Get In The Van!
Posted: June 25th, 2009 | Filed under: Huzzah!Here’s Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s community van — complete with heavy-metal lettering, breakdance-era graffiti tags and superhero color choices.
Two Words: Cory. Booker.
Posted: June 23rd, 2009 | Filed under: Huzzah!Here’s something else about Councilman Tony Avella you may not have noticed: his mayoral campaign hired a director of communications.
Her name is Katie Wang. She’s a former Star-Ledger reporter who covered Cory Booker, enterprisingly, in Newark.
Her name started popping up on Avella mayoral press releases around the time Richard Simmons compared Avella’s lips to those of Julia Roberts.
Tap Directly Into Her Hopes, Her Wants, Her Fears, Her Desires, And Her Sweet Little Panties (And Magnolia Bakery!)
As if losing Hiram Monserrate wasn’t bad enough, now there’s this:
Posted: June 23rd, 2009 | Filed under: Manhattan, Please, Make It Stop, Real EstateRumors have been going around lately that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are making a big move to New York. We heard it for the first time from Nat Hentoff, who told us a few weeks ago that he’d heard it from doormen on his block of west 12th Street in the Village.
. . .
During another visit we talked to a doorman in the neighborhood who said: “Can’t tell you who lives there. I would lose my job. But you know, we doormen know everything that goes on around here. I can tell you the owner won’t be there much because he’ll be filming in LA a lot, and I can tell you he bought the house for his wife, who was in a Broadway show.” The doorman smiled, “But I can’t tell you who it is. I could lose my job.”
Leading Economic Indicators: Yoinking Cardboard
I have no idea how heavy 37 bundles of cardboard is — but $5,000 isn’t bad:
Posted: June 23rd, 2009 | Filed under: Follow The Money, Law & Order, Need To KnowCops arrested Toure Mahamadou, 25, Sadabe Sekou, 39, and Latil Serge, 21, all of Newark, whose truck allegedly continued 37 bundles worth $5,550 when sold to recycling centers.
“I wasn’t scared when they pulled the knife,” [Milton Williams Supermarket manager Milton] Rivera said.
It’s A Good Thing He’s A Self-Made Billionaire Who Is Beholden To No One
Because then he’d have to suck up to unions and other special interests in order to get elected:
Posted: June 23rd, 2009 | Filed under: Smells Fishy, Smells Not RightMayor Michael R. Bloomberg is sounding the alarm over New York City’s pension system these days, calling it “out of control.”
Costs have ballooned, he says, threatening to bankrupt the city. Municipal unions and lawmakers in Albany created the crisis, he suggests, and left the city holding the bag.
But interviews and budget records show that the Bloomberg administration itself is responsible for much of the growth in city pension costs over the last eight years, and has repeatedly missed opportunities to rein in the spending.
Since Mr. Bloomberg took office, city contributions to the pension system have jumped nearly five-fold to $6.3 billion, from $1.4 billion, and they now account for one out of every 10 dollars in the city’s budget.
A major reason: the mayor has given the city’s 300,000 workers generous pay increases, guaranteeing that they retire with bigger pensions, which are typically 50 percent of salary. Such raises force the city to make heftier payments to the pension system now.
Salary increases approved by Mr. Bloomberg are responsible for nearly 30 percent of the growth in city pension costs from the 2002 through 2008 fiscal years — about $1.2 billion, according to the administration’s Office of Management and Budget. That figure is projected to rise to $1.7 billion by next year. At the same time, the mayor has offered support for legislation, passed in Albany, that has made pensions even more lucrative for many workers, costing the city tens of millions of dollars.
Mr. Bloomberg presents himself as a model of financial restraint who has stood up to special interests, like unions, in order to hold down city spending — a claim that is at the heart of his bid for a third term.
