Court Finds That A Citizen’s Right To Criticize The Police Stops At “Go Fuck Yourself”

Telling a cop to go fuck him or herself is not necessarily protected free speech:

Screaming an anatomically impossible obscene suggestion at a police officer is against the law, a Manhattan judge has decided.

The quirky ruling, made public yesterday, concerns the case of Brooklynite Ramon Morena, who is charged with creating a public disturbance by shouting “Go f – – – yourself” at a cop in the Theater District in March.

Morena’s lawyer had tried to convince the judge that civilians enjoy a First Amendment right to criticize and verbally challenge police officers. The charges, he argued, should therefore be thrown out of court.

But Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Richard Weinberg didn’t buy it. If you’re disorderly, you’re disorderly, the judge wrote — and there is no “police officer exemption” to the rule.

Morena now faces up to 15 days jail if found guilty of disorderly conduct.

. . .

. . . [A]ny alleged screaming would be merely “a private annoyance” limited to the cop, the defense lawyer argued — and as such should have rolled off the officer’s back.

The judge countered, “To adopt defendant’s arguments would be to effectively carve out a police-officer exception from the disorderly conduct statute and to condone the heaping of verbal abuse upon a police officer regardless of the circumstances. This the court will not do.”

Clarke Wraps Up All-Important Murtha Endorsement

Your latest 11th Congressional District news . . . controversial Congressman Jack Murtha — who is on the right side of the Iraq War for a, er, primary in the 11th Congressional District but the wrong side of basically every other issue CD11 voters care about has endorsed (!) Yvette Clarke:

City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke (D-Flatbush), one of four Democratic hopefuls for the 11th congressional seat, announced a high-profile endorsement by Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha, trumpeting him as a leading figure against the war in Iraq.

But Clarke’s opponents quickly pointed to Murtha’s anti-abortion stance and opposition to gun control.

. . .

Murtha earned an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association in 2004 for his votes against gun control — while most city reps got an “F.”

Murtha also earned a 0 out of 5 on a 2005 scorecard by the pro-choice group NARAL, compared to the 5s given to most city politicians.

“We’ll take the support of [Attorney General] Eliot Spitzer, [former Mayor] David Dinkins and Brooklyn’s teachers over a pro-gun, anti-choice, out-of-state congressman any day,” said state Sen. Carl Andrews’ spokeswoman Melissa DeRosa, referring to Andrews’ own endorsements in the race.

Clarke defended Murtha’s endorsement and said her own views on social issues are more important than Murtha’s.

“The voters know where I stand, and they’ll be voting for me on [Sept. 12].”

Opposition research . . . complete!

Meanwhile, David Yassky works hard to distance himself from one of the more controversial developers in Brooklyn (outside that one guy , of course):

Meanwhile, City Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights) came under fire for nearly allowing controversial Brooklyn architect Robert Scarano to host a fund-raiser for him that was slated for last night.

The event, to be held at Scarano’s DUMBO offices, was abruptly canceled yesterday following calls by the Daily News.

. . .

A Yassky campaign spokesman would not discuss why the Scarano fund-raising event was canceled except to say, “The campaign didn’t think it was appropriate.”

Yassky has come under fire in the past for taking money from developers, while Scarano has sparked criticism in some neighborhoods for building condos that critics say are too big.

Scarano also was investigated by the Buildings Department for allegedly unsafe practices following worker injuries. He settled with the city last month and agreed to forfeit signing off on his own building plans.

Is it that hard to run a campaign, people? Come on!

I Don’t Know, I Just Started Here

After learning that in effect, taxpayers are paying the Yankees to lobby the city, more details emerge about how that happened. In short, basically everyone was new:

Henry Stern, who as Giuliani’s parks commissioner was the one to actually sign the Yanks and Mets lease extensions, says he “never heard any conversation relating to legal and lobbying costs,” though he quickly adds, “I didn’t handle negotiations.” But he’s not exactly surprised that things turned out as they did.

“I have found that very often, just in the course of business, when the city signs an agreement with another party, and city officials change and the private party remains the same, things don’t come out the way they were intended by the city,” says Stern, who has served on and off in city government since 1973 and now runs his own think tank. “Particularly in economic development matters, the reality on the ground often ends up different from what the parties intended when they signed the lease.” This was particularly true, he says, at the end of 2001, as Giuliani’s staffers cleared out their desks to make way for Bloomberg’s team: “The city was not rich in institutional memory.”

And if that wasn’t enough:

Those having a portion of their salaries charged to taxpayers included George Steinbrenner’s sons Hal and Hank, plus his son-in-law (and now designated successor) Steve Swindal.

In addition to lobbyists, the Yankees charged the city $56,967.46 for the services of Sive, Paget & Riesel, the outside law firm that drew up the new lease in the first place.

Nothing A Little Paint Won’t Fix

In my mind it can either be “seriously deteriorated” or “shabby” but not necessarily both. But the Department of Transportation seems to believe that a recent report about the condition of the Brooklyn Bridge is not such a big deal:

The city’s most recent annual report on the condition of bridges and tunnels, just out, rates the Brooklyn Bridge’s condition as a 3.15 on a scale of one to seven, with one as “potentially hazardous” and seven as “new.” A three rating is used to indicate that a bridge has experienced “serious deterioration,” according to the report.

A spokesman for the City Department of Transportation, which maintains the bridge, Craig Chin, said the bridge would be painted in 2009 as part of a $236 million project that also will include improvements to the bridge’s decks, approaches, and ramps. He said the rust visible under the peeling paint on the bridge’s structure has not adversely affected its safety.

“The Brooklyn Bridge is structurally safe,” he said.

. . .

The city’s bridge and tunnel report for 2005 lists an estimated cost to paint the bridge of $85 million. That’s an increase from an estimate of $74 million in the 2004 report. A paint job has been listed as “in design” for the bridge since the city’s bridge and tunnel report for 2002.

Mr. Chin said the bridge’s last paint job was between 1985 and 1991 under a state contract.

Location scout: Brooklyn Bridge.

Elected Officials Concerned That Tax Breaks Benefiting Tisch Graduates Actually May Only Help A Select Few

First you give the film industry tax breaks to clog up your streets. Then you’ve got to start a city-funded program to help even the playing field for minorities and women because by giving tax breaks to studios, you’re supporting an industry in which minorities and women are underrepresented. The nerve of these people:

The Bloomberg administration is seeking to expand job and training opportunities for minorities and women in the off-screen crews that form the backbone of the thriving film and television production industry in New York City.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said that the effort is intended to continue the work of a City Council task force on diversity in the film industry, which Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn established early this year. She acted after some council members complained that minority groups and women were underrepresented in the often well-paying production jobs even as the film industry was being aided by city and state tax breaks.

Now the administration is putting together what it calls a working group that “will have a goal of developing specific recommendations in six months” for increasing job and training opportunities in the industry for minorities and women, said Daniel L. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding. The group is to include representatives from production companies and labor unions.

. . .

Mr. Doctoroff, in an interview, said the Bloomberg administration saw the planned group as a “joint effort with the Council.” But he and Councilwoman Letitia James of Brooklyn, the chairwoman of the Council’s task force, said it was not clear whether the task force would continue or would be subsumed by the new group. Like the administration’s planned group, the Council’s panel includes film company and union representatives.

. . .

Mr. Doctoroff said that given a lack of demographic data on the industry’s production ranks in the city, “I don’t think we know for sure” whether minority groups and women are seriously underrepresented. “But we believe we can do better,” he said, especially in relation to the higher-paying jobs in the industry.

But Ms. James, whose district includes Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, said she had often heard “complaints that when you go to film locations, you see a paucity of women and people of color” in the production ranks.

She said she and other council members had brought up the matter in 2004 at committee hearings on a bill, which later passed, to add city tax breaks to state tax incentives for movie and television companies to film in New York.

Ms. James recalled that at the hearings, she asked the companies’ representatives “what statistics they had on the employment of people of color and women” in production jobs.

“They said they didn’t know; that they don’t keep those numbers,” she recalled. Then early this year after hearings on another bill to extend the city tax incentives, she said, she expressed her concerns to Ms. Quinn, who then formed the task force.