Less Budget Than Free For All (Hope Suspending Term Limits Was Worth It!)

Amid explanations of “NYS Base Broadeners”, the Administration for Children’s Services getting their message out, expected union reticence and media snipes at whoever else, a snappy pullout quote (“‘You can only get so much blood out of a stone’ with budget cuts and other measures, the mayor said”) and wildly optimistic revenue projections (“One . . . was the $100 million the city expects to rake in from charging people 5 cents for each plastic bag they use at stores . . . up from the $19 million they estimated it would bring in two month[s] ago . . . [a]n administration official said they simply looked deeper at the numbers, and discovered New York City residents use about 1 billion plastic bags annually”), the Mayor pulls out the threat of eliminating the proverbial school band (or cutting library hours — take your pick):

By law, Mayor Bloomberg was supposed to deliver a balanced budget Friday. What he submitted was a blueprint.

It matches the city’s spending and revenue to the penny, and is sprinkled with the sort of tough threats that grab headlines — like firing 14,000 teachers and hiking the sales tax.

. . .

The governor’s budget cuts $771 million from city school aid. Rather than spread that through different parts of the sprawling Education Department, Bloomberg said every dime of that loss will have to come out of a teacher’s hide, blamed on the governor.

That’s not budgeting — that’s bargaining.

Similarly, Bloomberg’s budget assumes that unions will give up $350 million in health benefits and $200 million in pension contributions.

“This is his starting point, and then there are negotiations,” said Gregory Floyd, head of Teamsters Local 237. Even the mayor’s plan to raise the sales tax by one-quarter point and remove the exemption for clothing is up for discussion.

“Bloomberg’s plan will be the basis for months of negotiations, all against a backdrop of an economy that continues to plummet.

For now, it’s balanced with phantom dollars. Those numbers need to be real by the end of June.

Everything but the kitchen sink, and then that, too:

Michael Bloomberg’s preliminary budget includes plans to lay off 13,930 teachers, and he’s putting the onus on state lawmakers to prevent it.

Here’s what he wants them to do.

The mayor said the state has taken away $770 million in education aid to the city. “What does $770 million translate to?” he asked. “Well, it translates to roughly 14,000 teachers.”

He went on, “I am sympathetic with the state. They don’t have any more extra money than we have.”

The solution, he said, is to have the state pass along the federal education aid they’re receiving from Washington.

The “state can send it to another county, or they can send it to our five counties. They are cutting us more than anybody else,” he said.

When asked what he’d say to parents and teachers worried about the cuts, the mayor said, “I’d call Albany, because that’s what I’m going to be doing.”

It Will Either Encourage Restaurants To Be Cleaner Or Diners To Be Riskier

The letter-based restaurant inspection system, an idea floated at the state level about two years ago and which has perversely been turned into a badge of honor in places like Los Angeles is set to be tried in New York City:

For the first time, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will compel the city’s nearly 25,000 restaurants to publicly post inspectors’ cleanliness ratings, which have previously been available only online or at the department. Rating signs, to be supplied by the city, will be required to be visible from the street, either in a restaurant window or vestibule.

The agency also plans to switch to a letter-grade system similar to that used for years in Los Angeles (using the letters A, B and C for passing inspection grades). The new rules, which will be part of a broad revamping of inspections, will be put in place over the next two years, giving restaurant operators time to comply.

The department said that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed off on the program as part of the executive budget announced Friday. He has scheduled a Saturday news conference to announce the new procedures.

“We expect this will improve our inspection program,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city health commissioner. “It will encourage restaurants to be cleaner and inform people so they can make better choices about where to eat.”

Is That St. Louis’ Team?

Believe it or not, there are at least two Arizona Cardinals fans in the New York area:

It’s an island of red in a Big Blue ocean, an Arizona oasis amid fans Gang Green with envy.

Sidebar, in Union Square, is the Super Bowl Sunday hot spot for long-suffering local Arizona Cardinals fans — a place where Larry Fitzgerald jerseys are welcomed and Terrible Towels are used to clean dishes.

Manager Zach Israel — a Phoenix native who wears Kurt Warner’s No. 13 — hangs his Cardinals flag inside the bar at 118 E. 15th St. More than 100 Arizona backers create an unlikely red sea of support in the city’s biggest (and perhaps only?) Cardinals outpost.

“It’s insane,” says the manager’s 23-year-old sister, Sasha, a Sidebar bartender. “Everybody’s just so happy.”

And why not? The Cardinals are making their first Super Bowl trip. The team’s last championship came before either Israel was born — back in 1947, when the Cardinals were still in Chicago.

Finding an Arizona outpost in the city was a chore — “Scarsdale is just more popular than Scottsdale,” says James Fletcher, editor of AOL’s Digital City site.

Tabloid Formula: Gin Up Controversy, Follow Up Day Two, Pile On Day Three

Because of course if you don’t build 80-story towers there then the terrorists will have won. I mean, everyone thinks so:

The last thing Ground Zero needs is a sorry-looking pair of stumpy low-slung buildings where chi-chi retail chains would peddle jewels, jeans and lingerie to tourists.

That was the emotionally charged verdict of 9/11 families Friday on a Port Authority plan to erect temporary stump-like structures in place of two of the towers long planned for the World Trade Center site.

“It’s a national embarrassment,” said Rosaleen Tallon, a biology teacher whose brother Sean, a 26-year-old probationary firefighter, died in the collapse of the north tower. “Rebuilding towers at the site was supposed to make a powerful statement of our grand resolve. Building chintzy, second-rate placeholders to sell retail goods makes a very different kind of statement.”

Some Places Erect Statues — In America We Celebrate Our Heroes By Making Online Video Games Out Of Them

I don’t know — is it any worse than the 9/11-inspired video game? Develop your hand-eye coordination by practicing ditching a plane in the river. What can I say — people just love success stories:

It was only a matter of time before some clown made a video game about the Hudson River plane ditching.

Links are quickly being spread on the Internet of “Hero on the Hudson” — a game where you have to use your left and right arrow keys to land a jet onto the river.

The game is about as primitive as you can get, as many of the games are on Addictinggames.com. Of the 3,117 votes received, 75% give it a thumbs down. I’m not sure if it’s because the game is lame or if it’s in bad taste, or both.