Giuliani’s idea to extend his term three months to deal with the aftermath of Sept. 11:
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani wants to extend his current term of office into 2002, postponing the inauguration of a new mayor for several months. This is a terrible idea. Neither New York City nor the nation has ever postponed the transfer of power because the public was convinced it could not get along without the current incumbent. The very concept goes against the most basic of American convictions, that we live in a nation governed by rule of law.
To suggest that the city would be incapable of getting along without Mr. Giuliani after the end of the year undermines New York’s sense of self-sufficiency and normality, which the mayor himself has worked so hard to restore. While Mr. Giuliani has been a great leader during this crisis, the truth is that no one is indispensable. George Washington understood that when he rejected repeated attempts to keep him in office indefinitely. Washington was followed in the presidency by a long line of successors, some of them distinctly mediocre. But the country went on, because people put their faith in the democratic process and not in the strength of any one individual.
Mr. Giuliani has asked his three possible successors to agree to postpone the next inauguration and let him stay on for a few more months to continue his work on the city’s recovery. He and his supporters are holding out the threat that if the mayor is not given his wish, they will mount an attempt to repeal the term limits law so he can run for re-election in November. They argue that he needs just a few extra months to finish the most critical work in the wake of an enormous disaster. But one critical task after another is going to crop up for the foreseeable future. And history suggests that the worst time to change the election rules is right before an election, in a time of crisis.
. . .
Mr. Giuliani already has the ability to make sure the transfer of power is smooth. The mayor should begin working immediately to bring his potential successors up to speed. When he leaves office Jan. 1, he should urge key members of his own administration to stay on to finish the work they are doing if his successor wishes them to stay. The best way for Mr. Giuliani to help New York City after Jan. 1 is not by retaining power but by giving it up in the most generous way possible.
All of which is interesting given the Times’ editorial this morning endorsing Bloomberg’s proposal to temporarily overturn term limits to allow himself and all members of the City Council a chance to run for a third term:
The bedrock of American democracy is the voters’ right to choose. Though well intentioned, New York City’s term limits law severely limits that right, which is why this page has opposed term limits from the outset. The law is particularly unappealing now because it is structured in a way that would deny New Yorkers — at a time when the city’s economy is under great stress — the right to decide for themselves whether an effective and popular mayor should stay in office.
Partly for this reason, and partly to extend their own political careers, a majority of City Council members are thinking about amending the city law to allow elected officials to serve three consecutive terms instead of two. That would permit Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run again in 2009 and could also prolong the service of council members and other senior elected officials. Mr. Bloomberg, who is expected to announce on Thursday that he will seek a third term if he can, likes the idea a lot.
We do, too. But we would go further and ask the Council to abolish term limits altogether — not to serve any individual’s political career but to serve the larger cause of democracy.
Which really is to say, we’re not serious about this at all. Think back to the large outpouring of support for Giuliani after Sept. 11 — “mayor for life” and all that. Does the Times editorial board really — no, seriously, really — think Bloomberg has more good will right now than Giuliani did after Sept. 11?
It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to legislatively rewrite a law that voters have twice approved at the ballot box — in 1993 and 1996. It makes us uncomfortable, too, and we previously took the position that any change should be left to the voters. But we have concluded now that changing the law legislatively does not make us nearly as uncomfortable as keeping it. It is within the rights of the Council, itself an elected body, to do so.
Term limits are seductive, promising relief from mediocre, self-perpetuating incumbents and gridlocked legislatures. They are also profoundly undemocratic, arbitrarily denying voters the ability to choose between good politicians and bad, especially in a city like New York with a strong public campaign-financing system, while automatically removing public servants of proven ability who are at a productive point in their careers.
But again — who exactly — exactly who — is agitating for a change? Is this something families discuss over dinner, expressing fear that their elected representative who is right in the middle of a productive point in his career won’t have had enough time to fulfill his legacy? Or is this coming from the people who would truly be affected by term limits, which is to say, the mayor and the City Council?
The City Council members who want to change the law are not alone. A survey in The Times last month found that at least two dozen local governments are suffering buyer’s remorse about the term limits they adopted, mostly in the 1990s. One common complaint is that they force politicians to focus on small-bore projects that can be achieved quickly rather than visionary ideas. The constant churning also diminishes accountability in governmental institutions like the City Council.
See, elected officials in governments everywhere are unhappy that they only have a limited time in office! As much as I’m excited to let council members explore visionary ideas, I have a feeling New York City will somehow survive.
Then there’s the up-is-down argument that this is actually more democratic:
Most places that are trying to relax term limits are likely to do so via the ballot box, with several referendums due in November. There is a chance that a vote on the issue could be organized early next year in New York in conjunction with special elections to the City Council. But such elections do not attract many voters. In the end, a vote by the Council is probably the most democratic way to address the matter.
And if you don’t like it, vote the bums out:
It is worth repeating: This is a rule that needs to be abolished. If the voters don’t like the result, they can register their views at the polls.
Good idea. It almost makes you want to hope that Bloomberg, despite the millions he will spend, will go down horribly next November.
Ultimately, you have to wonder who is so excited about a third Bloomberg term? The Times’ report clarifies:
With his decision, Mr. Bloomberg is overruling the advice of his top three assistants at City Hall — Deputy Mayors Edward Skyler, Patricia E. Harris and Kevin Sheekey –who have expressed opposition to a third term.
Those aides have told the mayor — at times forcefully — that any campaign to challenge the term-limits law would look like an end run around voters, and could sully his legacy as a reform-minded outsider. Others have told the mayor that they may not remain for a full third term.
In the business community, however, the idea of a Bloomberg third term is popular. At charity balls and on golf courses, executives like the financier Steven Rattner, the developer Jerry I. Speyer and the media mogul Rupert Murdoch have encouraged him to seek a third term.
Got that? Wall Street, a developer and Rupert Murdoch. Given what has happened this past month, do you really want to trust those guys?
It’s like that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode — what a day to die:
Henryk “Henry” Siwiak is the Sept. 11, 2001 murder victim few people know about — the only person not killed by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
A Polish immigrant trying to make his way in the big city, away from his wife and two children, Siwiak was gunned down in Bedford-Stuyvesant that night after getting lost on his way to a new job with a cleaning service for a Flatbush Pathmark.
Seven years later, the case remains unsolved. His family has suspected that Siwiak was mistaken for a militant Arab — he had olive skin and was wearing an military fatigue jacket — and was set upon by someone furious about the attacks.
“That rumor is out there,” says Det. Michael Prate, the 79th Precinct investigator who now has the case. “But there’s nothing there to support that. He wasn’t robbed of anything, but we think whoever did this was trying to rob him.”
. . .
The widow, who teaches elementary and high school biology, says her unique grief is oddly comforting, in that millions of others will also pause to remember on Sept. 11.
“In some kind of thinking,” she says, “it makes it easier.”
Boy, someone is sure sensitive about that whole Tibet thing:
Days without potable water, hours of interrogation, sleep deprivation, and the theft of more than $20,000 in cash and equipment are among the hardships two New Yorkers say they endured as prisoners of the Chinese government during the Beijing Olympics.
“They threatened our lives, threatened the lives of people we know, of our family members, and they told us that they could get us, even outside of China,” a 32-year-old artist from Williamsburg, James Powderly, said yesterday.
He and Thomas Grant, a 39-year-old videographer from the East Village, arrived in New York yesterday morning, having been deported from Beijing on Sunday — the day of the closing ceremonies for the 2008 Games.
. . .
Mr. Grant said he had been in Beijing to give independent journalists and artists technical assistance in getting their work past Chinese authorities. One such artist was Mr. Powderly, who said he was at the games to highlight human rights abuses through public art installations.
The two said they and four other Americans were apprehended outside a restaurant August 19, held for questioning, and then taken to a detention facility on the outskirts of Beijing.
“We were interrogated for periods of six to 10 hours a day in holding pens,” Mr. Grant recalled. “Two days into the detention, we were shown a piece of paper written in Chinese, which none of us could read, and told that we had a sentence of 10 days given to us for a violation of Chinese law. Vague as it was, that was all we were told.”
It’s that time of year again:
There’s no escaping the grime and nose-holding stench levels that city sidewalks generate in the summertime.
. . .
The city last month found that 95 percent of Brighton Beach sidewalks were clean, yet residents there say the stench of litter and rotten fruit from overflowing trash cans on Brighton Beach Avenue reaches gagging levels in the summer.
“The private garbage companies, you’ll see them squeeze the garbage and the juice comes out,” said Ned Hasanoff, whose family owns a fabric store on Brighton Beach Avenue. “I stepped in it once and my car smelled for weeks.”
