More Evidence Of Quotas On Staten Island

With an overtime angle, to boot:

Two Staten Island cops are accused of writing motorists more than 40 bogus tickets while assigned to overtime duty, authorities said.

. . .

The accused officers submitted paperwork to their bosses to make it look like they were doing their jobs, but never gave the summonses to the unsuspecting motorists, sources said.

Kurt Andersen Comes Down Against Basketball, Wants To Take “Recreation” Out Of “Parks & Recreation”

Not to mention that there’s also something really pretentious sounding about “piazza”:

He told [the Brooklyn Paper] that his notion is to annex the “underused” western portion of [Carroll Park] near Court Street for the piazza, setting up tables, chairs and awnings — a cosmopolitan space where area cafés could serve drinks and food.

. . .

Andersen, the former architecture and design critic for Time magazine and a co-founder of Spy magazine, conceded that basketball players could be displaced by his plan, but ballers would have a readily available option nearby, as PS 58 at Smith and First Place has outdoor courts.

. . .

“Certainly, this connects to the ethnic heritage of the neighborhood of the last century,” he said. “But to me, this is for everyone in the neighborhood,” he said.

Location Scout: Carroll Park.

Third-Term Malaise Alert: The Thin Line Between Faux Folksiness And Lousy Grammar

It’s not so much a “you have to” scenario but rather a “you got to” sort of thing — kind of like when Kenny Rogers sings “you got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em” in “The Gambler,” or when The Beatles sang “got to be a joker he just do what he please” in “Come Together” or even when Randy Newman snarked that when it comes to short people, “you got to pick ’em up just to say hello”:

At his news conference Wednesday, the mayor appeared to have no patience for any employee who somehow missed his unannounced media appearances. “You got to listen,” he demanded.

Earlier: “At Least They Didn’t Call Them ‘Non-Essential'”.

At Least They Didn’t Call Them “Non-Essential”

One thing you can’t do is tell city workers there’s a snow day — because of course they’ll take it:

City workers accused the mayor of unfairly trying to dock them a day’s pay after he backtracked on declaring an official snow day last week. On Jan. 27, after a storm blanketed the city in 19 inches of snow, the mayor’s press office issued a statement from Bloomberg announcing that most government offices were closed for the day.

“Because heavy snow fell in the city overnight, all non-emergency city government offices are closed for today, in addition to all public schools,” the statement said. “New York City almost never takes a snow day, but today is one of those rare days. People should stay at home and off the roads.”

. . .

This week employees began receiving emails explaining they could be held responsible for failing to show up last Thursday.

According to guidelines provided by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, any employee who arrived late will not be charged. But “employees absent due to the storm must charge annual leave or compensatory time balances,” a city email instructed. “Annual leave will be advanced to employees who have no annual leave or compensatory time to cover this absence.”

People may remember that the exact same message went out at the end of the week of the September 11 attacks, this after Mayor Giuliani told employees (and basically everyone) to stay out of Manhattan. Now that was shocking . . .

It seems like a game of sorts — a message along the lines of “Don’t get too used to this, my friend.” Which is to say, they’ll eventually backtrack on the backtrack. But what if they did something altogether different? Say, reconceptualizing the snow day by replacing it with something like a voluntary furlough? It might save money in these tight budget years! Not being facetious, either — just the sort of back-of-napkin idea that might work.

Maybe The Thought That You Just Blew Almost $200 At An Applebee’s Makes You Do Rash Things

Less dine and dash than binge and dash:

They feasted on shrimp and ribs, washing it down with booze and coffee.

And when it came time to pay their $170 tab Saturday afternoon at Applebee’s restaurant in New Dorp, [a Staten Island woman] and her friend handed over a Visa card.

When told the card was no good, the duo didn’t search their wallets for cash or another credit card, prosecutors contend. They didn’t even offer to wash the dishes.

Instead, they bolted without paying, cursing and yelling at a restaurant employee, said court papers.

Looking at the menu for the New Dorp Applebee’s, I’m confused. Double-Glazed Baby Back Ribs are $22.99. Double Crunch Shrimp is $13.99. That’s still under $40. How much booze and coffee can one possibly consume at an Applebee’s?