That’s How You Play The Library Card

Find a 9 year-old, hope her penmanship is halfway legible and leak it to the press:

A 9-year-old Canarsie girl has penned an impassioned plea to Mayor Bloomberg to save the Brooklyn Public Library as the latest round of budget cuts threatens to reduce service to just 25 hours a week — the lowest level since the city’s fiscal crisis in the 1970s.

The mayor’s budget would slash the Brooklyn Public Library’s budget by $17.5 million — or 21% — and give borough residents the fewest library hours in the city.

. . .

“I thought I should probably write a letter to the mayor. It’s not good that he should be doing this,” she told the Daily News.

. . .

“If the library closes, where are we supposed to go?” she wrote in her two-page letter to Bloomberg.

“The only thing we will have to do is go home. And home is not as fun as the library. Home doesn’t have games, programs and books everywhere.

“Please keep my library open is all I say. Please keep it open everyday,” she went on. “If the library closes it will be all your fault.”

The Axis Of Evil Has Zeroed In On Carroll Park

A cabal consisting of the City and Mister Softee is conspiring to obesify our children. Parents are defenseless against the large sums of money flying around:

As Mayor Bloomberg takes on trans fat and calorie-laden fast food, some Brooklyn parents are outraged the city rakes in thousands of dollars a year from ice cream trucks parking right next to playgrounds and schools.

“It’s very frustrating that they’re here every day,” said Carroll Gardens mom Meryl Allison, who picks up her son Ben at Public School 58 and has to take him past a Mister Softee truck to go to Carroll Park across the street. “You’re a trapped audience. It’s hard to say no to your kids.”

The Parks Department auctioned off the prime Carroll Park spot on Carroll St. — between the entrance to the playground and PS 58 — for $6,500 a year.

The Entire City Budget Of Indianapolis For Fiscal Year 2009 Was About $1.1 Billion

The City Independent Budget Office’s Analysis of the Mayor’s Executive Budget for 2010 is online (.pdf) and unless they’re wrong — and they’re not running for office, so there’s no reason to bookcook — there’s still a lot of work to do on next year’s budget (and beyond, for that matter):

IBO estimates that under the Mayor’s Executive Budget plan a budget gap of $1.1 billion in 2010 remains to be closed. There are some uncertainties in the Mayor’s 2010 plan such as the proposed sales tax increases and the creation of a new pension tier to help reduce labor costs, which if Albany does not approve, could make balancing the upcoming year’s budget more difficult. In addition, contracts with the United Federation of Teachers and District Council 37 expire during 2010 and settlements could increase the level of the gap.

But the tougher challenges now appear to be in the subsequent years of the financial plan, when there is no longer a substantial surplus from the flush years of the recent past to help bridge the shortfalls and the temporary flow of federal stimulus dollars begins to dry up. IBO projects a 2011 gap of $5.6 billion, 12.9 percent of city-funded revenue, and $1.0 billion more than the Mayor estimated. Our 2012 gap of $5.8 billion is 12.7 percent of city-funded revenue, and $666 million higher than the Mayor’s estimate. Based on our forecast that recovery from the recession will be slow, IBO does not expect the financial and real estate markets to surge and boost tax revenues enough to grow our way out of these gaps.

Hahahahahaha!

In honor of Bike Month, the police have started to crack down on bicyclists running red lights:

Police cracked down on rule-breaking bicyclists in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill last Friday, issuing tickets for running red lights and then slapping offenders with additional summonses for minor infractions, including one bicyclist who didn’t have a bell.

The dragnet snared 36 bicyclists on the popular DeKalb Avenue bike lane that links the two neighborhoods with Downtown Brooklyn.

Cops said the crackdown was long overdue.

“It was targeted towards enforcing traffic laws,” said a police source from the 88th Precinct. “Running a red light is not safe for the cyclist or anyone else in the street.”

The ticket blitz is a bitter irony for bikers who have complained since the lane’s creation last year that vehicles, including officers at the 88th Precinct stationhouse near the corner of Classon Avenue, but especially delivery trucks, regularly block the lane with parked cars along the busy corridor.

Or are bike lanes actually a backdoor way to balance the budget? Hmm . . .

Explain Me, Please

Twelve-county payroll taxes, fare increases, toll increases — fine: everyone pays a little, whatever. But in a time when elected officials use taxes as both a way to change behavior and raise massive amounts of money (through either congestion pricing or tolls — and then actually via plastic bags), what exactly is the point of a 50-cent surcharge on taxi rides? To punish people who don’t own cars? To force women to take subways late at night? To mess with the TLC?

And are taxi riders really paying for “upstate” highways? How far upstate exactly?